Oklahoma Panhandle State University Men’s Soccer – Coach Bailey Guffin
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Guffin from the Oklahoma Panhandle State University Men’s Program. We talk about how he recruits players that buy into what they do, even beyond soccer. He describes the location of the school helps to minimize distractions. Lastly, we discuss how they like to play and the overall culture of the team. Learn more about Oklahoma Panhandle State 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 Bailey Guffin from Oklahoma Panhandle State University. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thank you, Matt. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here. Well, um, Excited to talk to you.
Matt: I’m, I’m not familiar with Oklahoma Panhandle State as I’m sure, uh, many of our audience won’t be, but they will be after we, we get done chatting, so.
Right. Uh, let, let, let’s just start talking about the recruiting side of things. Uh, you guys are an NAIA school. Uh, I think we, we, I recently spoke with, uh, one of your, your fellow conference mates, uh, for another interview, but when you’re recruiting, I mean, looking at your roster, you got a good mix of, of domestic, international, so you know, how do you go about recruiting?
When do you start talking to folks? Uh, kind of what’s your process?
Coach: Um, you know, we, we will really talk to guys year round, but I know on the, on the boys side, they tend to, they like to [00:01:00] wait a little bit. So right around, right around about a month ago is when guys are really seriously looking to make some decisions.
Um, and that’s usually more with the international guys. We feel like, um, couple months ago when we started, that’s when all those guys are really starting to talk to coaches for the first time. So we’re getting in contact with them starting. Starting to really make a connection with them. And then of course, as that time goes, and then we’ll start really getting out and looking at guys for this year and next year, starting in the spring.
Now that our season is wrapping up soon here in a bit. Um, in terms of where we go, um, we’ll hit Oklahoma for the most part. A lot of Texas. Uh, we’ll get up into Colorado for the summertime to try and hit DU camps and things like that. Um, we haven’t hit Kansas quite yet, but it’s something we’re trying to get into in the New Mexico is a spot we’re trying to hit as well.
Um, and of course internationally we, you know, wherever we find good players, we try and bring as many in as we can. Um, so we’ll, we’ll start talking to a lot of ’em right about now cause that’s when. The boys are really starting to [00:02:00] make their decisions, those that are seeking the NAIA, maybe junior college type of route, that’s when we really start hearing commitments and things like that around this time of year.
Matt: So, So your focus really would right now be on the senior class, the 2023s in this case? Uh, yeah. And, and maybe a little bit on the 24 side, right?
Coach: Yeah, a little, a little bit on the 24th. Um, you. Right now a big bulk of it is 20 threes. Um, the good thing of it is we won’t have to bring in. Too many of them.
So we get to have a luxury right now where we get to be a little bit picky with those 20 threes. Um, just trying to fill in the gaps where we need ’em. But right now, definitely, um, looking at 20 threes and starting on 20 fours right now too.
Matt: Okay. Well, you, you mentioned camps, you know, do you guys do your own camps?
It sounds like you do camps, your staff does camps, other places. How big of a, of a, of a deal are, are camps in your recruiting process?
Coach: Um, they haven’t been, they haven’t. We run camps at Panhandle State. We try [00:03:00] to as much as we can, just kind of in the location that we hit. It’s not like we’re bringing in hundreds.
Hundreds of guys we’re usually seeing 20 to 30, which is normal, which is always very good cuz we usually see some of the same kids, um, starting out from sophomore through senior year. Um, it is pretty big for us to get on the road in the summer to try and hit a few of those bigger camps. Um, you know, Oral Roberts was a big one for us to see, or Denver is always one that I try to hit.
Um, just because we get to see so many guys, um, and kind of get to. Give them that other option cuz I know a lot of ’em are looking at the division one, division two coaches that do show up and give them a separate thing of, you know, what NAIA is, what that level looks like. And I think I like the camps where we get to have team camps in a one on one kind of deal with the, with the guys, cuz then we can kind of give ’em a feel of how we are as coaches.
They can see us run a session with them rather than us just watching them for two days and going. We’re ini you should come play for us, rather than we get to actually have a connection with them and say, This is how we run our program. [00:04:00] This is how we are as coaches. Um, and kind of get to make connections that way.
Matt: Okay. Well, you, you mentioned the state you were looking in are, are there tournaments that are kinda, you know, must go to events that, that are on your, your list?
