Monroe Community College Women’s Soccer – Coach Sal Galvano
On today’s episode, I speak with Sal Galvano from the Monroe Community College Women’s Program in New York. We talk about he recruits both internationally and domestically. He describes the tremendous success his players have had after moving on from Monroe. Lastly, we discuss how he uses technology in their training and games. Learn more about Monroe Community College Women’s Soccer.
[00:00:00] Matt: Hi, everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by coach Sal Galvano from Monroe community college. Welcome coach.
[00:00:08] Coach: Hey, thanks for having me.
[00:00:10] Matt: Thanks for being here. So you’re up in Rochester, New York. It’s probably a little cooler there than it is down here in Florida today.
[00:00:16] Coach: Not, not too much. We’re in the nineties, man. It’s oh, wow. For us right now.
[00:00:19] Matt: Yeah. Well, okay then that’s then you’re right there with us. How about that? Well, um, well that, you know, you’re, you guys are a junior college up there. Excuse me. And wow, there we go. um, So, let, let’s talk a little bit about the recruiting side, cuz junior college recruiting is a lot tougher, uh, than, than the four year cuz you’re reloading, uh, twice as fast.
[00:00:43] Um, so gimme a little insight into how your recruiting works in terms of, you know, when do you start talking to players? When, when do players commit kind of, what does that calendar look like for you?
[00:00:54] Coach: So, I mean, we, as you said, we replenish our roster, uh, every year, uh, or I don’t wanna say at least 50% of our roster, like we’re bringing in this year about 15 players and on average, it’s between 10 to 15 players every year that we’re recruiting.
[00:01:08] I have a lot of friends that are coaching in the PAC 12 big 12, and, you know, I’ve had conversations with them that they started at Juco level coaching. I’m like, what’s the difference between, you know, recruiting at our level and theirs, he goes, You honestly have it a lot harder. He goes, I can concentrate on three or four players that I really need.
[00:01:25] He goes, but you have to replenish and, you know, go 10 plus every year. I’m like that. That’s true. Um, our. Our recruiting starts year round. If you’re a good coach you’re recruiting year round and never stops even the big programs, they just don’t stop recruiting. Right. Um, so, but we recruit all over.
[00:01:45] We, my program, have six internationals. From Spain, Germany, and England that are coming this upcoming fall. Uh, we recruit from everywhere though, uh, all over the states. I’ve had Florida players. I’ve had players from, uh, those surrounding states of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio.
[00:02:04] So we go all over to recruit. We don’t just recruit locally. Although of course, 50% of our roster is local. Because we’re, we’re a junior college and, and this is a great avenue for a lot of those players to maybe they didn’t get the looks, they got, they wanted out of high school or their club program.
[00:02:22] So they’ll come here and they know we’re a nationally renowned program. So, and we get looked at, we have players from all over that or go on to big time levels and we get, we haven’t got division one, two, uh, division three, you know, we find the right program for that. Is right for those players, but all year we recruit and, um, you know, we start to talk, we can sign players as of November 1st.
[00:02:46] I think we, we, we hooked on with, uh, what the NCAA division one programs do. I think they can, no, I think they’ve got moved up to November 1st as well. Uh, but ours is November 1st. So, I mean, we signed players for the upcoming year, from November. I mean, November’s usually really, really soon for us to even sign players cuz we’re always, and, and I know it’s the nature of our beast.
[00:03:11] Sometimes we’re, they’re, they’re waiting for that offer. So we’re kind of like the, the, I don’t wanna say second or third option, but you know, they wait to see if they can go to that four year option first, which I’m okay with. I’ve been doing this for over 25 years. So I know the nature of the beast.
