NC Wesleyan University Men’s Soccer – Coach Mark Bowman
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Mark Bowman from the NC Wesleyan Men’s Program in North Carolina. We talk about how they like to recruit talented players with a high soccer IQ. He describes the school’s large, green campus that has excellent facilities. Lastly, we discuss their player driven culture. Learn more about NC Wesleyan University Men’s Soccer.
[00:00:00] Hi
Matt: everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Mark Bowman from North Carolina Wesleyan. Welcome coach. Thanks for having me, Matt. Yeah, thanks for being here. Uh, yeah, it’s, uh, we were just talking and I actually, I stayed in Rocky Mount this summer driving north from Florida up to, uh, to, to my mom’s in New Jersey, so yeah.
Coach: Yeah, it’s a nice little midway .
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Nice little stop over there in, in, in your town and, and 20 years ago, got to, got to play a match on, on your field. So, uh, You know, I feel, I feel a little bit of a kindred spirit here, uh, with, with NC Wesleyan, but, so I’m, I’m glad to get you on on the podcast. So, um, let’s talk first on the recruiting side of things.
When, uh, when is it that you guys are, you know, really starting to talk to players and start building out those recruiting classes?
Coach: Um, well for us, uh, we kind of have two different timelines. So our, uh, We have our domestic student timeline, and then we have a, we have a large international roster as well.
[00:01:00] Um, and so then that kind of runs on its own separate timeline. Um, for us domestically, uh, we’ll start looking at, at kids their junior year. Um, that’s when we kind of start getting our database of, yeah, we, we think this guy could be. Could be what we’re looking for. And that gives us a year to kind of, um, get to intro, introduce, have that introductory conversation, um, get to go watch ’em a couple different showcases and events.
Um, maybe go out to watch a, a club match or a high school match or something. Um, so yeah, really I would say, I would say fall of junior year, kind of that. Um, Raleigh Showcase is kind of like our kickoff for of their junior year. So I’ll, we’ll start looking at, at guys that are juniors, then see if we can get a chance to watch ’em at the next ECNL showcase or the next really big event that they’re at.
Um, and then, yeah, it’s just, Hey, can we find a time to get you on campus, have conversations with you, kind of. To chat with, uh, with some people around, whether it’s a club coach, or see if we have any, if we know anybody in common, um, that we can kind [00:02:00] of get a, uh, a good idea on, on guys. Um, Yeah. So that way we kind of know who we want going into our senior year, going into their senior year, I mean, um, and then for our international recruits, um, we kind of go year by year.
Sometimes it’s even semester by semester. Um, and so really we will, we’ll be in contact with our, with our recruiting agents. Uh, recruiting agencies kind of start after the season. So November, December. For, Alright, hey, who can we get in, in the fall? Um, and, and really try, try and go, go that way.
Matt: Okay. Now you mentioned the, the, the Raleigh showcase.
So what are, what, what are some of kind of the musty events on your recruiting calendar?
Coach: Um, for us, the Raleigh Showcase is a good one cuz it’s, it’s right down the road. Um, so that’s a, that’s a really nice no brainer for us. Um, and then pretty much anything ecnl, um, if there’s an MLS next event within the area.
Uh, anything kind of South Carolina, North Carolina, [00:03:00] Virginia. Um, even up in, into Pennsylvania a little bit. My, my family, my parents live in Pennsylvania, so it’s a good, good excuse for me to get my, my wife and kids up to see, uh, grandparents and, and then I get to go. Get to go do some recruiting events. So, um, so yeah, anything kind of from Pennsylvania down to South Carolina.
We’ll, we’ll try, we’ll try and hit any of the big ones.
Matt: What about camps? Do you guys do your own camps or do you or your staff work other camps? How does, how does that fit in?
Coach: Yeah, our summers, we work a lot of other camps, so this is, this is my first year as the head coach. Um, so I, in that transition, we didn’t have any summer camps this past summer.
