North Carolina Wesleyan University Men’s Soccer – Coach Mark Bowman
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Bowman from the NC Wesleyan Men’s Program in Rocky Mount. We talk about how they one semester at a time, one year out. He describes how everyone treats each other like family on campus. Lastly, we discuss how he likes to be a relational coach both on and off the field. Learn more about North Carolina Wesleyan University Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to discover college soccer today. I’m lucky enough to be joined by coach Mark Bowman from North Carolina Wesleyan. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thanks for having me Matt.
Matt: Thanks for being here. Now, some people are going to see this and say, wait a minute, I’ve seen this guy before and, and yeah, I think this may be the first, but hey, that’s, we’re all about first year.
Uh, and this is the second time we’re chatting, but the first time was like, I think you were one of my earlier interviews. So it’s been a couple of years. Well, we figured, you know what, yeah. Let’s try this again. Let’s, let’s give some folks, uh, some newer information. Right. That’s it, which is, which is always a good thing.
Um, so you and I are talking here towards the end of September. You’re kind of in the about approaching the meat of that season, right? Uh, where things get tough, but I appreciate you taking the time. So, one of the things, you know, I always start these off focused more on the recruiting side. Um, Just ballpark it for me of, of your typical week right now, how much in a percentage terms, how much of your week is spent on recruiting versus everything else?
Coach: Yeah. For us during the season, it’s really, really minimal. Um, so we, it might be 5%. And the benefit for us is so a lot of our, I’m sure we’ll get into this later, but a lot of our rosters international. Um, and so the international piece, um, a lot of that recruiting is done semester to semester, at least in our program.
Um, and [00:01:30] so there’s a lot of, well, we’re, we’re talking to a couple of guys now that we’ll try and get in here in January. Um, but then once the season ends, that’s when we’ll really start looking at recruiting guys for, for next fall. Um, and then obviously we have some domestic guys and the domestic timetable is a little bit different.
Some of those guys we’re, we’re talking to a year out. Um, and so it’s just about getting those guys on campus and, uh, getting, getting them to come watch a game during the season.
Matt: So obviously men’s SKUs a little later than girls. And D3 skews a little later than D1 and 2, so we’re expecting you to be a little bit on the later side, but just out of curiosity, I mean, are you, I mean, how much of your time then is 25s versus 26s right now?
What’s that split?
Coach: We are pretty much completely 25s.
Matt: Um,
Coach: so we’re, yeah, we’re, we really work one year at a time and kind of like I mentioned a little bit earlier, we work one semester at a time really. Um, and so, yeah, if there’s, there’s some 26 is that, that we’ve identified at camps from this summer, um, or that, uh, my assistants coaching and club or something like that, we’ll, we’ll make sure we have that relationship and are able to build that relationship, but we’re not actively pursuing 26 is, um, or really anything beyond 25.
Matt: Okay. Now. Saying we’re predominantly international as a D3. You don’t hear that very often. So, kind of talk, talk to me about that. How [00:03:00] did that come about? What’s the difference that, uh, NC Wesleyan that allows that kind of what’s what’s the thought process there?
Coach: Yeah, so we uh really Not my predecessor probably two or three coaches back really started going international Um, and I think I don’t know what started that but each coach has come through has kind of kept it going um, and I I grew up overseas actually grew up in morocco and so Um for me, i’ve always loved the international aspect international students international student athletes um And so, yeah, for us, the university has a really good international scholarship.
So we’re able to get international students here for it’s closer to the high end of the, uh, of the glass ceiling for internationals, but for at least for, uh, um, affordable for, for a lot of our international. So that’s a huge. Huge kind of niche for us to tap into, um, and so we figured might as well, might as well go all in and get as many, many of those guys as we can.
So right now our roster makeup is about 95 percent international to 5 percent domestic. Ideally, I’d like to get that up a little bit, get the domestic number up a little bit higher. I think that allow really allows for a really good mix of cultures. Um, it allows our international students to experience American culture, but then also allows.