Coach: Um, Dallas Cup’s always a big one for us. Um, you know, I think that’s a pretty, that’s a pretty easy one. Um, we try to hit some, I know there’s a big Oklahoma winter showcase we’re gonna try and hit this year.
Um, in all honesty, the, in the years past that we’ve been here, we’ve been so heavy international. This will be probably the first recruiting class. We were truly on the road hitting more domestic showcases. Um, you know, when I came in I wanted to get kind of a more of a mixture. We. A hundred percent international when I was the assistant here and, um, with, you know, a couple domestic guys.
And now we’re trying to get to where it’s more of an ease split. So this will be the first time we really get on the road and hit those domestic showcases. So we’re still kind of learning the lay of the land of where we wanna hit and what are the best ones to hit. [00:05:00] Um, so that’s kind of a learning experience we’re going through right now.
Matt: Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Well, on the international front, I’m assuming, uh, you’re working primarily through video and with agencies, You know, how how difficult is that to, to kind of manage?
Coach: Um, it’s only really hard when you have to get in touch with guys from Japan or Australia, , every, everybody else.
It’s, it’s, it’s not too hard. Um, I like to get up early, so getting to reach out to those guys early morning for us, which is afternoon for them. It’s honestly not super hard. I think it’s. Getting, getting organized with how many guys you are reaching out to. Cuz as the agencies will send you a list of guys and they’re all usually very good and you wanna talk to a lot of them and just keeping in touch with them.
But it’s honestly not as hard to manage as I thought. Cuz I think the ones that really buy into our philosophy are the ones that we really latch onto straight away from the first Zoom call, the first phone call. You can tell right away who’s. Excited about coming to a [00:06:00] place like Panhandle State, cuz it is in the middle of nowhere.
And we tell them that pretty quickly. Hey, this is, we do call it No Man’s land. We have a big sign outside the state and it says No man’s land. So we tell ’em exactly what it is. So I think we do talk to a lot of people, but we can pretty, we can latch on pretty quickly on who’s up to live in a place like this and who’s up for what we’re kind of trying to build.
So not, not as hard as I thought it might be.
Matt: Okay, well whether it’s domestic, international, at a camp or tournament, whatever, you know, what kind of, what is your hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player, whether that’s on the field attributes or off the field attributes?
Coach: Um, I think, I think the biggest thing we look for is, Especially where we are in our program right now, somebody that’s built into a project and built into a process.
Um, and every guy will say they are built in. They, they are ready for something like that. But I think for us, we are really looking for people that want to be here and want to stay here for four [00:07:00] years and whatever that might look like, we, we call it kind of doing. Soccer is kind of 20% of what they do at a university.
We want guys that are really invested in doing the community service part of it, the culture part of what we do, the fundraising of what we do, um, going to other teams games. And so we really, really look for guys that are invested with that. Good interactions with us. As coaches, very coachable and very interactive with their teammates.
We will usually get them in touch with somebody that’s on our roster during the recruiting process to kind of, Hey, how is Panhandle State? What’s it like? What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? Um, and kind of getting those responses through our, our leadership team in terms of on field, in terms of soccer.
We believe if you can play, you can play here. We’ll, we’ll find, we’ll find places for you. We don’t have a. Type of player, uh, physicality wise and technical ability. We want guys to be able to play and guys to be tactically aware, but we, this, this conference [00:08:00] specifically in the nai, you have to want it more than everybody else.
So we do look for some of the hardest working guys that can go out there and really just. Run and love to tackle and love to put in a shift, whatever that kind of looks like for ’em. Um, we always preach having various selfish players, both with and without the ball, and kind of doing the hard work and moments that they don’t believe you should be working hard.
Um, and those are some of the big attributes for us that we really look for.
Matt: Okay. Well, in terms of, you know, one of the questions that parents always ask, it’s, uh, you know, well, how much is this gonna cost me? Right? So, not holding you to any hard, hard numbers here, but just give me an overall, uh, picture of the financial aid situation, scholarships, whether that’s athletic, academic, you know, what, what’s an average student athlete walking into?
Coach: So without any financial aid at all, they’re typically, this is both for domestic and international. A good range would be anywhere between 15 to [00:09:00] 16,000 for the year. Um, and that’s, that’s including everything that’s gonna be your meals, that’s going to be your room and board, your books. Um, obviously if you’re taking online courses, they will cost a little bit more.