Uh, I think we would like to try and get at least one spring camp ID camp, and at least one, probably two summer ID camps. Um, but our staff is very, very busy going around, um, to a bunch of other, uh, camps, whether it’s the NC State Camp, uh, this year I think we did NC State High Point. Um, UNC. Um, there were a couple other ones we did in there as well.
[00:04:00] Um, just trying to get, get over to, to a lot of the other camps and ID camps during the summer. Okay.
Matt: Well, whether it’s at a tournament or a camp or, or through recruiting, video, anything like that. Mm-hmm. , what is it that kind of makes up your, your hierarchy of things that you’re looking for, Whether it’s on the field stuff or off the field stuff.
Coach: Yeah. Um, obviously talent, talent would get you in the door. Um, so, so for us, the talent has to be there. Um, that’s what’s gonna get us to go. All right. Yeah. We want to, we wanna get to know more. Um, Soccer IQ is a, a big one. Um, we’re us with a large number of international students that have been, that have been playing this sport since they were two years old and going to the Sunday leagues with their dads.
Um, Have been around high levels of, of soccer, um, pretty much their entire lives. That’s that soccer IQ is there. And so we obviously want guys that can continue to come in and, and play at a high level. Um, I think athleticism is a big [00:05:00] one. Um, obviously if you can get. All three of those, uh, you’re, you’re doing pretty good.
Um, but the other thing for me is, is coachability, we want guys that want to come in and want to be challenged and want to grow, um, and are willing to, to sacrifice maybe some of the, the self-driven goals, um, to see our team goals succeed.
Matt: No, I like that. Well, in terms of, um, domestic or international recruits, you know, I guess more.
International side, Are you based on a lot of that on video or are you able to go internationally and then, you know, with the domestic side, are you talking to a lot of the club or high school coaches to help you in that? How, how does that all work together?
Coach: Yeah, so internationally, um, it’s all pretty much all through recruiting agencies.
So it’s a lot of highlight videos and then conversations with guys and, Hey, can we get a, can we get a full match or can we get a second highlight video or, Just send me a, send me a clip of your previous game, just continuing to build that [00:06:00] relationship and getting to see him as much as possible. Um, and then, uh, domestically, Yeah, a lot of it is, is contacts.
All right. Yeah. We, we really like, we really like Matt. We think he’s a really good player. Let’s see if we can get in touch with his high school coach or his club coach or a team. Maybe we have a, a teammate or somebody in our, that we know that works for his club, um, just to kind of found out, hey, what, what’s he like as a teammate?
What’s he like as a player? Uh, what’s his personality? Is he a guy that we think is gonna fit with our program?
Matt: Okay, well, you know, one of. Questions parents always are wanting to know is, uh, how much is this gonna cost me? Right. So, yeah. And, and I’m not holding you to, to hard numbers here, but, uh, just give me an kind of an overview, you know, without athletic scholarships available, what, what, what’s available academically or what’s a, a typical student athlete walking into from a financial perspective?
Coach: Yep. Um, so we, we actually, academically we have some pretty decent, um, some [00:07:00] pretty decent uh, uh, scholarships and grants and stuff. Um, all the way up to full. I’m looking at my cheat sheet here. Uh, we got full tuition room and board so you can get a full academic. Ride, um, here with a, uh, 4.0 weighted gpa. Um, and then that, that also, it’s an application process.
So, um, that gets you up to full room and for full tuition, room and board and everything, everything paid for. Um, so obviously high academic students are, are a huge, huge thing for us. If we can get some good high academic students, that that helps a lot. Our, our basic scholarship is our, is our presidential scholarship, and that’s a, that’s a $20,000 scholarship for any 3.3 gpa, weighted GPA or above.
Um, and so that automatically gets the price tag to, I think it’s somewhere around the mid twenties. And then obviously any grants or PE or federal aid, any of that stuff comes in as well. Okay. Um, but yeah, so I think, [00:08:00] I think that’s kind of most of it. Um, as far as the internationals go, uh, We have a, an international grant that pretty much gets, um, most, if not all of our international students here for the same price.
Um, I, I don’t know what that price is gonna be for the next school year yet, but, um, that, that’s kind of how that works. Okay.
