Sarah Lawrence College Men’s Soccer – Coach Evan Brandsdorfer

On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Evan from the Sarah Lawrence Men’s Program in New York. We talk about how they recruit a number of tournaments with a national footprint. He describes their high academics just 15 minutes from New York City. Lastly, we discuss his advice for recruits including starting early. Learn more about Sarah Lawrence College Men’s Soccer.

Matt: [00:00:00] Hi, everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today, I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Evan from Sarah Lawrence University up in New York. Welcome, Coach. Thanks 

Coach: for having me. 

Matt: Yeah, thanks for being here. Uh, I know you just, just wrapped up the season. Um, so I’m sure, uh, you’re, you’re, you’re starting to, to hit that recruiting trail, uh, pretty hard.

But one question I know a lot of players that I work with, uh, ask is, on a percentage basis, how much, uh, Of your time, would you say during the season you’re spending on recruiting? 

Coach: Yeah, great question. Um, 20%. Um, it kind of has to be in there a bit. It is difficult to manage. Um, I am one head coach. I have a part time assistant who’s been phenomenal, but it’s very much so part time.

Um, so I have a 34 man roster. Uh, I got a lot of guys. I got a lot of playing time conversations, a lot of, uh, why do we lose this game conversations, video analysis things. So sometimes. The kind of the future gets lost a little bit in the now, um, kind of thing that being said, I really do try to say, okay, it’s been 2 weeks.

Let me shoot a text. It’s been a week. Let me give a phone call. You know, I, the world of college coaching is into a lot of driving. Um, so I try to get a lot of those recruiting calls done while I’m driving. I feel like I can do answering emails and video analysis while I’m sitting in the office, but I can also do recruiting while I’m driving.

So just trying to make the most of that of that time. But, um. I’d say about 20 percent is probably a good answer. It’s [00:01:30] more staying in touch with the people that I’ve been in touch with. It’s a little bit less creating new relationships and then as soon as the season ends, um, kind of now that it’s okay, reinforcing applications, reinforcing, um, all that stuff and then creating those new relationships for that, you know, for right now, we’re already looking at 26, you know.

Oh, 

Matt: okay. So that was gonna be my next question is how much of your as a division three school here, you know, November. How much of your class at 25 is done? How much you focused on 26? What’s that kind of ratio looking like? Yeah. 

Coach: Um, so 0 percent of it’s done. Um, but there’s definitely steps that I’m that I’m looking to complete.

Um, the biggest reason for me that I’m not further along is just the nature of the school is a very high academic school is a very difficult school to get into. As with most of the schools like that, it’s also a pretty expensive school. Um, so it’s hard for me to, to demand a kid to commit when I don’t know if he’s going to get in a hundred percent and I don’t know if he’s going to get the package that he needs a hundred percent.

So I always kind of say to kids, you’re reading in my book, you have a roster spot in my book. We can do the official commitment thing in a couple of weeks after you’ve gotten in. But. What’s the point of you committing and then you don’t get it or what’s the point of you committing and you get a 5, 000 financial aid package when you need to 35, you know, so for me, I kind of wait for a to fall.

Okay, the 1st domino fell. You got in perfect 2nd domino fell. You got that financial aid package that you wanted. Now, let’s talk about that [00:03:00] serious commitment so we can kind of get this done. Okay, 

Matt: well and now that you know, you’re hitting that recruiting trail over the next three to six months Where are the where are the places you like to go to watch players?

Where yeah busy couple weeks. I have 

Coach: a camp uh, i’m going to Exact camp which is a you know A camp company that i’ve worked with for years and years that I really like I think they do a good job Um, so I have an exact camp on friday of this week up in south jersey I have an exact camp of monday this week in new york.

I leave for ecnl phoenix On thursday morning, um, so i’m in phoenix for a couple days. I come back for a week I then leave for san diego for surf cup. Uh, I come back for a week. I leave for florida for the ea showcase Uh, and then I come back for a couple weeks and I relax just normal recruiting in around the area Uh, and then I think my next big one is ECNL Vegas.

