Millikin University Women’s Soccer – Coach Ian Doherty
In today’s episode, I speak with Coach Doherty from the Millikin Women’s Program in Illinois. We talk about their regional focus on recruiting. Coach also shares about their welcoming environment with high academics. Plus, we discuss how he tries to teach the players to see what the game is calling for. Learn more about Millikin University Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer Today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Ian over at Milliken. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thank you for having me, Matt. I appreciate it.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for being here. I, I had the pleasure of, of talking to the men’s coach at Milliken a while back, but, uh, good to have the women’s side of things on and, and as you and I discovered a few minutes ago, we were, although different decades, uh, went to rival high schools, uh, in the Columbus area.
So, uh, good, good stuff, but, but we can. We can put that aside ’cause we’re both bobcats. Uh, absolutely. As, as, as, as, as we’re both, uh, fans of good and, and alum of Ohio University. So, so we got that going, which is good. So, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll stick to the Bobcat track and, and won’t get into the purple versus red, uh, rivalry that we got there.
But anyway, um, we’re talking here mid, you know, it’s mid-November, you just wrapped up the season. Um. You know, how, how quickly is it, uh, jumping right into, to, to, to recruiting for that class of 26? Kind of where are you at this [00:01:00] point for, for bringing in the next class?
Coach: Jump straight into it. Kind of just said, we’ve given the team, they get a few weeks off so they have time to recover and just be students for a little bit.
But my assistant and I, she just got back from St. Louis the other day. So we’re heavy into the recruiting side with 26. We graduate 10 seniors, so we’re looking to bring in another big class. So we currently have seven already committed. We’re probably looking to bring another five more, something like that.
So we’re, we’re still getting after pretty, pretty heavily.
Matt: Okay. So you said she, she was out. Uh, and about like, kinda what, what are the, the main tournaments, events, showcases, things? Where do you guys like to go when, when you’re looking at players?
Coach: So we’re kind of any and all honestly. Uh, where we’re located, we get a lot of players out of St.
Louis, uh, and Chicago. Um. [00:02:00] We’re about two hours St. Louis, about two and a half from Chicago, so that’s where a lot of ours come from. A lot of Illinois or East Missouri. We have a handful. We have a few from Kansas. We’ve had some from Wisconsin and Michigan and Indiana, Iowa. Um, we’ve had international before.
We have some who’ve come from Florida, like we have a a bit all over the place, but a good majority will come from. Probably about a three hour, four hour belt that we say. And so probably a lot of St. Louis, a lot of North Illinois, Chicago land area.
Matt: Okay. So I know e every, everybody always, uh, asks the, the alphabet soup question.
You know, does it really matter what league I’m, I’m playing in? Um, are you guys, do, do you find yourselves attending? One set of events more than another. Are you kind of agnostic based on whether in Chicago, uh, St. Louis, Kansas City, it’s easy to get to, Hey, we’re gonna be there, kind of thing? Or what’s that look like for you [00:03:00] guys?
Coach: It depends. No, it, I get it. Like, do we go to the ECNL, the GA stuff? Yeah, we do. Um, but we’ve found plenty now, we, I hate even using diamonds in the rough. Like we just found good players that maybe don’t fall under that category. Uh, last year we graduated in all region center back, who was, she was honored the second team.
For her club, but she was so good and so I was gobsmacked that she was there. But you know, I was glad I saw her and she was a wonderful fit. She was a three time captain, you know, an all region player. So it doesn’t always have to be your easy N-L-E-G-A. It. Sometimes it’s down to the amount of travel or finance, a hundred reasons why someone doesn’t play, uh, at those, the alphabet as you, alphabet as you call it.
So like, if players reach out to us, we wanna take the time to see ’em. Like, especially if we’re able to get to them, uh, budgetarily, we, sometimes we’ll stick closer, but every now and again we’ll go out to Florida and California and [00:04:00] out west or south, and we wanna make sure that if there’s good players who would be a good fit for our program, we wanna be there and we wanna see them.
Matt: That’s great. Well, what about ID camps? They’re, they’re all the rage these days. Uh, do you guys host ’em? Do you or your staff work other people’s camps? Are they part of your process at all?
Coach: Yes, to both. So we host one a year, so we’ll have one in the summer and it’s been very good to us. We’ve pulled, uh, probably the last forage we’ve had when we’ve had commitments from it.