Matt: Yeah, I had something like that at, at my previous institution, which made it easier for sure to get, get international players. Yeah. Um, well let’s talk a little bit more about the school cuz uh, some folks may not have been able to drive through Rocky Mount or, uh,
Or play a play one college game there. Yeah. But, uh, you know, besides what I would find clicking through the website, give me some of the, the awesome things, the things that make NC Wesleyan stand out, that, that maybe I wouldn’t know about.
Coach: Yeah. I, I think for us, uh, one of it is just the, the, uh, the size of the campus.
Um, but we’re not a, we’re not a big college. We’re not a big institution, but we have a, a decent amount of, of land. There’s a bunch of green areas and grass and trees. And so the, [00:09:00] the campus itself is just campus. Um, And that was one of the things that. When I was, when I was interviewing for the job and came on campus, I was the first thing.
I was like, Man, this is, this is cool. I, I like how spread out it is. It’s nice. Um, all of our athletic teams, pretty much, for the most part, our, each sport kind of has their own, their own field. Um, we actually just built a, a new turf. Stadium that’s gonna have, that’s gonna house our, our football team in the fall and our lacrosse team in the spring.
And then obviously soccer, get to use it in inclement weather, but we really, really like our, our Bermuda grass pitch. So, um, it, it’s nice having that available, but always the turf in, in cases of inclement weather’s nice to, nice to have as well.
Matt: Um, yeah, I mentioned, mentioned before, I, I mean this is granted, this is 20 years ago, so I’m not holding you to this now, but, uh, it.
By far the, the biggest and most beautiful pitch I had ever played on. But of course now I live in Florida and, you know, manicured Bermuda is kind of the, the standard [00:10:00] down here now, but Yep. But you’re right on that edge where you could still get some really nice Bermuda where I was up in DC we didn’t, we, we couldn’t really make it, uh, make it.
Make it stay green long enough to to get you through the end of the season.
Coach: Yep. No, we have, we have a really nice Bermuda pitch. Um, and, and we have a really nice practice field as well. So that’s one of the things for, for our recruits is like the fact that we get to practice on a, on a practice field that’s the exact same size as our, as our game pitch.
Um, we manicure that when almost just as much as the, as the game field. Um, so that allows us to kind of protect our game field as much as we. Um, for using it for actual game day. So, um, those kind of things are, are really nice to have. Um, just kind of, kind of some nice amenities. Yeah, for sure.
Matt: Well, can you tell me a little bit how.
You know, how do your students, you know, especially if you’ve got a lot of internationals coming in, different, different kind of animal coming into an American college. So, so how do your student athletes really balance their academic [00:11:00] commitments as well as their sport commitments? And what kind of support systems does the school have to help?
Coach: Yeah. Um, so our, our men’s soccer program is really, really big on the academic side. Um, uh, we, we understand that 99%. College athletes are never gonna go on to play professional sports, whatever the sport is like. The statistics are 90, I think it’s 98 or 90 nights, well, high nineties, um, are never gonna go make a living playing the, the sport that they love.
Um, and so for us, that means that academics needs to take a, needs to take a really big spot in our program if we want to prepare our, our student athletes for success. Beyond college. Um, and so we actually have, uh, built in study halls and, and built in ways to, to help our players, um, be able to keep up with their academics.
Um, midterm grapes just came out, so we’re ha we’ve been having meetings with our, with some of our athletes that need to find a way to, to get their GPAs up and find ways to help them [00:12:00] succeed. Um, we do have a, a tutoring service here as well on campus for the ac for the academic side. But our, our staff and our program, we’ve actually built some, some study hall and academic aid, um, aspects into the program itself.
Okay.
Matt: Well, can you walk me through what, what like an average week looks like during the season, just in terms of. Classes, meals, practice time, which are game cadence, traveling looks like, and, and yeah, kind of a overall view of that
Coach: for sure. Um, I mean, for the most part our, uh, our game, our game schedule’s gonna be pretty traditional Wednesday, Saturday, uh, game days.