The Americans that we bring in to experience international culture too. So it’s a, it, ideally we’d love to get a little bit higher than that, but right now it’s where we’re sitting.
Matt: [00:04:30] Okay. So are you doing all of that recruiting just via video and zoom? And what is that like?
Coach: Yeah, for the most part, that’s all, um, through international recruiting agencies.
Um, so we have relationships with, with a bunch of different agencies all around the world. Um, and so we’ll. Through conversations with them, we’ll get prospects and watch highlight videos. And then from there, it’s all about. and WhatsApp text messaging. And, uh, yeah. And so then it’s where a lot of it’s just through that, that highlight video.
Um, and then the conversations that we, that we have afterwards with the, with the athlete, with their family, um, just trying to build that relationship and hopefully bringing guys that. Um, that, uh, yeah, live, live the way that we want and the guys that, that we, that we wanna bring in that are kind of doing things the way that we wanna do ’em.
Matt: Okay. Now you, you mentioned camps a minute ago. Do you guys do your own camps? Do your staff work? Other camps? How important are our camps if, you know, a lot of these international kids really are, aren’t coming there. Yeah.
Coach: But no, our staff, our staff works summer camps. Um, we, we have not had a whole lot of success with.
With our own camps. Um, and so we, we do a lot, like I work pretty much predominantly NC State and High Point camps. Um, every once in a while if I can find another camp to get to that’s, that’s relatively close, I’ll do that as well. Um, the big for us, the big thing for [00:06:00] us domestically is we want to try and focus on local guys.
Um, guys that, whose families can come out to watch games and on long weekends, maybe can invite some of our international guys to their house. Kind of build those relationships with families. Um, it doesn’t mean we’re completely against guys from outside the area, but we do want to focus our domestics players on, on local guys, if we can.
Matt: Well, whether it’s the internationals or the domestics, uh, kind of, what is it? What is it that you’re looking for? What, what makes you want to offer somebody a spot at North Carolina?
Coach: Yeah, for us, it’s we have our will be car three trademark behaviors. So for us, those three are hard work, discipline and commitment.
Um, and so that’s really what we’re looking for in players. We look for players that are going to come in, work really hard, not just on the not just on the field, but also in the classroom, make sure that they’re doing everything right. As far as trying to take care of their bodies, what they’re eating, how they’re sleeping, how they’re resting, how they’re training, um, and then the discipline piece is really big too.
As a student athlete, man, if you don’t have discipline, uh, to make sure you’re getting all of your, um, all of your classwork done, how you, how are you managing your time between classes and, and practices and travel and, and all that stuff, um, and then obviously the emotional discipline as well, can you find ways to, uh, like when, when games get, when games get tough and games get a little feisty.
Are you able to control your emotions? Be disciplined in how you, how you do things. Um, and then commitment. We ask our guys that come in, we want them to be committed, [00:07:30] not just to the program, but also to their teammates, to getting better, uh, and to really improving in every aspect of the game. And so, Are they committed to two?
Are they interested in being committed to one team, to one program, to one group of guys? How committed are they to succeeding in their academics? Um, those things are really important to us. And so we want to try and find guys that kind of fit those three trademark behaviors.
Matt: Okay, now one thing also when it comes to recruiting is how many you have to recruit, right?
So what is the roster size situation there? It looks like you guys have a developmental team. What’s that like talking about that?
Coach: Yeah, so we have a roster our roster annually is hovers around 55 Um, this year we’re a little bit bigger because we have 17 guys, or I think it’s 15 guys graduating now. Um, so graduating class of 15, we wanted to try and bring in a couple of extra guys that could take a year to get to learn the process.