Um, we work ID camps within the area. Um, so my wife works at University of Illinois, so. I’ve worked some of their ID camps, they’ve always been great to me. Um, some of the other division one, division two schools probably within a two hour bell have invited us out and it’s just been lovely to go to, like some of those exact ID camps have been great.
And I work a few of those and a few others have asked. Um, and I, if I’m able to go. I will go to it, um, immediately. I have three small kids who are in competitive dance, so I, I’m busy as well. Um, but we [00:05:00] try to get to as many camps as we can. If we’re invited and people wanna see us, like it’s a big perk of the job is just being able to get to watch lots of soccer.
Matt: Yeah. That’s great. Well, whether it’s ID camp Tournament. Whatever it is. What kind of makes up the, the hierarchy of things that you’re looking for in a player, both on and off the field?
Coach: A big thing is the, the culture piece for us. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we wanna have players who are academically very strong.
Soccer IQ is very high, very technical, tactical, understand the game, but we look for that good culture piece as well. And you know, you could be the best player. On your team and your league, but if you’re a terrible person, it’s not gonna be a good fit. You wanna make sure that you’re building that team comradery.
So that’s a big part of our recruiting process. We want to get to know the player, because if they’re coming to campus, we’ve already seen that they’re a good player. We want to get to know them as a person. We wanna get to know their families, where they’re from, how do they mesh with our current group.
That’s a big piece for us because if [00:06:00] you’re a wonderful player, you score a thousand goals. Like I said earlier, you don’t treat people well, you’re not gonna get. Players who want to play with you, you’re not gonna have a good four years or two years wherever you’re kind of looking to play. So that culture piece is very important for us.
So we look to bring in, you know, players who kind of fit all of those, the culture piece, the athletic and the academic piece.
Matt: Okay. Well, in terms of the roster, I know you mentioned, uh, how many you were replacing this year. Is, is there a roster size that you find is ideal that you’re trying to hit each year?
Coach: We try to stick between 2029 and about 32. Um, so we don’t do a reserve team or anything like that. Um, we wanna have competition in every position, so we wanna have depth everywhere. We don’t want any complacency. And, you know, the college season is short and physical. Sometimes there’s little injuries. We wanna have, you know, players ready to go, uh, in every position.
So we [00:07:00] will carry. Probably 28 to 32 is probably the number, not specific, but in and around that range.
Matt: Okay. Well, and I don’t wanna hold you to to hard numbers here, but, uh, when it comes to D three, there’s all, everybody’s like, oh, well there’s no athletic money, so it’s too expensive and blah, blah, blah, blah.
But you know, as two former T three athletes here, I think we can both agree that’s not always the case. So what. Without getting into too much detail, but kind of give us an overall idea. What does it look like for one of your average recruits coming in, you know, in terms of the mix of academic money, grants, et cetera.
What’s it gonna cost to if they decide to go to Milliken?
Coach: It, it varies. Uh, I think we have scholarships, all the, the full tuition, broom and board, all of that. Like you pay zero, we have full tuition scholarships. We have scholarships that can bring. The cost down astronomically. And we stack money too. So a lot of times if someone looks at a sticker price, which [00:08:00] ours has changed, uh, thankfully, but sometimes someone look at a sticker price say, I can’t afford that.
It’s like, well, not a lot of people can. That’s why they have scholarships and you know, it brings everything down and, but the biggest thing for recruits to understand and anyone is just apply to, if you’re interested in the school, apply. Go through the process, see what you qualify for. If your scholarships hit and you can get your down and there’s a certain range you want be in, and that school can get there, fantastic.
If they can now, you know, um, but you don’t know unless you apply, you know, go through the process if you’re serious about. So that’s a big thing. And when someone’s hears about us, um, like I said, we talked on that academic point. When someone has good grades, it makes our life so much easier because they can get high academic scholarships and the fact that things are stacked and we accept outside scholarship, that only helps more.
Matt: Yeah, for sure. Well, let’s learn a little bit more about the school. I’m sure some folks out there not, not familiar with Milliken. Uh, you know, what is it that you found being there as the head [00:09:00] coach that is awesome about the school? Maybe some great stuff we wouldn’t even know about going through the website.