Um, and so really guys will wake up Monday morning, go grab some breakfast, um, maybe they have, they might have a class, maybe two classes in the morning. Um, go grab some lunch. Maybe they have a, a class in the afternoon, um, or they can head over to our, uh, athletic training room and they need to get a good stretch in before practice or do some rehab on our, [00:13:00] on an injury or anything like that.
They can go do that. Um, and then our practices are usually start around four 30. Um, usually go four 30 to 6, 4 30 to six 30, uh, at which point the guys will then go to the locker room, change outta their practice gear, take a shower, head over the calf, eat dinner. Um, and then in the evenings they’re really free to do whatever they want to do, whether that’s, if they gotta do homework or study hall or whatever.
Um, Or they just want to hang out and play FIFA with their, with their buddies. Um, so we’re kind of, kind of pretty lax on the, on the evenings, letting our guys just kind of have the freedom to, to focus on what they need to focus on there. Um, so Monday, Tuesday, that’s kind of what it’s gonna look like.
Wednesday’s usually a game day. Um, so if it’s a home game, we want our guys in the locker room at minimum, 90 minutes before kickoff. Uh, most of our guys, most of our guys are in the, are in the building. Probably two hours before kickoff, getting taped or getting a stretch or, um, heat packs or whatever they need to kind of get ready [00:14:00] for the game.
Um, and then about 75 minutes before kickoff, we’ll have our, our tactical talk and our pre-game talk, um, and then head out to the field for warmups. Um, we don’t have lights on our field, which means we don’t get a, we don’t get any home night games, but it also means. All of our guys after a game, the calf’s open, so you don’t have to go figure out what you’re gonna do for, for dinner after the game.
Um, so our guys, after, after any most of our home matches, will head over to head over to the calf, get their dinner, and just kind of get to enjoy their evenings again. Um, and then for away games, I mean, most of our away trips are our day trips. Um, Our conference is, is fairly compact. I think the, I mean, the farthest trip we have is Brevard, uh, which we’re actually taking this weekend.
So that’ll be, that’s our only overnight conference trip. Uh, other than that, pretty much everything else is, is, uh, single day trips, so that makes it nice. Guys aren’t missing multiple days of classes and, uh, having to try and find a way to make that up. Um, they’re just, we’re able to, to [00:15:00] leave. Fairly, fairly decent time.
So guys aren’t missing tons of classes. Okay.
Matt: Well let’s, let’s talk more about, about the team, the soccer side of things. I mean, is there a, a roster size that, that you’re trying to hit every year?
Coach: Yeah, I mean, so we have a, we have a first team in a reserves, um, So, and we, we focus really hard on making sure, um, that we’re, we’re putting the, the effort into our reserve team.
Um, unfortunately there’s a lot of programs that’s kind of just their, yeah, you wanna come be part of the team here, go jump on the reserves. But we really wanna make it, uh, something that is, um, that’s really focused on as well. Um, we want our. We want our reserve guys to really see a pathway to get to the first team, whether that’s later this season or next year, or for some guys it might be in two years.
Um, but we, uh, so we have, we have 13, um, reserve game matches, 16 first team matches. But to go back, back to your question of, of roster size, um, [00:16:00] my ideal roster size is 24 field players. Plus goalkeepers for the first team, and then about the same for the reserves as well. Um, so that, that gives us a really good chance.
If we have 24 field players, we can play 11 v 11, only have two subs, or we can, um, play eight V eight. Anything we wanna do in eight v eight, we can have three teams without needing to, to rotate players or anything like that. Um, so it just makes training sessions a lot easier and allows guys to kind of get into a rhythm.
Um, Together as they’re, and then we can kind of, uh, train in, in our functional groups as well. Okay.
Matt: What about staff? Uh, how many staff do you have? What role does everybody play? Yeah,
Coach: so we have two full-time staff, myself and our assistant coach, um, Cooper Hall. Uh, and so my, uh, my role is the, I oversee the entire program.
