Randolph College Men’s Soccer – Coach Sheldon Blue
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Sheldon from the Randolph Men’s Program in Virginia. We talk about how looks at recruiting good people who are a culture fit. He describes how they work off a unique academic calendar. Lastly, we discuss their staff along with his coaching style. Learn more about Randolph College Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Welcome to discover college soccer. I’m lucky enough today to be joined by coach Sheldon over at Randolph college in Virginia. Welcome coach. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Thanks for being here. I, uh, I never got to play Randolph when I, when I was at Catholic U and, and, but, but we played Lynchburg all the time, so go figure.
Um, but, uh, but you you’re. We’re talking here end of February. It’s the height of kind of the recruiting tournament season and all of that stuff. So for you guys as a division three school, kind of tell me kind of where you’re at in the recruiting process. Like what’s your typical calendar when you usually close a recruiting class?
What’s all that look like for you guys?
Coach: I mean, I think this year has a little curve ball for everyone with the fast, but getting pushed back, you know, right now we’re at two commits. Um, and I would like to think if packages were out a bit sooner, we would be a little bit higher, but, uh, right now, fast was not getting read until March 1st or 15th are being told.
And so there’s a lot of guys waiting on that final number. So, you know, it could be another month or so where we’re still on seniors. Um, so there’s still some tournaments coming up, like, loud and cups this weekend. And we’ll be looking at some of the seniors were still chatting to, but also starting to kind of phase in towards the juniors a bit more as well.
So, you know, I’d say, like, generally a normal cycle. You know, said, you’re hopefully wrapping up in March would be ideal. And then, you know, that [00:01:30] later March tournament, you start looking at juniors, um, but it’s a revolving door as, you know, you know, so, like, even once it comes September again, you know, you get the seniors you’ve seen down, but looking for more seniors, all the tournaments after Christmas, Thanksgiving, um, so, like, yeah, for us, it’s always revolving and look, we’re finding new seniors and trying to get commits, but, you know, recruiting is 24 7 for us.
Matt: Yeah, the, the, the financial aid piece is really definitely, uh, made a mess of it for some folks. Uh, but you mentioned Loudon cup kind of, you know, it’s when I worked up there, I was, uh, used to run the Arlington tournament, which I think was last weekend or the weekend before. So, um, what tournaments are kind of on your.
You know, your must hit list, uh, during, you know, a typical year.
Coach: Yeah. So for us being a Virginia school and a lot of our roster in the schools, Virginia, pretty much of the tournaments in Virginia, we’re going to be there. Um, so that’s big for us. You know, I know after Christmas or Thanksgiving, it would be, you have like, uh, Bethesda and CFC.
Um, so what’s other I’m from Jersey. So I go to EDP every year. Said, and then is going on and then once this winter showcases, Arlington, Alexandria, loud and Jeff cups in a few weeks. Um, Richmond 17 said some of the North Carolina’s stuff going on as [00:03:00] well. So, um. You know, if it’s North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, we like to do a pretty good job of getting there when we can, like, so we’re definitely a little bit more regional school, you know, for the touching state, we’re going to try and show face if we can.
Matt: Yeah, no, that makes sense. What, what about camps? Do you guys run ID camps? Do you, your staff work other ID camps? Are they an important part of your recruiting process? Yeah.
Coach: So actually both guys that are committed on the roster right now, we’re at our fall ID camp. Um, so we did two ID camps every year. So, we do 1 in the fall, and then we did 1 in the winter this year, which might turn into the summer later on, but we’ll do 2 each year.
So it’s pretty big. Just getting guys on campus, getting a chance for them to. Meet our guys, you know, the whole staff gets to see him play and then we do get out to a good amount of other camps as well. So it’s definitely a big chance just because get to see him play. Get that 1 on 1 time with them a little bit as well.
Matt: One thing that, that kind of seems to get a, get a, not always a great rap these days is high school soccer, but I know that Virginia plays in the spring. So will you, will you be at high school games? How important is high school soccer? Do you kind of in your mind? Are you talking to high school coaches about players?
