Southeastern Louisiana University Women’s Soccer – Coach Nathan Gillespie
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Nathan Gillespie from the Southeastern Louisiana University Women’s Program. We talk about not leaving any stones unturned when it comes to recruiting. He describes the college town atmosphere of the school. Lastly, we discuss their use of technology in training and games to help manage loads. Learn more about Southeastern Louisiana University Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Nathan from Southeastern Louisiana. Welcome coach. How you doing? Doing well, thanks. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Uh, excited to talk to you about your program and, uh, and see how things are going. You know, we’re, we’re talking here, it’s June 12th when we’re talking.
I know this will air later, but, uh, just to give people an idea. Um, so we’re close to that June 15th. Date. So in terms of your recruiting calendar, you know, how, how heavy will you be talking to the, the juniors of the 25 class on that date versus how much of your 24 classes wrapped up kinda, what’s your recruiting calendar look like?
Coach: Yeah, so we, um, we’re pretty much, you know, we’re, we’re at a level and a size where, you know, we’ll start initiating conversations on June 15th with, with those 2020 fives. But a lot of our recruiting, you know, typically is done on that calendar year. Um, so, you know, we are still, he heavily looking at 20 fours hoping that we can get, you know, The aim is to have kind of three quarters of that class done by signing day in November and then, you know, you’ve still got wiggle room for that.
You know, you never know what’s gonna pop up late in spring and gives you room then to still bring more people the spring. So, you know, over this year, Um, this is my first year as the head coach here, and so my assistant and myself, you know, we’ve kinda been looking heavily at 20, 20 fours and then, you know, we [00:01:30] identified 20 fives that we’re able to now get in contact with on June 15th.
But, you know, a large bulk of our recruitment offers that are out there for, for 20 for sure.
Matt: Okay. Well you mentioned your, your, you’ve had one season under your belt, right? Uh, over there and, uh, I’m sure it’s, it’s. Going strong on the recruiting, trying to get the players that fit your system and do what you want.
So what, how big a roster do you aim for? What’s your kind of ideal size in, in a overall roster?
Coach: Um, it probably somewhere around that 30 mark. Um, not, not too, not too much below it and, and not massively over it, I think. Um, Somewhere around there. It, it drives a good level of competition in the group to where complacency can’t kick in.
You know, people don’t become comfortable, but also not to the point where mentally they’re, they’re just stressed out and feel too much pressure. Right. And so we’ve gotta have that good, that balance in the squad size to where everybody’s bringing it and they, they’re looking to compete for their sport playing time, so on.
Okay.
Matt: Well, when you’re, Out recruiting and, and looking at players. What are some of the main events that you like to go to that are kind of, must see TV on, on your list?
Coach: Yeah, so, um, you know, with, with, with budgets and making budgets work, you know, typically we’re gonna be at the events, the, the GA showcases.
Um, you know, we have the, the US Ys, southern regionals that’s gonna be happening down the road in [00:03:00] Baton Rouge. Um, and then we.
Mississippi and work a lot of the junior college ID camps there. Um, some of the other schools invite us, work ID, camps id, and so larger. Just as well with, with where we’re, we’re located, you know, we’re kinda five hours from Houston, so it’s pretty difficult to just get there for a game on one weekend and so, you know, we, we’ll typically go to the events and then as conversations progress with recruits and, you know, things start moving down the line, then we’ll definitely be going out to like individual and single games on, on weekends for sure.
That makes sense.
Matt: Well, when you’re at an event or an ID camp or any of these things, how, how much of it is you going to see players who’ve reached out to you, uh, versus you just happening upon players at a game or, or discovering somebody brand new?
Coach: Um, I, I’d say it’s probably a 30 70 split. So, you know, 30% of it is, is the people that have reached out to us.
And, you know, again, going off of what I previously said, how we do a lot of recruiting on that year. You know, we, we do get multiple emails, but a lot of them usually are kinda like, this year, you know, we’d get emails from 26 that we can’t even. We we’re not even gonna go out and really look at them. We’ll keep an, we’ll, keep an eye on them as, as the kinds progress in that, and definitely kinda invite them to camp.
But, [00:04:30] um, for the most part, you know, we get, we’ll get out, we’ll try and watch everybody that’s of a recruitable age that that contacts us. Um, you know, we like to give them the respect of doing that. If they, if they. You put the time into, look into our school and contact us. We’re never gonna not go and watch somebody, you know, we’ll get out, we’ll get to their game.
We’ll watch. And then obviously then the larger part of it as well is just, you know, being at the fields and seeing who’s, who’s on the game and, and who.
Matt: Okay. Well that makes a lot of sense. So in terms of, Your overall roster makeup? I looked, I looked online. It looks like you got a, a handful of junior college kids as well as a handful of international kids. So, so how does recruiting internationally and transfers, uh, work into your overall recruiting mix?
Coach: So, you know, we, we don’t wanna pretty much leave any stone unturned, right? You know, we we’re gonna look in every nook and cranny to try and find the players that we think can come in and be great fits for our program. Firstly, as people, but then, you know, obviously then as soccer players after and, and student athletes.
And so, um, we, we try to, you know, look everywhere, look at all corners of the globe. Um, one thing that kinda. Has the, I I’ve kind of noticed over, over the last kinda five years is that a lot of internationals that come in as freshmen will struggle for, for a year or so, you know, getting a climatized to the, the US soccer style of soccer and college soccer in specific.
Um, and so that’s where, you know, typically then the JUCO route [00:06:00] is a bit better. Cause they’ve had a couple of years playing in, in the US under their belt and got more familiar with, with the college style of game and. Okay.