Obviously I’m the head coach for the first team. Um, so I run all the first team training session. Um, and then Cooper, uh, he’s the first team assistant and the, and the reserve team head coach. Um, so [00:17:00] he’ll, he’ll run all of our reserve team practices. Um, ideally I’d love to have at least one, if not two volunteer coaches, um, this year that just, that just didn’t work out.
Um, but ideally I’d love to have a staff for, that’s my, that’s kind of my goal going into, to each season, um, that that way we can, we can have a little bit of flexibility in, in how guys are, or we. Have more flexibility in training sessions. Um, but yeah, so currently our, our staff is two, two full-time, uh, coaches.
Matt: Okay. Well, how would you describe, you know, your style of coaching, the team style of play, and just kind of that overall culture of the team?
Coach: Yeah. Um, I, I would classify myself, classify myself as a, as a player’s coach. Um, for me, I look at this and, and I really want our players to have a great experience.
Um, but I also want. Trust them and treat them like, like adults. I mean, we’re talking 18 to 22 year old men who are having to figure out, all right, what’s life gonna be like in the, in the big world? And [00:18:00] so can we help prepare them for that? Um, and, and so the, the culture aspect of it is we really want to have a player driven culture.
Um, we wanna find, and of course, that that’s part of our recruiting as well. Like we wanna find guys that, um, that are. Be leaders that are gonna help us have a a player driven culture. Uh, I only get to be with the guys two hours a week, two hours a day in practice or a game. Um, so that’s at least 22 hours where the culture could be different from what I’m coaching.
Um, but if we have a player led culture that’s the same, we’re in the field as it all, as it is off the field, that really gives us a chance to kind of grow as a unit, um, 24 hours a day as opposed to. Oh yeah, it’s gonna, we’re gonna do it for two hours during practice, and then we’re gonna go to the calf and all gonna go do our own thing.
Um, and kind of the standard changes between, uh, between what we’re doing when coach is around and what we’re doing when coach is not around. Um, and so for me, the, the. Uh, player, player driven culture is [00:19:00] a, is a really big thing. Um, that’s something that we’re gonna work on identifying a lot this spring.
Um, is this, this will be kind of be my first off season. Uh, so I’ll have had a chance to really get to learn the guys, learn what, what they want, um, give them a chance to kind of see a little bit of how, what kind of program I wanna. Um, but then in the spring, it’s really gonna be about putting that, the onus on them to, Hey, all right boys, what’s the, what’s the culture look like?
How do you guys, what do you want this team to look like? Um, how do we build a culture that’s gonna maintain the, the standards and history of success that this program has had in the past? Um, and then really just holding our players to that standard that they’ve created.
Matt: You, You mentioned, you mentioned the off season, so I mean, I know it’s kind of your first one I think coming up, but Yep.
You know, what, what will that off season look like just in terms of, of what the players are doing soccer wise, what may maybe, might be to do a non soccer wise, what does. Yeah. Non-traditional
Coach: season look like . Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously in [00:20:00] the, in the division three realm, it, it’s, uh, we’re, we’re limited on what we’re allowed to do.
Um, and so we’re only allowed 15 training sessions in one game day. In the nontraditional season. So, um, what that looks like is we’ll usually start training after spring break, um, and then sometime around Easter weekend, that’ll be the culmination of our 15 training sessions, and we’ll have a game day, try and have three.
Two other, two to three other teams show up, see if we can do a three or four team tournament, get our guys seeing multiple different teams. Um, not just, not just one, not just one kickoff against one team, but can we get different styles, different, um, programs coming in. Um, and so, but that also gives us.
January, February, the first half of March, where we’re not doing anything as a team soccer wise. Um, so obviously we’re allowed to do our, our voluntary weightlifting sessions. We’ll do our voluntary workouts and fitness sessions. So, we’ll, we’ll do that, hold that for our guys. Um, but that’s also where the, uh, the, [00:21:00] the player driven culture.
Comes in massively. Um, if you have a, a culture that’s driven by the players, now the players are the ones that are going out and running a training session or working on, on stuff on their own. Um, and it’s not a coach driven session where, All right, I’m saying, All right guys, you have to be out at the field at.