If you’re taking a plus class, they’ll cost a little bit more, um, you know, with, and then of course with the domestic guys, if they’re coming in with the, with their FAFSA done and if they get a Pell Grant that can help out. Um, guys coming in from Oklahoma that have done their Oklahoma promise, that can always help out as well.
Um, we’re also the, one of the only few Hispanic serving institutions in Oklahoma, so Hispanic based. Come in and they get a whole different set of foundation scholarships they can apply for. Um, and some of those include a hundred percent housing waiver for a year. Um, so coming in with your FAFSA done, that’s 16,000 for the year can get down to.
Nine to 10 pretty quickly. And that’s before we were even talking about academic. That’s before we’re talking about athletic aid. That’s before we’re talking about work study on campus, um, which is a big plus for our international guys. You can come in here, [00:10:00] get your social security and get a job within the first couple months, and that helps pay for, obviously it helps your family along the way.
Um, in terms of men’s soccer, We do have ability to get Oklahoma Kids the, the financial aid that they need as well. It gives us an incentive to continue to bring in Oklahoma based, uh, athletes. So that’s why we’re getting on the road a bit more with Oklahoma guys to go. We have, we have an option for you guys as Oklahoma residents.
You know, this could be a really good scenario for you. So, um, we have a lot of ways that we can really, we can really. Kids going to school for really cheap and we can stack all of that. Just because I give somebody a scholarship doesn’t mean they can’t go get academic, doesn’t mean they can’t go get a job.
So if you really play your cards right, you end up going to school for really, really cheap here. Um, and then after your freshman year when you’re no longer having to be in the dorms, you’re no longer required to be on a meal plan. So if you wanna take the option to go do your own groceries and things like [00:11:00] that, you can have to have a meal.
It makes it cheaper right there, straight away. And so they give some incentives for the, for the students to get out of the dorms and get into cheaper housing options. Um, you know, whether it be GPA based or job based or whatever that might be. So it is, it is one of those places if you do it right. You go to school for Fairly cheap here.
Matt: Yeah, sounds like it. Well, let’s talk more about the school itself. You know, like go on the website and click around. But you, you’ve been the assistant coach there, now, the head coach, so you’ve got some good insights. So, so gimme some of the awesome things about Panhandle that, that maybe I’m not gonna learn just by going through the website.
Coach: I think, I think from the outside looking in, you go on Google Maps and it’s in the middle of nowhere and, um, for a lot of, for a lot of students that are coming from cities, it can. A very scary thing to have, and I won’t lie, when I came here as the assistant I came from, from Morgantown, when there’s thousands of people and always something to do on every corner, and I came here, I was a bit scared myself thinking, what am I gonna do here?
Who am I gonna meet? Um, [00:12:00] First off, it’s one of those places that if you’re here to get a degree and get to really excel at what you wanna be one day, this is one of those places. The distractions are minimal. The crime is minimal. And I think what we have here is a community that buys into everything that is Panhandle State.
Um, and I think that’s one of the coolest bits of it, because when you only have so many people living in town, you go to the local restaurants here and people know that’s a soccer player, that’s a soccer coach, that’s a basketball player, that’s a baseball player, whatever it might be, it’s almost like our own.
Our own little domain, like we are the town. Panhandle State is the place. Um, if the football team’s doing well, everybody goes and watch the football team. If the soccer team’s doing well. We hosted last year in the conference tournament. Everybody was there. Didn’t matter if you were a soccer fan, baseball fan, basketball fan.
There’s a community that’s bought in it’s Panhandle State itself. Um, obviously cheap schooling is pretty great as well. Um, and we’re also. I would just say just the people and the community and everything that goes, that goes [00:13:00] with it. I think when you come here and go, huh, there’s not a lot to do, but you meet the people and how invested all everybody on staff is in their students and in the the staff itself.
I think you come in here and find something that a lot of athletes probably don’t get a lot of places they go, they feel wanted and they feel like we want you to be. For four years. We don’t want you to, Oh, okay. It’s the guy we may know, we may not. You get here, everybody knows who you are. And I think that’s one of the hardest things that athletes are really looking for in a college experience, is to be wanted in a university.
Um, and so I think, I think we give that to the every person that comes here.
Matt: Oh, that’s, that’s great. Well, you mentioned the academic side of things, so you know, for. Soccer players for your, your men’s soccer players, how do they kind of balance those, uh, sport commitments along with the heavy academic load, you know, what kind of support systems are in place at the school to kind of help ’em balance the two things?