Coach: The thing that sold me was the people, like I felt welcomed right away. I’m originally from the Midwest, so I was in Ohio for my whole life and I coached a few schools there. And then I was in Georgia for about 10 months and my wife and I’S family is, was in Ohio. We had small children. We were ready to be close to family, and when I had the opportunity to interview at Milliken, everyone was just so welcome.
It was. A place that just welcomed me right away. And, you know, the facilities were better than what I had in Georgia and I was excited to get started. It was a place where I was given freedom to run the program, um, which I really appreciated. And some things about it. It’s a, one of the strongest nursing schools in the region.
Um, it’s a very high business and STEM school. It, it’s a very good academic. There’s, performing arts is another big part of, [00:10:00] also, there’s something to do on campus. There’s always entertainment. It’s just a, it’s not as big as your, you know, your power five schools, but it’s not small where, you know, every single person on campus, um, there’s that nice balance and that’s what really attracted me to it.
Matt: Yeah, I can see that for sure. Well, one of the. Hard parts for student athletes coming in right outta high school is learning to balance the demands of being a college athlete as well as a college student. Uh, and that can always be difficult. So what, what kind of support systems does your school have to help student athletes be successful both on and off the field?
Coach: We have tutors for just about every single class, which is good. And a lot of the tutors are student athletes, which really helps ’cause they already understand the kind of the balance, what it takes. Perform academically and athletically. We wanna make sure that the professors are there for the student.
And the nice thing is you’re not being taught by a ta. You are there learning from your actual professor. So it’s, you get [00:11:00] hands-on, you get one-on-one time with that person. So if you have questions, that’s the person you go to. Um, and we work around our students’ academic schedule, so we practice in the mornings a lot of times.
That way there’s no on prep, there’s no classes at 7:00 AM so we will practice in that way. Students can have the rest of the day to focus on their academics. Um, and nursing is probably our most popular major on our team. They have clinicals. Um, so we understand that they have to be at certain clinical hours and there’s some labs that students have to be at.
We work closely with the faculty to make sure that, you know, if our students have to miss anything, we know they’re running later, they have to leave a little bit early. We already know that ahead of time.
Matt: Okay. Well you mentioned practice in the morning. Can you, you know, take me to the heart of the conference season and walk me through what a typical week’s schedule is gonna look like with classes, practices, games, all that kind of stuff.
Coach: Sure. So division three, usually games at least for us, is Wednesdays and Saturdays. So we will practice Monday, Wednesday, Friday [00:12:00] in the morning, and then on Tuesday, Thursday we go late, we go in the afternoon. And so for the first bits. They will work their strength conditioning coach in the weight room, and then they come out, we train, and then we do a little bit of film.
Um, we have some students who have to leave a little bit early or show up a little bit late because they’re coming from classes or clinical and whatnot. Um, we don’t train if we have the game on Wednesday and then Sundays are completely off and that’s the big of it. A lot of times we’ll have to travel.
So if we travel during the week, uh, I will send a campus wide email out to all of our faculty asking for our players to be excused. And then it’s up to our kids. Like, we don’t use soccer as an excuse. Wide grades would struggle. So it’s, we’re very blessed with having very high academic students. Uh, but we still want make sure they’re getting all of the work done.
They’re showing up to class. So our program has a rule. There’s a hundred percent attendance and a hundred percent of assignments turned in. You do the work and you show up, that can help you be [00:13:00] successful. Um, and then if you still struggle, that’s where we talked earlier about some of the tutoring and some of the extra academic help that can be there.
Um, so that’s a lot of the day in the life. So it’s about six days a week, but once you get into the, you get into the heart of the season. I mean, you can’t just go intense all the time. The body breaks down. So we have to. Do sessions according, like maybe a day we can go a bit more intense and then we have to do regeneration.
We have to, you know, day after a game, they can’t go intense again. We gotta work with them. So it’s, it, it can be a lot, but if you have good time management and understand that you can make it work.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, I, I love the, the a hundred percent rule. I, I think I need, I, I, we need, we need more of that, that’s for sure.
Well, let’s talk a little bit more, uh, about the team. I know you mentioned the roster size from a player perspective, but talk to me about the roster size from the coach and support staff perspective. What are the people are, are, are there helping out the team? What role does everybody play, et cetera?
Coach: So I have a, a full-time [00:14:00] assistant and she’s been really, really great.