What’s that look like?
Coach: Yeah. So, I mean, I think high school soccer, I don’t know what the opinion is on a lot of college soccer. I think it’s just, I mean, definitely the local guys recruiting it. Um, but also this thing, it’s an awesome [00:04:30] opportunity for high schoolers to be able to play. So some 1 of my assistant coaches, the head coach at a high school in town.
So, you know, I’ll get to a few of his games. I’m actually helping him out a good amount this year. So I’ll see him throughout as well. And then I definitely will be at some high school games just because it’s local. There’s a lot of high schools in 10 minute radius. So get a chance to see guys that might not be looked at as much.
Matt: Okay, well, when it comes to all of those different ways to recruit kind of what makes up the hierarchy of things that you’re looking for in a player, whether that’s on the field attributes or off the field stuff,
Coach: I think big attributes, you know, being a good person, someone to be around. That’s definitely like, number 1.
I know you hear it all the time. Like, just. Culture that’s, you know, big, it’s everything here. You know, we have to spend a lot of time with each other as well as our players. So, you know, being well on the field as well as like, off the field, just academics, you know, having good grades. And then after that, like, something that’s big for me is like motivation and you have to love the game because, you know, D3 soccer still D3, but you talked a lot of coaches.
It’s getting closer to not D1 necessarily. But, you know, we just went to 23 practices and 1 play day. Um, so, you know, the workloads ramping up, you know, they don’t have as many days off. So, you know, I think like that and then just self motivation, like guys that want to get after I can’t be saying, hey, you guys want to go lift or you guys want to go play pickup tonight.
Yeah. Um, so that’s like all off the field stuff. I think are some pretty important variables for us [00:06:00] here at Randolph.
Matt: Yeah, definitely. Well, in terms of. The school itself, I’m sure there’s folks who maybe aren’t familiar with Randolph. Uh, so what, what kind of drew you to Randolph? What are some of the awesome things you’ve found so far having in your time at the school?
Maybe some things we wouldn’t even know by going through the website.
Coach: What drew me to Randolph? I was at Roanoke College the last 4 years before here, which is a conference opponent. And, uh, they always gave us fits and they always had a really good crowd at games. So, um, you know, stuff that kind of checked my boxes for, uh, you know, people that cared about soccer, got out to games.
It’s a D3 smaller school, which I’ve always worked at. Um, so we’re located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Right now we have about 6, 5700 students, so we’re a pretty small school. Um, but it’s nice. Like I said, it’s a really cool campus said campus. You can are the field. You can walk straight from your dorms. It’s a 5 minute walk to get around campus.
So, some of that stuff’s nice up in the mountain range. Um, so really cool view scenery. Some really cool majors, so we don’t have a football team, which I like, because we don’t have football lines on our turf or, you know, fighting for weight room times. We also don’t have field hockey. So it’s just men’s and women’s soccer, men’s women’s across for turf.
So it’s great practice facility use. We also have 1 of the most unique stadiums indeed 3. I think I don’t know if you ever seen a picture. Um, so I call it the great wall. So the [00:07:30] stands, like, we basically play in a bowl and then the stands are. I don’t have 20 feet in the air, maybe so there’s a huge wall.
So some uniqueness there. So just great atmosphere do well, getting fans. And then, you know, students have liked it here. They got a rich history of success. Um, said, you know, Cory Sindel was a 2 times all American. I believe Evan blow was 2 time all American recently as well, or maybe 1 time. Um, but, you know, so they’ve had some insane tournament appearances, championships success with players.
So, you know, for me, I like, it’s a good fit and I also like winning. So, you know, it’s been shown that people can win here.
Matt: Yeah, for sure. And if you have seen the picture, I was online. It’s a it’s a cool looking stadium for sure. Well, you know, one of the other components of of being at a college besides the soccer part is the academic piece.
So, uh, how do your student athletes specifically kind of balance the demands of, you know, the academics as well as the athletics and what kind of support systems does the school have to help them be successful?