Coach: Yeah, so I mean, obviously we [00:14:00] have study hall put in place for them. Um, that’s one. We have two, uh, tutoring centers here. We have an academic resource center where they can come in and they’ll help and edit, help you with your papers. Um, you can come in any time. They also offer counseling. Of course. It gets really tough mentally, I think through the year with an academic and athletic load.
Um, and we have another academic resource center called El Centra, which is our Hispanics Hispanic Center, but they have student tutors. So our goalkeeper kata is the, is the math tutor. For everybody that comes in for math. Um, and they offer study hall hours in there. They work long hours. They work seven days a week.
So there are two tutoring services that they offer. Um, and I do believe they get a subscription to, what is it tutor.com or whatever that is. Um, they get that free when they go work with the academic resource center. Um, you know, with us, the, the professors work really well with our student athletes as long as we communicate when we are gonna be on the road.
Um, [00:15:00] they offer a lot of online options for students to be able to take their tests and do all their stuff on the road, in the hotel. Um, So, yeah, I, we have two big resources right then and there on top of study hall. So I think for us, we, we have a, we have a best, our students are able to be taken care of and really make sure that their academics are being taken care of.
Matt: Oh, that’s good. Can you walk me through, What, uh, you know, you’re in the middle, you know, towards the end of your season now. Right. But can you walk me through what, what does a typical week in the season look like in terms of, you know, when are practice times, when are meals, when are kids going to class?
What are, what’s the kind of the game sequencing, that kind of thing?
Coach: So right now we’re training at night. So that allows everybody to kind of have early morning classes if they need to. They can go work during the day. Um, the way I understand it is a lot of guys will do the bulk of their classes in the morning, um, you know, class, study hall, and then they will work if they have a job on campus during the afternoon.
Uh, the afternoon will involve working. It will [00:16:00] involve study hall, anything that they need to do outside of school and outside of soccer. Um, depending on the day, we’ll come in and we’ll do a lift. Um, obviously right now lifting is more recovery lifting, and then we’ll train at night. , Um, you know, we are, we played a game last night tonight.
The guys that played Big Minutes will recover and the guys that are maybe not getting a lot of minutes will do a true session tomorrow will kind of be similar cuz we have a game in two days. Um, so right now we’re training at night and next year in the spring we’ll do two days in the morning, two days at night, um, lifting four days a week.
And so it can be, it can be a pretty heavy load, but that’s typically right now what it looks like they. Predominant of their work in the morning, working their jobs in the middle, and then, you know, soccer at night.
Matt: Okay. Well, let’s, let’s shift gears a little. Talk about the actual soccer side of things, right?
So mm-hmm. , you know, is there a roster size that, that you, you’re aim to hit? You talked about you won’t have to recruit a lot for the, for the fall, next fall. Mm-hmm. , uh, what, what’s kind of your ideal roster?
Coach: [00:17:00] Um, this year we hit about 32, which I thought was a sweet spot for us because as the season goes on and injuries and whatnot, it kind of put us right around 26, 27.
Um, that’s a good roster size for us. Um, anywhere between 30 to 35. Um, not too big, not too small. Good training sessions, able to get a good amount of depth in there as well. Um, we used to have a reserve team here at Panhandle. Um, we don’t have that anymore, so right now, just anywhere between 30 to 35 is probably best for us.
Matt: Okay. Now you, uh, you have other, other staff, uh, besides yourself mm-hmm. . So, so what’s the staff look like? What, what are their roles? What’s that kind of
Coach: Yeah, so I brought in, well, Malik got here. Three weeks off from preseason. Um, he was working the FC Dallas Youth Academy in Texas before he got here. Um, he does a great job.
He, he does a lot of our domestic recruiting. I’ve, I’ve put a lot of that on him. So he’s, he’s gonna enjoy getting to go back home and do [00:18:00] a lot of Dallas recruiting, uh, this spring. Um, you know, just the typical duties of the assistant helping out with everything that I’m not doing. Um, I’ve, he’s, he’s done a great job of.
Been able to give him a lot of work to do, which has been, which has been great, which has really made this first year for me amazing. Um, we have a volunteer assistant. He’s our goalkeeper coach. John, um, does a great job. He’s actually been here as long as I’ve been here. Um, he’s just always, he was a student assistant and then he graduated and took a year off to start work working, and then I brought him back into the volunteers assistant, which has been awesome.