Um, and then it calms down for a bit again. And then I kind of hit my, um, early spring ones, which are typically like, uh, Jefferson Cup, which I think is a really good one. Um, I hit the MLS Next, um, Flex, which is usually in Maryland, which is a big one for the MLS Next kids. Uh, and then I typically will do another ECNL event and I typically do the ECNL kind of national playoffs.

We at Sarah Lawrence are very eclectic and very nationwide with our roster. I think my starting 11 this past year, I had two New York guys. So it is everywhere and anywhere because of the prestige of the school, because of the location in relation to New York, [00:04:30] it becomes a very nationwide recruiting.

Matt: Yeah, yeah, it seems like it. Well, whether it’s at these camps or at these events, what makes up the hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player, both on the field and off? 

Coach: Oh, I love it. Um, characters one, um, I want to see a kid that I know is going to fit right into my team, right into my program. Um, you know, I joked with my guys after we finished the past season and I said, Hey, you kind of get to be done with me for a couple of weeks.

You know, I’m, you’ve probably seen me more than mom and dad. You’ve seen me more than most of your friends. Um, I hope you haven’t seen me more than your girlfriend, but you very well may have at 7am practices and games on the weekends and stuff like that. So that character part of it’s huge. I don’t want a guy that’s going to break up my culture.

I don’t want a guy that’s not going to want to be part of it. That’s not going to want to be on bus trips and be in early morning practices and being in preseason and all that kind of stuff. So character for me is one, um, I think athleticism is something that we’re kind of lacking. So that’s kind of really where I’m shifting a bit.

Um, most D3 coaches will tell you that that’s the biggest difference between division three and division one is that, that size, that strength, that athleticism. So for me, I think I have a lot of really good soccer players, but I have, I don’t have enough just Game changing athletes, whether that’s a six foot four kid, whether that’s the fastest kid you’ve ever seen, whether that’s some version of that.

I think that’s what I’m really kind of looking for in this recruiting classes, guys like that. Um, and then funny enough, third is soccer ability. And it’s crazy when you think about that, I am a men’s soccer head coach and my third on my list is probably the soccer. Um, the one thing I [00:06:00] will say is the events that I’m going to are high quality enough that I kind of know the baseline of soccer.

You know, so it’s a little different if I’m going to a random event in here or a random event there. I don’t know what the soccer level is going to be. I know if I’m going out to ECNL Phoenix. I know the baseline level is, is, is good enough to be at, at Sarah Lawrence and good enough to play for my program.

But then who are the, who are the top guys within that baseline group? 

Matt: Okay, that makes sense. And you mentioned before you have roster 34. Is that kind of your target each year that you’re looking to have? 

Coach: So for context, I took over five years ago. Before I took over, we had won, I think, zero or one game the year before.

And when I took over, we had twelve guys in the roster. Um, so I left a division one program. I was a division one top assistant for five years Took over this program and it was like whoa 12 Guys, what do I do? So I grabbed like four walk ons who great kids and I appreciate them dearly I’m, not sure if they could walk and chew gum at the same time But I appreciate them and they mean a lot to me as a person and for being part of the program So the goal was big roster, big roster, big roster, big roster.

This was kind of my, the, I had completed a recruiting cycle now. So it was kind of like the goal was to get the 30, get the 32, get the 34, and then kind of turn 34 into a 28 to 30. So 34 was just too much. Just, uh, I gotta be honest. It was a little bit too much to handle. A little too many guys, too many personalities.

A real coach is playing 18 to 20 players. So you have 14 guys who were upset with playing [00:07:30] time and, and all that kind of stuff. So kind of balancing that. Um, so my dream number would be about 28 to 30. 

Matt: Okay. Makes sense. Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the school, you know, obviously a high, high academic institution, but what are some of the things that you’ve found that are great about the school, what kind of drew you there from, from your other position?