[00:03:27] Right. Um, but for the most part. February March, we’re done. We’re done recruiting for that year. We do. We get some stragglers in April and may. Yeah. If, if there’s still scholarships available. Uh, but I try to lock in my players as soon as I can. Well, and
[00:03:47] Matt: I’m gonna jump around here, but because you said the word scholarship makes, makes me wanna ask this now, but, you know, I think it’s one of the biggest, uh, things folks don’t understand is the level of scholarship money available at, at the junior college level.
[00:04:00] So can you talk about, you know, junior college being a great option, especially for saving money? Can you just talk about what’s available? On the athletic scholarship side, on the academics scholarship side. What, what’s a, what’s a student typically gonna walk away paying, uh, while they’re at Monroe?
[00:04:21] Coach: Well, it, obviously it depends on the school and where you’re at, because like, for us, we’re probably on the, a little more on the expensive side for out of state players than in state players, uh, or compared to state you’re in Mississippi, for example, for their junior colleges is they’re.
[00:04:37] To go to school there, eat a lot cheaper than here. And sometimes I’ve lost players to those colleges. They may not be at the level that we’re at, but they’re financially so much more affordable than us without any scholarships. Uh, we do have some scholarships where division one junior college. Our, as I said, we, we always, or for the most part, always in the top 10 in junior college, and we compete for the national title every year.
[00:05:01] We’re not as funded as others. Junior colleges. So we fundraise a whole lot to try to close that gap. Uh, but our facilities are amazing. Um, we have, I mean, the only time I’ve seen an inground. Hot tub cold tub was when I went to the Real Madrid barn near the stadium. Uh, I mean, I mean, we have a 10 person inground, hot tub and cold tub.
[00:05:24] It’s usually the metal tubs. We have those, our athletic facilities are great. We have a MLS next pro team. So if it gets loud, my doors kind of propped open and there’s a cancellation going on here. Um, we have an MLS next pro team that’s playing at our stadium and they upgraded it with lights, 1500 seats. Um, so it’s, uh, you know, our stadium is, is state of the art right now, better than a lot of junior colleges and probably better than a lot of, uh, at least within a 50 mile radius or a couple of hour radius for us with division one, two schools that are in our area.
[00:06:00] Um, so scholarships we do offer division one for like we are, we can offer full scholarships, tuition, housing, food books. And fees division two can only offer tuition and fees. Obviously in division three, they can’t offer anything. Um, so for us, we, we, we do really well with budgeting our money and getting players that.
[00:06:26] Um, can afford a budget to come, you know, uh, especially with the budget that we have for scholarships. So we try to do the best we can and to kind of help out. Uh, again, most of our players here have to pay something. So for us, Financially with no scholarships in state, you’re looking at about $12,000 to go to school here, which is reasonable compared to a lot of the four years.
[00:06:51] You’re paying 40 to 50 plus thousand to go to school. Um, and then the, if you are on scholarship, you’re gonna pay between, you know, I’d say from going, coming here for. So about eight to 10,000, you know, we we’ve, we wager that on a lot of things. When I recruit, you know, we do our homework, we look at social media, we look at, you know, we talk to your coaches, we talk to your club coaches, we talk to, we see how you interact with family members.
[00:07:25] Um, you know, we look at every aspect of it when we recruit and that’s kind of how we are, it’s not just on how good you are. Because we want good people in our program. Right. So, and so does every coach. So those are things that we look at. We make sure that they’re the right fit for us. No matter what the talent level is.
[00:07:43] Oh, that’s
[00:07:43] Matt: That makes sense. Well, you know, what are, you mentioned a little bit just now, but what are some of those key factors, whether they’re on the field attributes or off the field attributes that you’re making sure you see and, and, you know, What are the tournaments or places, camps, anything that you go to to see that
[00:08:00] Coach: in a player?
[00:08:02] Sure. So, for me, the most important thing is are they good people by, you know, seeing their interaction with their parents? I think that that’s huge, cuz if they can respect their parents, then they’re gonna be respectful here. Although there’s been times where. I’ve seen it where they respect their coach more than they do their parents.