Um, so that we’re not trying to recruit a massive, uh, first year class and trying to, trying to rebuild. So, um, we’re trying to kind of, um, uh, uh, decrease that kind of learning curve. That we’d have to drop off from the seniors, but our roster is usually around 55, um, and we have. The development team and the first team, uh, the first team is made up the way that we’re doing it this year.
And I think this is probably how we’ll move forward with it is we have our core first team [00:09:00] guys. So this year it ends up being mostly mostly seniors. Um, some sophomores, some, uh, we have a freshman that’s on there now. Um, and then every day we. have different call up guys. So, but based on the development team, we’ll call guys up how they’ve trained in the last, the last day, how they played in the last game, uh, what positions we need for training that day.
So we’ll call guys up for that day, or maybe may end up being for the weekend, if we have two games or something like that. Um, and so that obviously helps the development team guys, hopefully motivate them to and gives them a pathway up to the 1st team to get experience training with the 1st team. Um, because we’ve, we’ve, uh, a lot of us have been in that situation where you’re player number 25 on the depth chart.
And yeah, you get to train, but then you’re just sitting on the bench the whole time. Um, and so for us, we really want our guys to develop through gameplay. So this year, we have 17 development team games. Um, so really a full season for our development team, which now gives our guys that, Would normally be sitting at the end of the bench.
Now they get a chance to develop through some really strong competition. Um, and a lot of our development team games are against, uh, some of the local D2 schools, um, and their development teams. And then we play a couple of junior colleges as well. Um, so we’re really trying to find ways to, to maximize our development of players.
As much as possible. Um, and well also given them the, a lot of them, the opportunity to, uh, kind of stay or get experienced with that first team [00:10:30] and experience the, the level and the quality and the intensity. And hopefully bring that back with them to the development team.
Matt: Okay. Well you mentioned junior colleges just there And trying to recruit kids with experience So do you do you recruit junior colleges at all?
And and we with the new ncaa rules coming down the pike. We know that transfer portal is going to be Quite quite large. Uh, is that anything you guys look at at all when you’re when you’re doing your recruiting?
Coach: Yeah, it is. We have a couple of our guys on our roster now that we’re junior college guys and transfer guys Um, especially for me, especially I look at the January, like guys coming in in the spring, um, and those guys, we really, if we can, we want to try and make sure those are guys that have college previous college experience.
Um, because international guys coming in, if, if the spring semester in the spring season is their first, uh, is there kind of that, that first introduction. Um, they don’t really get that great of a taste in their mouth for college soccer when at the division three level, you’re only given 24 contact dates.
Over the course of four months. Um, we’ve in our experience, we’ve had a lot of guys like, yeah, coach, this just isn’t enough soccer for me. And I’m like, yeah, I understand that. Come, come back for the season, come back for the fall. Um, cause the fall is a very different thing, but it’s, uh, so we, we try and really get the, the transfer guys in the, in the spring, if we can, and then obviously we’re always open to bringing in some transfer guys in the fall.
Matt: Okay. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about [00:12:00] the school. Um, I had the chance to. I won’t say how many years ago, but it was about 25. Uh, and I’ll, I’ll contend it was the biggest field I ever played on, but it was probably the, the, the most gorgeous field I ever played on as a, as a D3 college athlete. So, uh, hopefully it’s, it’s both of those things still for you, uh, there, but.
But talk to us about North Carolina Wesleyan. What do you like specifically about the university? What are some things that stand out? Maybe some things we wouldn’t even know by going through the website.
Coach: Yeah. So for me, the biggest thing that I love about this university is how people oriented it is. Um, we have a lot of our international students that come in and just like, just like a lot of domestic students come in, might not have the exact experience that they were looking for that they expected.
Um, and so they, they think about potentially transferring, but at the end of the day. The comment that I hear the most is coach, the people here just, they just love really, really well. The people around campus have become like family. I just can’t leave my family. And so that’s a huge thing when your professors and the cafeteria staff and coaching staff and athletic trainers are really treating you like family.