Tell us a little about that. 

Coach: Um, I think number one is the academics. Um, and it’s the academics mixed with the proximity to New York. Um, we are five minutes away from being a city campus. So it’s a perfect balance of being a beautiful the campus is really, uh, it’s one of the biggest things. It is really spectacular.

So it is a gorgeous quintessential liberal arts campus exposed brick old buildings. It’s got that beautiful feel to it. It’s got the really small discussion based style classrooms, 8 to 15 students round table discussion. So you really get that style and that high level of engagement that I think is awesome.

And then you mix that with being about 15 minutes from New York. So being able to be that close, but also not be kind of in it. You know, again, I always talk about and why you and Columbia 2 of the best schools in the world. You step out of your and why you campus or you step out of your and or your Columbia dorm.

You are in Manhattan, you know, and that might be amazing. And that might be the coolest thing ever to think about that. My campus is New York City, or that can be very intimidating very quickly. So I think the ability to have this beautiful campus with access with 20 minute away, 15 minute [00:09:00] away to train stations, Ubers, whatever that access to New York City without being in New York City mixed with a really high academics was a really kind of a win win situation for me.

Matt: Sounds like it. No, that’s great. Well, you mentioned, uh, maybe early morning practices and things like that, but let’s go back a week. Let’s say we’re in the heart of that conference season to me. People walk me through. What does a typical week look like for your players? 

Coach: So again, the world of being a really high academic school, um, is school comes first and it should, especially at this level in a school like this.

So we don’t do 1 p. m. practices or 2 p. m. or 3 p. m. We’re not trying to compete with class. It’s a battle that we’re going to lose. So We are up 7 to 9 a. m. at the practice. The guys are expected to be in the sports center by 640 a. m. Um, so again, I as upsetting as a season might be or a loss might be i’ll never not give those guys credits They’re college kids up at 6 30 in the morning.

So I give those guys so much credit kind of every day So a typical week will be a monday um kind of general session Um, Tuesday will typically be a tactical session preparing for the team that we’re playing the next day. That’s when we’ll go over any specific shapes or formations or specific tactics to that game.

Um, we’ll reinforce our set pieces, we’ll reinforce kind of what we’re looking to get from it. Typically we play on Wednesdays, so Wednesday is our actual game day. Thursday is typically going to be a recovery session. Um, so we’ll get some stuff done. It’ll be a large part of it will also be that group that [00:10:30] didn’t play Um doing some high intensity stuff not as a punishment But just as a hey the whole group needs to stay fit and if one kid played 70 minutes in a game And the other kid didn’t play a minute You need to make sure that he’s still getting that work so that it’s a productive day In terms of our fitness and overall kind of team, um, you know levels of fitness Friday is going to look again like another tactical session.

Um, we’re going to base it off that team, maybe specific set pieces. Maybe we know we can go short. Maybe we know we can go long. Maybe we know we’re aiming back post and we’ll be a bit more specific. Saturday is going to be another game day. And Sunday is a well earned and well deserved mandatory day off.

Matt: Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the soccer side of things. Um, you mentioned you have a part time assistant, but what, what other? Staff are involved with the, the team, whether that be from, you know, athletic training, strength and conditioning, academic advising, anything else, who else helps out with the team and in what ways?

Coach: All that stuff. We have two full time athletic trainers that are awesome. Um, you know, athletic trainers, athletic trainers, shout out to athletic trainers and SIDs. You are the unsung heroes of, of college athletics. I say that all the time. You know, every day that I’m up at 6, I’m up at 5 a. m. to get here to get to the facility and stuff.

I always say the difference is it’s my team, right? So I’m willing to make that sacrifice. I’m willing to be up at 5 a. m. It’s my team. It’s my guys, my recruits. Those SIDs who are just there because that’s their job and they love being around athletics. Those athletic trainers who love my players dearly, but it’s not their [00:12:00] team.