[00:08:20] they come here. They’re totally different. They’re like I listen to coach more and, and then maybe it’s because we control their playing time. I, I don’t know. So, um, but for the most part, if you know, we see their interaction, we see the families they come from, we, when we talk to their coaches, how they are, they are coachable.
[00:08:37] You know, or are they always giving attitude with everything that they’re doing? Uh, those, I think are the key factors. We also will. We’ll do some research on social media, you know, what are you posting? I think that that’s a big thing, cuz that’ll really, um, as I always tell my players here, when we have our, uh, seasoned beginning meeting is that social media is the best thing in the world and the worst thing in the world.
[00:09:00] So we kind of look at it and say, what are you? You know, what are you posting things that are not, you know, that are gonna show you in a positive way? Um, and, and most of the players that we recruit, uh, do those kinds of things. And again, we, we easily scratch off players that we see that, um, are not doing the right things that we feel are the right things being, you know, good in the community or, um, you know, we, we ask what, um, the one question I always ask of my recruits is what’s one thing that you had to over.
[00:09:34] Either on the field or off the field. And that kind of tells me what kind of person they are. Um, as far as tournaments, I mean, we, I go overseas as well, so I’ll go to a lot of the showcases in Europe, locally, I’ll hit up the, you know, for us more geographic I’ll hit up the EDP tournaments. Um, We head up.
[00:09:56] There’s a bunch in Ohio that I’ll go to tournaments there. Most of it though is through contacts, locally, domestic and internationally. And, I’ve met so many people in both markets. We have a good understanding and, um, of what players we want. And if they’ve sent me players in the past, I’ll always compare, Hey, you know, Jane, I, I like the way Jane played, I need something similar or better to what that player was, and that gives them that, that standard of what we’re looking for.
[00:10:28] So there’s, you know, I’ll, I don’t, there’s not one stone that gets unturned for me when I’m recruiting. Okay. Well,
[00:10:36] Matt: You know, one of them. Big deals about, uh, players going to junior colleges. A lot of times they’re looking to use that as a developmental tool or a stepping stone to, to, to go on to a four year university and play or for, to look at other options.
[00:10:51] Once they’re two years are done with you. So what does that process look like? How successful have your players been at doing whatever they want to do when their time is done at Monroe?
[00:11:03] Coach: Sure. Um, I’ve been, as I said, I’ve coached junior college, my whole career. So I’ve been in Texas. I was in Arizona and now I’m back home in New York.
[00:11:12] And I’ve been here for 15 years. And through my years of coaching all over the country, I’ve met a lot of division one, two coaches, which I’m still in contact with, even if they are bouncing around from college to college. And they know the level of players that we produce, that I. And so by helping these players out, we open up a lot of doors that they may not have had prior to.
[00:11:36] Or through their club or high school that they had, they didn’t get the look. So they come here knowing that we will open up, you know, they may have A, B and C, but we’ll have X, Y, Z, uh, schools that are also looking at ’em. We have, you know, I’ve had multiple players pass probably seven years that have gone on to play pro and their national team.
[00:11:56] Uh, perfect example right now, as we spoke earlier, prior to getting on is I have a player Kumba so that played here two. Was on the Swiss national team before she got to me, was here for two years, then went to the big 12 at Oklahoma state. And now she’s back on the Switzerland national team and was, uh, she’s a starting attacking center, mid trailing forward player and scored the, I think the first goal in the first two minutes, um, against Portugal.
[00:12:22] Uh, so, you know, that’s, that’s an example. I have another one that just recently. Two years ago was with us, and broke our goal scoring record. She’s in Nigeria, got called up to the Nigerian national team and is playing pro in, uh, she just signed with club brew. She was in Spain. And now there, I have a few Greek national team players.