Um, she also does a lot of the goalkeeping coach, so she’s a former goalkeeper, which really helps because that’s an area of expertise that she’s helped with, with a team manager, and she’s just been great about helping keep things organized. She was a former player and she’s. Getting ready to join the police force.
So she wanted to make sure she had time. Yeah, she’s, she’s a big timer and so she helps out as much as she can. We have a full-time strength conditioning coach who works with all of our athletes and. We’re able to work with him two or three times a week, which is great having someone, specifically working with them on the strength side and getting them, you know, ready conditioning wise.
And we have athletic trainer at every single game and training session, so any sort of taping or injuries, we always have someone there ready to help them. Um, admittedly I would love two or three more. Like I one of those, if we could have someone in charge of all the data, if we could have. That would be ideal.
But, you know, with what we have, we do as best we can. And I have, you [00:15:00] know, no complaints. We have a very great staff.
Matt: Awesome. Well, talk to us about you, uh, your coaching style, the style of play that, that you look to play there.
Coach: I’m probably gonna tell you what everyone does. You know, we, we like to play.
Everyone builds in the back. We try to, um, as much as we can. There’s times where we have to, we’ve had to been a bit more direct if there’s. You know, 30 mile an hour winds in sideways rain, it’s kind of hard to ticky to around. So what we do is we try to teach our players what the game is calling for. If this is the kind of game where we need to keep the ball on the ground and move it, we’re gonna try our best to keep the ball on the ground and move it.
If it’s a game, we need to be more physical and more direct, we may have to do that. So it’s kind of having that high soccer iq. That’s a lot of what we’re looking for in our players who can understand, you know, different aspects of the game. We’re not gonna play some. A style that’s just not working and I’m just gonna keep pushing it into them until it does.
Because you know, you have to play with the strengths of a lot of the players that you have. And so that’s a big thing, that soccer [00:16:00] IQ side of understanding what the game calls for. Maybe it’s a game. We’re not gonna be in possession a lot. We need to be very disciplined defensively. We need to keep our shape and organization.
So that’s a lot of what we do, but as much as we can, we want to control the tempo of the game. That’s ideally how we wanna play.
Matt: Okay, well obviously we spent a lot of time talking about the fall and the season, but you get a spring, you get an off season. Kind of talk to me about what, what players should expect if they’re at Milliken.
Uh, during the spring,
Coach: so during the wintertime, so we have a quite a long winter break. Our strength conditioning coach puts together a packet for them to do at home. If they have access due weights or no weights, it’s mainly about just keeping fit. ’cause once they get back from winter break, we get straight into everything.
So three days a week they’ll work with our strength coach and then once or twice a week, uh, and this is all player led, they will play futsal. So we have a futsal court on our campus, which is nice to have. So they’ll play there. And then once [00:17:00] our spring season starts, we kind of flip it and then we will practice three times a week and probably work our strength coach twice.
Then we will do that. We get 24 days to work the players, and we get a play day. So once we do our official play day, then our spring will end and we will do a big summer training packet and have them get as ready as they can. The biggest thing is just playing as much as, yeah, it’s great to be fit and to run and to lift.
That is all absolutely important. Being able to just play. Being soccer fit is so different than just being able to run for days. Wanna be able to play as much soccer as you can without burning out. Obviously you wanna have balance, but being able to play as much soccer is important.
Matt: Yeah, for sure. Well, coach, really appreciate all the insights you’ve given us.
Gonna leave you with one last question, and that is, if you had one piece of advice, you know, for, for a girl going through this college recruiting process right now, what would that be?
Coach: It is your process. Don’t worry about what anyone else does. [00:18:00] Comparisons, the thief of joy. As the expression goes like, enjoy your process.
It is going to be flattering. It is going to be overwhelming. You’re gonna have people rolling the red carpet out and then those same coaches is gonna be asking, what are you doing for the next four years? Like it’s. It should be great. You should enjoy going on visits and speaking with coaches and people and that should be amazing.
But yeah, it’s, it can be overwhelming. But don’t worry about what your teammate does, your friend does. Your process is for you only. Whatever school you pick, that is the right choice because that’s where you wanna go.
Matt: Absolutely run your own race. Well Coach, really appreciate the time. Wish you the best of luck as you wrap up your recruiting class and get into next season and, uh, hopefully Milliken will be hanging some championship banners here soon.
Coach: I would love that. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you.
Matt: Thank you.
Alright.