Um, that’s a, that’s a huge benefit that is really hard to, to make. It’s really hard to have something tangible or a way to write that down to experience it. Um, But when you once you come and you understand that how just how much people around here love the the [00:13:30] people on campus are amazing um, and then the campus itself, uh is is fairly and we consider ourselves a smaller college where I think it’s uh, 1200 students um total between uh, traditional and and adult studies, um, and uh, But there’s a there’s a ton of space Um, so there’s a lot of a lot of green a lot of A lot of, uh, space to go do stuff.
We got a disc golf course on campus. We have, uh, um, 16 different athletic teams, uh, obviously the student center for the students to go on and do all the, all the things that they want to do there. Um, and then for the program, as far as the program goes, uh, the biggest thing for us is our coaching staff is always trying to find ways to improve this program.
Um, so our first year we. Upgraded our practice goals, brought in a bunch of mini goals to try and improve practice a little bit. Um, last summer we worked really hard and completely renovated our locker room, uh, ripped it, ripped it down to the bare bones and then built it all back up. So it’s a really, really nice space now that the guys really enjoy being a part of and being in.
Um, and then this this past summer was just trying to continue to improve the facilities overall. So just contract continuing to try and get that keep that that game field as nice as it was when you played on it. Make sure that the practice field is, is, you know, As nice as we can make it as well. [00:15:00] Um, and really just trying to make sure that we’re given our student athletes, the best experience that they can have.
Matt: Awesome. Well, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re close to the, the heart of that conference schedule and where things are just day in day out in this craziness of, of a fall soccer season, but walk me through what’s a typical week, like for your players right now in terms of, you know, classes, practices, games, all that kind of stuff.
Coach: So, um, as far as classes go, most of our students, most of our guys have most of the majority of their classes in the morning. Um, and so they’ll go through those. Um, and then we’ll train. Typically, we’ll train at four about 4 15 is when we’ll start training. Um, and then that will go for 15 to 5 45 6 o’clock.
Um, our Our policies, we want to keep stuff short, but the intensity has to be there. Um, one of the things that we experienced in the past years was we would have a hour 45 2 hour session and the intensity just wasn’t there because you just can’t do that for two hours every single day. Um, and so we decided that we were, the intensity was really important to us.
So we have shorter sessions, but they’re really intense. Um, and so that’s usually 4 maybe six o’clock. If we’re, Doing something a little bit bigger sided. Um, and then guys are off to the cafeteria for for dinner. Um, and then during the week, there’s a couple of different things that we do. So we have a professional development weekly meeting with our freshman every every [00:16:30] week.
So this this semester, we’re going through the book chop would carry water with our freshman. Um, And just kind of helping them fall in love with the process. Um, and that, which I don’t know if you’ve read that book or not, but the whole premise of that book is just falling in love with the process of becoming great.
And so just trying to teach our guys the, the life life lessons that the results aren’t everything. Um, and what you. The end goal is not the focus, but the journey is the focus. And so that allows us to hopefully help our guys see soccer, the soccer season through that lens. Um, and, uh, and then we also have a leadership council made up of currently made up of 13 guys, um, that we’re going through a book called you win in the locker room first.
And so just doing some professional development stuff with, with our team, with our guys, making sure that we’re. Trying to focus on the process and focus on the things necessarily outside of just the just the results Um, how do we build our culture properly? um, but yeah, and then um The school policy is you’re not allowed to miss you’re only allowed to miss classes for for games So that’s why our training schedule is at 4 15.
All classes are done by 4 p. m So that way no one’s missing practice because of class. Um, and it kind of falls in line with our policy, our academic policies as well, where we really believe that our students, student athletes are students first. And so we really take the academic piece seriously. [00:18:00] Um, two, two seasons ago, or I guess two, two academic years ago, men’s soccer was the highest academic team on campus.