[00:12:41] Uh, my former assistant is actually the Greek national team women’s coach. So, um, we’ve got, you know, we’ve got connections all over, so it’s been nice. So getting them moved on, we have. I have coaches and contacts at all levels. So it’s easy for me to even call a coach, be like, you know, or coaches will call me and be like, what do you have?
[00:13:02] I need this type of player, or I need this position. Do you have anything? Cause through the years we’ve had, um, you know, contact and they know that I’m not just gonna send them any player. I’ll, I’ll send the right caliber player to. Level of coach that they’re where they’re playing or they’re coaching at.
[00:13:20] Matt: Oh, that’s, that’s great. Um, well, let’s talk a little bit about the school. Um, you know, folks may think. You know, junior college, the, your, your every day is different than a four year. Maybe not. I don’t know, but, you know, can you just walk me through, what, what does a typical day look like, uh, in terms of practice, class time tournaments, what does that typical week look like when you’re in
[00:13:44] Coach: season?
[00:13:45] Sure. So I’m also the success coach, so I deal with the academic side of things. So I don’t just deal with the soccer side. Sometimes that’s, that’s the best part of the day, right? When we’re dealing with the soccer side. But academically we have over 60 majors and the first two years, it doesn’t, to be honest, it doesn’t really matter where you go.
[00:14:04] If you go to a four year or a two year, it’s the same classes you’re taking : englishs, math, and science. And although at a four year they may spread ’em out within the four years. You just get, ’em done your first two years here, which is it. So, but we also concentrate on whatever major you are, you are wanting to do.
[00:14:22] Cause I said, we have, I’d say about 60 majors, so we pretty much have everything under the sun for that. You have to do your intro classes for those majors that you would take at the four year level instead of spending 40, 50 grand you’re here spending, you know, 10 to 15, um, which is nice.
[00:14:40] As far as once, you know, preseason starts for us in the first week of August. So we start next week. So the first three weeks you’re basically, and this is mostly all junior colleges, you’re a professional soccer player. That’s the way I tell my recruits. You’re gonna be a professional soccer player for three weeks if there’s no school.
[00:14:57] You’re just playing soccer. You know, you’re getting up playing soccer. You may have a session maybe two in the first week or. And then, you know, we trickle it down, but you’ll have weightlift in there. Once school starts there’s weight lifting there’s study halls to make sure great. Obviously no grades, no play bottom line, you know, that’s just a, it doesn’t matter what level you’re playing at.
[00:15:18] Um, once school starts classes for us are in the morning. So between nine and noon, one o’clock are your, uh, your classes. We train one too. So we try, I personally, I try getting everyone’s classes done by noon every day. Uh, we’ll go, depending on if we just played a game or not, we may have a video session, 12 to one, one to two or one to three is training.
[00:15:44] And then, uh, right after training, we’ll have weight training two days a week. Uh, that’s usually what our normal day looks like. With us, I control a lot of our game schedule, so I try to get our games on weekends. So more of a tradition, and this is where the Europeans kind of like it more you train during the week.
[00:16:05] We, and then weekends, are game days, uh, Mondays for the most part, because we play on the weekend. And, being a college coach before, sometimes you’re playing Friday, Saturday, Saturday, Sunday, depending on Friday, Sunday for home. Mondays are our day off and recovery day. So it’s their day to kind of catch up with classwork homework recovery on their body.
[00:16:26] We, our weight train or our athletic trainers are here for their recovery days as well. Um, so typically, you know, nine in morning, Classes mid afternoon, our, our practices. And then like later afternoons, three to four are weight training days on, uh, two days a week. Okay.
[00:16:46] Matt: Well, in terms of, of the soccer side of things, and we talked a little bit about earlier, but is there a specific roster size that you’re trying to hit every year?
[00:16:57] Coach: I mean, ideally I, I like 23, 24 players because there’s always injuries. We’re so short, I call it a short long season because it’s just that’s the way college soccer works. Right. Um, Because we’re playing so many games in a short season, there’s always injuries. So we need to have that depth this year.