Such and such a time for training. Um, cuz I can only do that for five, for 15, 15 training sessions in the, in the semester. Um, and so if we can really get that, that player driven culture, um, and get guys that, that really buy into that player driven culture, it gives us a huge opportunity to continue to grow as a team, even when the coaching staff can’t be there.
Matt: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you guys, uh, use any sort. You know, technology at all in terms of film or trackers or whether that’s in games or practices that you guys do on any of that stuff?
Coach: Yeah, so we actually have video. We have a mounted video camera. Um, it’s right outside our, our locker room building on a 50 foot pole.
So it’s got a great vantage point. We have [00:22:00] a really good, uh, kind of a tactical cam, um, which is cool, and that allows our guys. To go back and, and watch their film. Um, unfortunately, as a staff of two with a roster of 50 plus, it’s really hard to do the GPS stuff for any, uh, any of the other technology things.
Um, which is one of the reasons I’d love to have some volunteer coaches that can come and help us with that, with those aspects as well. Um, but for us, film is a really big thing. We wanna make sure that our guys have as much film as possible. We can sit down with them and review that film, uh, whatever possible.
That’s about the only technology thing we have at the moment. Okay.
Matt: Well, I, I appreciate, uh, everything you’ve, you’ve told us, we’ve covered a lot of ground, but I always like to end these with the same thing is what haven’t we covered? Uh, whether that’s recruiting wise, the school, Academics, athletics, anything, uh, or anything else you wanna talk about?
The recruiting process, Uh, this is kind of your chance to, to let anybody know? Anything else that you’d like ’em to know?
Coach: Yeah. Um, so for us, I think [00:23:00] recruiting, I think that there’s, I’ve, I’ve heard it from a set from several recruits. Before that, they look at our roster and they see so many internationals and they’re like, ah, well they must not want American kids.
Um, and for me, for me, the perfect balance is having, having both groups, having internationals and domestic kids, cuz that, that they both come from different. Backgrounds, they all come from different nationalities, different focuses. Um, and I think that the, the best way to, to have a program is to have a good mix of both domestic and internationals.
Um, so anybody that’s, that’s listening to this, if you’re a domestic student, don’t look at our roster and say, ah, they, they’re not interested cuz we are. Um, So, but the fact that we also have international and domestic, um, means that as, as our, our staff kind of has to break that up as well. So I, I do all of our international recruiting.
Our assistant Coach Cooper does most of our domestic recruiting. Um, and so that’s, that’s another thing I think recruits see is, Oh, it’s the assistant coach emailing me, not the head coach [00:24:00] emailing me. Um, I must not be that important. Uh, no. It’s just, just the way we have it split. Um, so that we’re not overwhelming either myself or my assistant.
Um, so those, those two things are really big things I think for, for recruits to know. Um, and then for me it’s also just the history of this program. This, this program is a, is a. Has had a very good history of success. Um, we’ve been in three of the last four conference championships. We’ve won two of the last four, Um, been to the NCAA tournament nine times.
So it’s, we’re not a program that people think of a lot cuz we’re Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. Not in a, not in a big city or not up in the Northeast. Um, but if you’re looking for a program that’s gonna have a really high standard. Has a history of success, um, and is gonna allow you to experience multiple different cultures and nationalities and languages.
Um, for me that’s a, that’s a huge invaluable piece. Um, there’s not many programs and not many schools in the country that have the international flavor that we do. Um, and I think it, it [00:25:00] just adds another opportunity to, to expand your worldview as you get through college and, and kind of start moving into the real.
Matt: Excellent. Well, coach, we wish you the best of luck. Hopefully you can make it, uh, three and five on those conference championships. So, uh, what’s the goal? Best of luck, uh, making that happen. And if you, if you get down, uh, down here to Bradenton, to any of the tournaments here at Premier img, gimme a shout and then we’ll grab a cup of coffee.
All right? Awesome.
Coach: Sounds good. Thanks, Matt. Awesome.
Matt: Thanks coach.