Um, with a 3. 53, uh, cumulative or average GPA. Average team GPA. And then last year we dropped a little bit to a 3. 34. Um, but we’re hoping to kind of get that back up this year a little bit. Um, as we, uh, really try and prepare guys for life beyond college.
Matt: No, that’s great. You, you hear it a lot on the girl’s side, having that top GPA, but the boy’s side can congrats on that one.
Thank you. Uh,
Coach: really proud of our guys for that.
Matt: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the, about the team and the soccer side of things. Obviously you have a big roster, so hopefully you’ve got a big staff. Talk to me about your staff. What role does everybody pay play there? Uh, and how does that work?
Coach: Yeah, the staff. So we have a, we have two full time staff myself and then our first assistant who he, uh, he doubles as the first team assistant coach and the development team head coach. Um, so he runs all the development team sessions and then is in the, uh, and then is with us for First team games and obviously all the back background decisions, uh, in conversations.
And then we also have a graduate assistant, um, who he’s kind of helping out with both teams. Um, his role sometimes is to take over the development team so that the so that our first assistant can can spend some time with the first team. And then we currently have a volunteer assistant coach as well, who’s helping out, um, [00:19:30] obviously on a volunteer basis when he can to kind of help.
Gain a little bit more, uh, a little bit more time with our guys and able to focus a little bit more on the, on the details. So that’s kind of what our staff looks like. Um, the our assistant, our graduate assistant and the volunteer assistant, um, are at pretty much every single game, both varsity and, and development team.
Um, and then I, uh, I attend the development team games that are here as much as I can when we don’t have training. But we’re, we’re, our staff is always in conversation about man who, who’s performing the best development team, how do we, who, who’s people we need to look at to call up the next day. So those conversations are always happening but the roles are.
Pretty pretty fluid as well.
Matt: Okay, makes sense. All right. Well, what about you talk to us about your coaching style style of play you’re looking to implement there? What’s all that look like?
Coach: Yeah, so I’m I’m very much a relational coach. I want to get to know my guys. I want to spend time with my guys. Um, a lot of our we my wife and I have have kind of made it a A pact that every semester we’re gonna have each of our guys into our house for a meal at some point During the semester.
So once a week we have groups of six to eight guys Um over to the house for for dinner every week just trying to get to know them outside of soccer um, I think especially with uh with how [00:21:00] crazy the college soccer schedule is. Um, there’s a lot of, a lot of times where, man, my only conversation with guys on campus is about the soccer piece.
It’s about the, um, just being able to, uh, yeah, just have those conversations about So being able to get them off campus and get to have dinner with them and get to hear about their life stories and their questions about the US and the differences between their home countries and cultures and ours, um, is really exciting.
But that’s my, my coaching styles. I want to be able to have the relationships with our players. Um, because I, at the end of the day, it’s about their experience. Um, and then as far as like coaching style, what we do, we, we want to try and play, uh, so we want the ball on the ground. We want to be able to possess as much as we can.
Uh, we want to try and press, um, see if we can control the game. Uh, there’s some games we get to do that more often than others. Uh, some games we do that better than others, um, but our goal is to, to find ways to control the game with and without the ball, um, and, and can we find a way to, to possess and break a team down to, to score a goal, score goals through the, through the possession.
Matt: Well, you, you’ve mentioned it before, uh, that you, you don’t get as many contact dates, you know, in the spring. Uh, but talk to me about what does your spring look like in general after the season? I’m sure they get their Christmas off and then when do they come back? What are they doing in that off season?
Coach: Yeah, [00:22:30] so for us the the change in rules last year from 16 to 24 contact dates was huge but I think the the more important piece for us was the part that they took the time the the fact that they took away the Weeks and you were basically allowed to use those 24 days whenever you wanted to you didn’t have to use it in a specific window Um, so the way that we ended up doing that was every friday, uh, we would have 11 v 11s For the whole semester.