[00:17:19] We’re we’re a little more recruiting was, was better than expected. So we’re about 27 players. And I feel confident with what we have coming in, but 23, 24 is ideal for me. We’re not, we’re not a school that is pressuring us to have. More numbers just for numbers sake. So they allow us to just do what we need to do.
[00:17:41] Um, and I like quality over quantity. Yeah, no,
[00:17:45] Matt: That’s great. Um, how, how would you describe your kind of style of coaching and the team style of play?
[00:17:53] Coach: Um, I’m very European. Like, you know, growing up in Italy, I, I, I’m not a defensive guy. I’m a forward and heart, so I attack and I’ll, I’ll win by the sword and lose by the sword all the time.
[00:18:04] Cause I’ll either score more goals or I’ll give up because we’ve got numbers up. Uh, I’m a possessive possession style, but with purpose. You know, I like to attack with numbers, but everything we do, our training is very, very small-sided, high pressure, high intensity, very compact spaces. So when we play in the big field, it is much easier to make decisions.
[00:18:30] I try to enhance them to make decisions quicker. By playing in tight spaces. I think that that is, you know, but we, we, we don’t play long ball. I can’t stand long balls. I’m very, you know, like I like to knock the ball around with purpose to, to make things happen. Uh there’s I don’t, we, we use everybody on the field and I want my keeper to be involved just as much so play, even if we play out of the back we’re using our, our, um, every player in the field.
[00:19:02] Matt: Okay. Well, what about staff? What, what does your staff look like? Uh, whether it’s just the soccer specific staff or the athletic department staff, anybody that’s kind of helping the team. And what role does everybody play?
[00:19:16] Coach: So my staff, again, I’m not a goalkeeper. So my, when I first got the job, the first person that I recruited was a goalkeeper coach.
[00:19:23] Um, I think goalkeepers a lot of times at a lot of schools, even high school clubs, cause I’ve coached clubs before they kind of get pushed to the side. Um, so for me, a goalkeeper coach is very, very important and always has been, so I always hire, I, I have one person that just deals. Goalkeepers.
[00:19:42] Although the coach that I have has professional background in Brazil, um, even here in the states, uh, great guy. So as goalkeeper coach, I have another coach that has experience with field players this year. We actually now have a contract with huddle. So I’m bringing in, basically a performance analysis or a video analysis guy to help me with that part of.
[00:20:08] We do we’re, we’re a little different as well. Like I’m, I’m trying to differentiate our program. So we have GPS monitors as well. So I bought every one of our kids when we train. I mean, it’s and it’s, it’s awesome. Like, you know, the pros use it and I was like, why not try to see if we can fundraise for it.
[00:20:25] And a number of years ago, I got, uh, was able to raise enough to get it. And let me tell you, the performance at practices is RA arisen. That games it’s risen because of the GPS. We can, we can pull it up and see how many miles they render in practice or a game. How, how fast they’re going. It’s amazing that technology and I’m bringing in someone this year that’s their main goal or their main responsibility is to keep me posted on, um, You know, who’s working hard.
[00:20:56] Do we need to back off on someone that’s working hard for injury reasons, uh, video analysis, where, uh, when they’re looking at it, even during game day at halftime, they’re gonna be like, okay, Hey, we’re getting exploited here. Or this is what we see from above and video and all that. So that’s, that’s our staff.
[00:21:13] As far as academic stuff, we. Three of us are successful. Coaches, myself are baseball coach and, um, our BA men’s basketball coach. We all help out. And we have 14 sports at our school and we split ’em up and we deal with their academics. If they need help with financial aid, if they need help with transferring, we help out with tutoring, especially if they have issues with classes.
[00:21:37] Uh, that’s part of our job as well. So the athletic department does a lot of help here to make sure that our student athletes. Very very successful on and off the field. Cause in the CLA on the field and in the classroom, really. Um, but you know, we make sure we try to do the best we can. Uh, again, we’re.