They’re there every morning when we’re there, right? And the SIDs are there every night when we have a weigh game. So those guys specifically, I give so much credit to. We have a strength and conditioning program that comes in and does 3 days a week with our teams, which is awesome. We have a full gym, we have a full athletic training room, all that.

We have academic advisors and we have academic support. The really cool thing with how we do it here at Sarah Lawrence is a lot of the academic advising. And a lot of the academic support is actually done by the students because of that discussion based style, because of that small classroom experience, a senior may actually be a tutor for first year.

So rather than going to just an academic advisor, it’s, Hey, did you have Mrs Smith? Hey, did you have mr. Stevens? Did you and that? Yeah. Oh, yeah He does a lot of reading or hey She does a lot of assignments or whatever and they kind of become each other’s kind of resource, which I think is pretty awesome Um, but yeah, I mean that’s that’s it.

Um, my my assistant coach is also my goalkeeper coach Um, he played goal. He was a goalie So it was a win win to be able to bring somebody in with that kind of two hats ability I have another assistant coach who is a grad assistant, um, who’s a great kid, really connects well with the students and they love him.

Um, but again, isn’t doing recruiting, isn’t doing tactics. He’s just there to be a, a really good kid and a really good personality. And the guys adore him. Um, but it’s kind of mainly me and the other assistant coach doing the day to day coaching. 

Matt: Okay. Well, speaking about your coaching, how would you describe kind of your coaching style team style of [00:13:30] play?

What’s trying to do? Yeah. 

Coach: Um, so, um, I want to get the ball down. I want to play high possession, high work rate, high intensity style soccer. Um, I grew up in New Jersey, so I have very much that like New Jersey, northeast style of soccer. Um, you know, the really cool thing for me and, but also very difficult part of my job is I am not New York based with my team.

You know, like we played, for example, this past year, the best team at our conference was a team called St. Joe’s Long Island and St. Joe’s Long Island doesn’t have dorms. So every kid has to be within a 10 mile radius of that campus. And if you know anything about New York soccer and Long Island soccer, they play the same way.

They’ve been playing the same way since they were seven years old. I don’t care what team they’re on. And there’s some great teams in Long Island. They have played the same quintessential New York Long Island soccer their entire life. My right back is from Georgia. My left back is from Virginia. My two center mids, one’s from Seattle and one’s from LA.

My striker’s from New York. My 10 is from, um, LA. My right wing is from San Diego. My left wing is from, uh, Puerto Rico. Like I’m combining eight different styles and trying to put them together. There’s times where that’s awesome because you get a very eclectic style of soccer and there’s times that that’s very difficult because this player has played this way his whole life.

This player has played this way his whole life. And within a year or within preseason or within six months, especially of their first year. I got to change everything their coaches ever taught them or every system they’ve ever done to fit my system and my tactics and the way that we’re looking to play.

So, um, you know, it’s pretty difficult in that regard. Um, but it’s, it’s, it’s a great [00:15:00] challenge, you know, and I’ve had, you know, I’ve been coaching for a bunch of years. Now I played division 1, I’ve coached division 1, I’ve coached division 3. I’ve had that whole experience and that’s been kind of the enjoyable thing for me is seeing that different, a different level of things.

Matt: Oh, that’s great. Well, season’s over, the kids get a little bit of a break, they come back in the spring. Kind of talk to me about what, what does that non traditional spring season look like for the players? 

Coach: Yeah, I, the biggest thing from that, um, for me is, is I get to be way more of the development model.

When you’re in season, you’re very much the performance model. We have to win. Right. The job is based on winning the success of a season is based on winning. Yes. I want to develop these players in the fall. Yes. I want them to become better soccer players in November than they were in August. We don’t really have the time for that day to day development, whereas in the spring, the focus really shifts to that development model and really like, okay, how do I get this guy better?