Coach: So, 1 of the unique things about academics here is Randolph runs this program called take 2.
Um, so most colleges are taking 4 or 5 classes at once at Randolph. We’re basically broken into quarters. So you take 2 classes every 7 weeks. Um, so that’s pretty unique just because you get to focus on those 2 classes as well as the other thing. I don’t know if it’s for classes. The guys just really enjoy.
It’s a 4 day school week, but we don’t have classes on Wednesday. So, there’s only Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday [00:09:00] classes. So, generally, we’re going to play our games on Wednesday and Saturday. That way, we’re not missing a class day to travel. So, our guys like that from that standpoint, as well as it’s only a 4 day school week.
Um, so that definitely helps them balance out academics a little bit, a little bit more free time to study, um, as well as just in the soccer office. We’ll do, like, academic meetings once every 2 weeks with our guys, just kind of check in on grades and. Hopefully catch problems where they happen. Um, we have a really good tutoring system in the library.
You can go set up email and set up your time with tutors. So our guys do 4 cycle hours a week as well. So, um, there’s a lot of cool things in place as well as student faculty ratio is 8 to 1 here. So, like I said, you’re really going to know your professors by the time you get. You know, senior year.
Matt: Yeah, for sure.
Wow, that’s awesome. I think it’s, uh, that may take the cake is the lowest of all the schools I’ve talked to. So yeah, well, you gave me a little bit of an idea, uh, just now, but if you can be a little more specific in terms of, let’s just say, we’re in the heart of that conference schedule. Um, what would a typical week look like in terms of what, cool.
When our classes practice meals, kind of, you know, you mentioned already, but
Coach: yeah, just generally, you know, Monday, Tuesday will be practice days, Wednesday game, Thursday, Friday practice, Saturday game, and then Sunday off. [00:10:30] That’s a general week once it gets in flow in terms of like, a normal day for us. I mean, our guys might have class 8 to 1030 or a 9 to 1130.
Then our guys will go eat lunch together around 12 2nd, class, probably 130 to 330, 130 to 4 somewhere in that range. So, we always practice 5 to 7 or 7 to 9. so that’s our training block. But within that, we say, it’s like a 3 hour practice day because Tuesday, Thursday, we’re lifting 430 to 530. we might have scouting report film, you might just be getting some treatment.
Um, so that afternoon, you know, a three hour block, then our guys go eat dinner together. And then after that, you know, easy night, they’re playing FIFA in someone’s room, long night, they’re in the library, you know, going at it. So, um, that’s a typical day of the season.
Matt: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the team, uh, and kind of the soccer side of things.
You know, we mentioned recruiting earlier is, is there a roster size that you kind of feel is ideal that you guys are trying to hit each season?
Coach: We’ll have about 30 to 32 each year. Okay. So that’s our number. So I think it just, you know, with 4 keeper, it gives 28 field players, you know, everyone’s pretty close to the field.
Matt: So, okay. And then. Besides. Players on a roster, you’ve got the staff, right? Uh, so talk to me about your staff. How many of them are there? Who’s full time? Who’s part time? What roles does everybody play? What [00:12:00] other support staff maybe interacts with the team from the athletic department? What’s that all look like?
Coach: So we have 4 assistant coaches right now. So 3 are part time and then 1 is a graduate assistant. Um, Zach Clark, super into it. Said he is actually a stay at home dad. So, uh, you know, he gets watching the kids during the day comes over in the evening said runs like a little soccer academy in town at times as well.
Um, so he’s been great for us played at Liberty. I’m super into it. I think he’s been here for maybe 4 or 5 years. Like, even before I got here, um, Tim song or who’s an alum. Was on the 2011 team that went to the sweet 16, so he bleeds Randolph. He’s the high school teacher in town also coaches profile high school.
So he’s another guy, like I said, does this full day teaching comes on over Justin Preston. I always mess up his job, but he does something with electricity. So that’s what we get. So he’s our goalkeeper coach. So another good guy. It’s nice to have someone specialize in that take the goalies. Um, so he’s good as well.