[00:21:57] We don’t have a strength conditioning coach, like four year schools do, which sometimes I wish we did, but you know, we have a full-time athletic trainer. We have good staff here for junior college.
[00:22:08] Matt: Oh, that sounds like it. It’s amazing. Well, coach, we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve talked about a lot of different things, but I always like to end these the same way and that’s.
[00:22:16] What, what didn’t we talk about? What else would you like to discuss whether it’s off the field, on the field school related anything about the recruitment process or, or anything of that nature? Now’s your time?
[00:22:28] Coach: Yeah. So the only thing I would say is that, you know, junior college is. Is a great avenue for all players.
[00:22:38] It’s the, you can’t just look at division one or two or you know, or bust. Uh, we’re a great avenue to open up more doors for you to go on to that next level. Um, we open up a lot more doors and it’s a great area or great place where you get experience. You can get exposure. And lots of exposure there’s as you, you know, you said it before being a division two coach where you do go to junior college and to recruit players.
[00:23:08] And I think about what I’ve heard. A lot of coaches, the reason they like recruiting at the junior college level is now you’re getting players that have experience playing. They can come in and be impact players right away. Um, and they already have that academic background. Of what it means to be a student athlete at the college level or at the collegiate level.
[00:23:32] So I think that those are the, the big getaway, you know, the, the takeaways that I think people should look at when looking at. College recruiting. Don’t just, you know, be like, I can only go division one cuz that’s the, the one thing I, I always and, and hate a strong word. I hate it. When I hear recruiters, especially the internationals, like all that kid, you know, this player is only going division one or they’ll send me players because of grades that they’re junior college players.
[00:24:01] They’re like all these kids who can only go to junior college, I’m like this player is. Even the caliber we’re even close to looking at. We look at, we, we, we look at the same players at NC division. One looks at it because of the caliber of our program. Um, we’re an established junior college where PAC 12 big 12 ACC will look at our programs and players.
[00:24:24] And again, as I said in my, my, in my program, and I know I’m not the only junior college program that. Players go on to play professionally in Europe, being on national teams. Um, you know, there’s other programs that have done that. So junior college is a great way to also be exposed because we get a lot of internationals to get exposed to different cultures and different plane styles.
[00:24:46] Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think for me, those are the big takeaways. When, when parents are looking at junior college or, or just the recruiting process as a whole is to look at all levels and what, you know, ask those questions, where do your players go after there? You know, I think that that’s the big thing to see.
[00:25:07] Are they going, are they going on scholarship? As, as most of my players, we’ll find a place and we open. Scholarship offers, you know, uh, I’m very, and, and most coaches are very, um, ethical and they’re like, we don’t wanna look at your freshman. And for me, if you want a freshman and you’re looking at ’em, they’re here for that scholarship offer, are you gonna, are you offering a good enough scholarship for them to leave?
[00:25:30] I’m open to it. Cause then I did my job by opening up that door for them to move on. Cause that’s really our main objective here at, at, at the junior college level. Do we wanna win? Yes. Can we push these players on to the NCAA Ori level on scholarship at a good level where they’re not they’re playing at a good level and getting a great academic experience?
[00:25:52] I think those are the main things I want parents to really understand that junior college is sometimes better than, than a lot of them, that a lot of four year programs in level of completion.
[00:26:05] Matt: Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s definitely an under untapped underserved market and, and hopefully, uh, interviews like this will help folks really kind of open up their perspective and, and look at ’em as an option.
[00:26:17] So the coach wishes you the best of luck in this coming, uh, upcoming season. Really appreciate the time. And, uh, if you ever get down to Bradenton, you know, for IMG cup or, uh, ECNL events or anything like that, gimme a shout and we’ll, we’ll grab a cup of coffee. Yeah, that sounds good. I like, thanks, coach.
[00:26:34] Coach: Thank you.