How do I get us better? How do I get this unit better? So I think that’s probably 50 percent of it. And then the other 50 percent of it is really shifting. From that senior group who I love dearly and appreciative of or whatever into those juniors becoming the leaders. And how do they, it’s their team now, it’s their culture now, it’s their thing.

So really shifting a guy that was maybe a junior in my leadership group into that junior being the captain and really the expectations and what he’s kind of presenting, I think really changes. So it’s development and it’s creating kind of new leaders in a new leadership group. 

Matt: Well, coach, [00:16:30] you’ve been generous with your time.

We’ve learned a lot. I just have one last question for you. And that is, if you could give one piece of advice or piece of information to those going through the college recruiting process right now, what would that be? 

Coach: Ooh, I got a couple. I’ll rattle them off. Start early, the earlier the better. No one has ever said I started this process too early, but thousands of kids have said I’ve started too late.

So start it early. Um, understand that any coach is going to call your club coach. It’s going to call your high school coach. So you might be an amazing player and if I pick up the phone and I’ve talked to your high school coach and he said he is the most difficult kid I’ve ever coached, he is challenges in me on every single thing.

That’s the last phone call I’m going to make it. It’s not going to be worth my time and it’s not going to be worth kind of the effort. Um, and then the third thing is, Yes, shoot for the stars, Division One, have those aspirations, look at Wake Forest, look at Duke, look at Maryland, look at the top boys. But then be realistic if every email that you’re getting is from a small liberal arts division three school You’re a division three player and that’s not that’s not a bad thing.

That’s not a negative That’s not a thing. That’s a bad thing about you But I think too many kids are so Razzle dazzled by the lights and sounds of division one soccer and I’ve always said if you’re gonna go play division one and you’re gonna Go play in 60 or 70 games in your career Go play division one.

You’re clearly a division one player. You’re going to get into those games. Enjoy that experience. If you are playing division one and you do not get off the field other than your [00:18:00] senior day, I’ll never understand how that’s enjoyable. Go be a division three player. Go be the top player. Go be the top scorer.

Go enjoy that experience. But again, shoot for the stars. You’ve earned that right to shoot for that stars and hope that the division one schools will come a calling. But when you realize maybe you’re not getting the division one offers that you thought you were. The D3, I gotta say, as a guy who played Division 1, as a guy who’s coached Division 1, that Division 3 balance is way better than that Division 1 balance, you know, and I wouldn’t have changed my Division 1 experience, I played at Temple, I had a great experience there, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world, and I was wired like a Division 1 player, but, Having now coached division three for about five years.

It’s a way better balance. You want that work life, that school life, social life balance. D three is the way to go. You get the same soccer. It’s the same season. It’s that same August to November that division one division two division three are doing. But when November six hits, like we’re chatting today.

The effort and the, and the, the, the commitment drops off a cliff in a good way. Have a social life. I’m 20 minutes from New York City. Go to New York. Go enjoy that kind of thing. Whereas Division 1, for better or for worse, you’re in the gym. You’re in the gym the day the season ends. You know, and that might be a great thing or that might be a terrible thing, but, you know, I think that’s a big thing that kids need to see the whole broader picture.

Matt: Well, as, as a, as a D, former D3 player, I couldn’t agree more. Uh, and that’s why I made my choice for me and it was perfect. So I love it. Well, coach, thank you so much. Wish you the best of luck. And, uh, well, if you get to [00:19:30] any of the tournaments down here in Lakewood ranch, uh, Bradenton, let me know. And we’ll, we’ll, we’ll get to, I’m actually 

Coach: there for the EA one.

I’m there in, uh, A couple, December 6th to 9th, I actually think I’m in that area. Okay. Sounds good. We’ll talk. Hey, any excuse to leave New York in November and December to go to, it’s not, I joke about this, it’s a little strategic because that’s where the best tournaments are, but I got Phoenix, I got San Diego and I got Florida as my next three, New York to go to those three.

That’s a little bit, a little bit strategic. That’s right. Sounds good. All right. Take care. Thanks, man. I appreciate you, buddy.