Um, and then we have, uh, a true student assistant, Isaac Poole. Um, he’s a goal, another goalkeeper coach, which has. Double was done for us. And then, you know, we have a small stop suite of managers. But, um, you know, for Malik and I, it’s been great because we see. We see the same thing in terms of culture, and I think that’s so hard to find.
We don’t, you know, we see soccer in a, in a lot of different ways, which I think is fun and challenging in a lot of ways, but I think we see the same things in terms of [00:19:00] our culture. And so it’s made it very easy to kind of delegate duties and roles and how we attack problems within the team and how we attack going into games and, um, any issues we might have.
Obviously we’re quite young, coaching staff, we’re both 25. Um, so that’s, that’s been a fun piece in itself. So that’s what the staff kinda looks like right now.
Matt: Okay. Well, how would you describe your kind of style of coaching team style of play and just that overall culture of the team?
Coach: Um, in terms of style of.
We, this year we’ve had the love to have the ball. Uh, we, we have a undersized group. We have a lot of guys that, not your typical n a i team with a lot of big guys running around. So we’ve had to really enjoy loving having the ball. Um, and I think that’s been the most, the most fun part about it is getting to watch these guys play a style of soccer that they really, really enjoy.
Um, having the ball. We’re very patient in our build out. [00:20:00] We love to play through. Third, if we have to play. We will. Um, but for us it’s not a hundred miles per hour. It’s patient build out. We’ll try and break teams down. We’ll try and pull teams out of their block and we’ll play between the lines and we’ll do it that way.
Um, in terms of style of coaching, I think the most fun we’ve had is the relationship we built with them has been really, we really wanted to get these guys to trust us pretty quickly rather than. I don’t know how anybody else would attack it, but we really wanted these guys to trust us pretty quick. Um, and us being quite young, we’ve been able to create relationships that have done just that for us.
And so when we get to be hard on them and really hold ’em accountable, having that trust allows them to. Really understand that we, what we are saying, we really care about ’em in those moments. Um, and so I think in terms of culture, we, we believe that the culture builds our winning. We don’t believe that winning builds culture.
Um, everything going on outside of the team. Is everybody bought into community service? Is everybody doing their bit and the fundraising? And are we doing our bit in terms of culture? Are we [00:21:00] interacting well? Are we spending time together off the field? How are our interactions with each other? Um, and with, with that, it’s really, it’s really.
A culture that is so much fun to be a part of that no, we may not be winning every game right now, but the culture will win in the end for us. And that’s what we believe in. And we have a team that believes in that right now, um, which is very exciting for next year for sure. Awesome.
Matt: Awesome. Well, you know, we, we, we kind of talked about a lot of different things here and uh, I always like to end these the same way and that’s what didn’t we talk about.
What else would you want anybody to know, whether that’s about the college recruiting process, about your school, the team, or anything else? Uh, I, I give you last word here.
Coach: Um, shoot . Um, I would say, I would say the most success that student athletes will have in this process is continuing to, Persistent, um, in their process.
Um, whether that be Division one or JUCO AI Division three, um, at, [00:22:00] at every level being persistent is huge. Um, cause we do have hundreds of, hundreds of guys and players reaching out to us every day. And it can be easy to get lost in that mix. Um, being persistent, there’s been a couple guys that we ended up bringing in because they did not stop emailing.
They did not stop calling. And maybe a video gets lost in the pile. Maybe a showcase, maybe we happen to. At a Dallas Cup game and we didn’t see you as very much on your phone, but we watched you in the game. And we go, Well, that kid email me four or five times and now I’ve seen him in real life. Okay, let’s make, let’s do this.
So I think being persistent, um, but also not being tied down at any certain level. I think a lot of us would agree that. Anybody in the NEI and anybody at a junior college could go out and play anybody in division one. Um, and so I think getting tied down to one division is, is really a tough sell for a lot of guys.
So be, be open to every level, every division cause and go to the place that you wanted and go to the place that you feel the most [00:23:00] valued at. Don’t go to some place where you feel maybe you’re not wanted to, to be there and play. If the coaches are really making the effort to get with you and get out to you and watch you and speak with you every day, that’s the place you’re gonna want to go.
Um, and I would look at that first, where you’re, where you’re going to be valued the most
Matt: Absolutely wise words. Well, coach, really appreciate the time and, and wish you the best of luck there. It’s senior night coming up and, uh, we’ll, we’ll keep an eye on you and see how you guys are doing, uh, throughout next year.
And, and again, best of luck. Thank you. Thank.