Um, just because you only get one game day at division three level. We wanted our guys to have more 11 11 experience. So every Friday was a was 11 11. And the fun part about that was on Monday we would call three guys into the office and they would draft their team. So we’d have 33 full teams that got drafted by three players every single week.
And so every week the teams were different. The and we gave our captain. Are we The captains for the week. We gave them the freedom to they had to play within our formation and our style, but they could put players wherever they wanted to. They were basically the coach. Um, and so that the guys really enjoyed that.
So that was a soccer piece that we did. We also, um, recommended for our guys to join the intermural futsal league. So a lot of our guys were in that playing futsal once, twice a week. Um, and then as a team, we had our voluntary lifts. January and February, um, which was awesome. Most of our guys came to pretty much every session, which was a lot of fun [00:24:00] to have have all those guys there and just continuing to build the relationships with each other.
Um, so that goes until March. And then once we hit, uh, once we hit March and spring break after spring break, we pretty much went, uh, three to four times a week. Um, so it almost felt like the season again, or at least preseason as we tried to get ready for that game day. Um, and then game day, the way that we’ve done it here is we’ll host, uh, the past has been three teams.
I’m trying to find a fourth team for this coming spring. Um, but host, uh, host three teams, play three games with our large roster. We want to try and get everybody as many minutes as possible. Um, so then we would play, we play three games in that one day, getting everybody, uh, between 60 and 90 minutes.
Matt: Awesome. Well, I really appreciate the time. Got one last question for you. Uh, and that is if, if you could. Leave folks with, with one piece of advice or, or one bit of information you think they should know about this college recruiting process. What would that be?
Coach: Yeah. Be proactive in, in where you want to go and be very, very detailed in, in your research.
Um, there’s a, a lot of schools out there. There’s a ton of universities out there, a lot of programs. That each coach has their own different coaching style. Each school has their own benefits and each school also has their own kind of pros and cons. So there’s positives and negatives to everything. Find the school that fits what you’re looking for and find the coach that fits, that coaches [00:25:30] the way you want to.
There’s a lot of, a lot of players that don’t appreciate the way that I coach and that’s perfectly fine. There’s a lot of players that do appreciate the way I coach, which is awesome. Um, but a player that, doesn’t appreciate the way that I coach if he comes to NC Wesleyan is not going to have a great experience.
Um, and similarly, if, man, if, if they love the way that I coach, but they want to be in a big city and that’s really important to them. Well, man, Rocky Mount is not, not a big city and NC Wesleyan doesn’t really fit that. And so figure out what your priorities are, list them out, um, and then find the schools that kind of fit, you know, Fit those priorities and do your research.
Um, because for us, we, we, we want guys that are going to come here that are willing to, to fight, to, to be here. Right? Um, and so we have guys, uh, if guy, if a guy doesn’t do the research beforehand, he could come in and he’s not as, uh, not as willing to, to fight, to gain that, gain that space and gain that position.
I think, uh, right now, as you mentioned with the transfer portal, there’s a lot of students now that go to a school because they think that’s going to be their fit. And whether they don’t, whatever it is, whether it’s not the playing time, the location, the school size, the coach, whatever it is, um, they end up transferring, which, uh, just basically start you back at square 1.
Um, and so if you do your research on the front end and are willing to put in the work and the effort to stick it out, there’s a lot of a lot of [00:27:00] benefit that can come. Um, when you’re, when you’re able to do the work, when you wanna do the work on the front side.
Matt: Yeah, for sure. Well, coach, really appreciate the time.
Wish you the best of luck this year. Uh, awesome. Hopefully can, can start uh, not having as many ties, uh, yeah. As those are never fun, but, but at least they’re not losses, so
Coach: I was gonna say they’re better than losses. I’d rather, I’d rather rather have the ties to the losses, but man, wins will, wins, will start feeling good whenever, once we can get ’em.
Matt: For sure. Well, thanks again, coach. Talk to you soon.
Coach: Awesome. Thanks Matt.