And then ideally shoot the Shuma played at. He’s our graduate assistant right now. Um, so he actually finishes up his masters this summer and then we’ll be looking for a job. Um, so we got four guys just in terms of the soccer office that are always around helping us out. Um, and then, you know, our athletic directors, you know, they’ve done a great job here just, you know, supporting our guys and looking after them.
Matt: Ah, that’s great. Well, [00:13:30] now on to you specifically, how would you describe kind of your coaching style, style of play that you’re looking to implement and kind of just that overall team culture?
Coach: Yeah, I think my coaching style. Um, yeah, so I should be better at answering this. I get asked this all the time, but, uh, so I think, uh, definitely we’ll start style of play.
You know, I think everybody wants to play and, you know, I think there’s some games we’re able to play, but there’s also some games are probably a little bit more direct, you know, D3 college soccer. You know, transitional moments and set pieces determine so much of the game. So, you know, if, you know, a team’s on a lower block, we’re probably building a bit more, you know, that front three is pressing, we’re probably bypassing that front three, you know, playing on the knockdowns a little bit more, um, so I’d say that’s kind of a bit more style of play and then like, you know, really getting down that final third, not necessarily how we progressed the ball, but what we’re going to do in the final third of those transitional moments, we probably harp on a bit more.
Um, Also say a probably a big focus is defensively, you know, we did pretty well defensively this year, only let up 17 goals problems. We didn’t score enough. Um, but that’s soccer right there. So, you know, we definitely harp on that, um, coaching style. I’d say like. So listen to players, you know, I think open door policy, you know, guys can come in and chat, you know, about anything on the field, off the field, um, not.
Too big into the stop start, you know, I think there’s sessions where it’s a little bit more coaching and you’re getting into a bit. [00:15:00] There’s all there’s, you know, kind of letting it flow out. You find the breaks and they kind of give your coaching points. Um, wouldn’t say I’m a crazy like scream or anything like that.
Just, you know, a little bit more mellow and, you know, talking through problems. Okay.
Matt: Well, you mentioned it a little bit, uh, in terms of the change in N. C. double a offseason rules. So we’re here in February. So kind of talk to me what, what is that offseason going to look like for, for your players?
Coach: Yes, currently we’re practicing 2 times, 2 times a week and we’re lifting 2 times a week.
So, um, it’s actually like doubled up except for 1 day. So we get 3 days a week right now. Like, uh, Monday we lifted and then practice. Wednesday, we just lifted and then Thursday, we did a technical session in the morning and then a late night practice. And then so we did 2 weeks for the month of February.
We go on spring break, actually next week, and when we come back, then we’ll go to 3 times a week. So we’ll still do the 3 practices. Um, and 1 technical session and the 2 lifts. So, we’ll go 3 days a week then, and then we play a play that we’re going to play some in Virginia and farm. Um, so I get 2 games in there and then we have like another 2 weeks of just 1 practice and then an alumni game.
So our guys have been going pretty steady since February and then we’ll end about April 20th is our alumni game. Um, so, like I said, on the field in the weight room and within that, our guys are still finding time to play, [00:16:30] pick up and do some lifts on their own. So, um, it’s been pretty busy, but it’s been good.
Matt: Nice. Well, we really appreciate you being on. I got to leave you with one last question. Uh, as a former player, coach, multiple different schools, you’ve got some good insights. So if there was one piece of information or one nugget you wish that kind of every player, parent, family going through the recruiting process would know, what would that be?
Coach: Man, I look at it. Probably not the most helpful, but still helpful GPA. So get good grades. So, I’m paying my student loans right now, and I had no clue what a difference between having a 4 0 and having a 2 0, um, the money you might be able to get.
Matt: Absolutely, yeah. I’m going to clip this and send it to my daughter, uh, you know, here within the next hour.
But, uh, well, coach, really appreciate it. Wish you the best of luck. Uh, if any of your recruiting travels take you down here to Florida, give me a shout, and we’ll get together. All right? Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