Matt: Well, in terms of just the school itself, um, You know, as a parent, I’m gonna always wonder, okay, what’s this gonna cost me?
Um, so I know I’m not holding you to hard numbers here, but if, if there was a recruit that was interested and, and looking and saying, okay, can, can I make this work? Um, can you just give me a, a rough estimate of, of what an in incoming player could expect in terms of just. How much is school? What, what possible scholarships are there, both academic and athletic?
Can you stack what’s just a, a general picture might, might look like?
Coach: Yeah, so, um, you know, we do, we do allow students to stack scholarships. So, you know, you’ve got the opportunity to get some great academic aid based off of CT scores and. Um, you know, we do still require the a CT to get academic aid that’s not handed out yet, just based off of gpa.
I think, you know, down the line we may move to model, um, obviously athletic. We fully funded athletically, so, you know, got the opportunity to aid there and then. Also if you, if you’re qualifying for any government aid or even if there’s private scholarships, right? So your church might have a scholarship for you, you know, we’ll, we’ll allow you to stack that onto it and, and build a really great package overall.
Um, we have a real good way that we can, we can help people from out state with, with the out state fees as [00:07:30] well. So, you know, we’re able to give a lot of help towards that. And kinda everybody on the team is, is, you know, roughly paying in-state tuition. Um, which is great and you know, that’s where it helps us when you see our roster with how far people are coming from all over the country and even overseas.
Um, I think it’s roughly about 30,000 for the year for a regular out-of-state student, say 18,000, I think for in-state. Um, and you know, when, when we are able to, to build scholarship packages, I think we’re, we’re able to get the price down there to where it’s a real competitive, uh, you know, value that you paying and.
You know, that you feel is, is worth what you are gonna be getting back, right? The, the whole D one experience, the, the college, the educational side of things, you know, the campus, the facilities that the campus has available. Um, and all, all of the perks of just being a regular student on top of being that, that athlete as well.
Matt: Okay, well, if you’ve got a recruit, it looks like the financial part’s gonna work out the, you’ve seen them play, they’ve looked at your school, everything was good. What is it that’s gonna make. You know, what, what is that hierarchy of things that’s gonna make you wanna offer a spot, uh, to a player?
Coach: Um, so obviously, you know, we’ll go out we’ll, we’ll ID the players and then, you know, then we’ll start communications.
Communications are going, well, you know, they’re ready for an offer. We are at a point where we’re ready to offer cause we’ve seen enough. Um, but then we sit down, you know, we’d set up a Zoom call or a phone call and, you know, if mom and dad wanna [00:09:00] get on board, we’re more than happy for that as well. And then we’ll kind of put that off route there.
We’ll get a hard copy of it sent over electronically. Um, and then, you know, we don’t ever put any pressure on anybody to commit, right? So we’re never gonna hand out an offer and be like, Hey, we need an answer by this time next week, right? A big thing for us is that when we are recruiting somebody, they go and take their time.
They go and look at other schools, they go and look at other programs, because the worst thing that can happen for a coach is that. You bring a player in, they’ve not done any research anywhere else. And then for one reason or another, it might not work out on, on our side or their side. And that’s the last situation that any coach in the country wants.
Right? And so we’re very big on, on telling recruits that, hey, go and look at other schools, have something to compare. Cause when you make the decision to come to Southeastern, you know, we wanna know and we want you to know that it’s the right decision for you. And you feel that Southeastern is the place for you.
Matt: Oh, that’s great. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the school. Some folks may not be familiar with Southeastern. Um, you’ve been there a year now. Uh, so what, what have you found to be some of the great things about the school, uh, that, you know, maybe some cool facts that maybe we’re not gonna know just by going through the website.
Coach: Yeah, well, so I’ve actually been here for four years. I was an assistant before I became the head coach, so, ok.
Matt: My, my bad, my bad. Yeah.
Coach: No, no, that’s all good. Um, the town itself, Hammond is, is a real great, you know, small community, field town. A typical, kinda traditional college town where the, the population increases drastically when schools in and then [00:10:30] decreases when school out.
Um, but the community I always tell recruits that the community and the school. They kind of go hand in hand. And I don’t think one would exist without the other. You know, the people of the community cannot get behind the school enough. They can’t give enough of their time. Um, they wanna help out as much as possible.
You know, the, the mayor of the town, his house is right behind home plate and the baseball stadium. And so, you know, that kind of gives you the idea of how much the community is bought in and invested into. It’s situated in, in a great part of town. You know, it’s walking distance from the downtown area where there’s lots of locally owned, you know, restaurants, cafes, little boutique shops.
Um, and again, you know, it’s all kind of like mom and pop businesses. And then as you get to the outskirts of town, that’s where you’re gonna see kind of the bright light businesses and, and chains and. And all of that stuff. Um, the school, you know, a lot of people when we’re bringing them in for, for visits and especially those that are coming from outta state, you know, we always ask them on the phone, what’s your, what, what do you think of Louisiana?
And typically, you know, they’re coming back. Swamps, alligators, heart humid. That part’s definitely right. You know, they get, they step foot on campus on their tour and you know, nine times outta 10 they’re like, wow, this isn’t what we was expecting. You know, there’s so much greenery about, it’s, it’s a real beautiful campus.
I mean, there’s plenty, like I said, the greenery provides plenty of outdoor seating to where you wanted to sit outside and do any homework or, you know, studies the weather’s decent all year round, so you’ve got plenty of opportunity to do that. Um, [00:12:00] you know, the union, there’s a lot of. Renovation and improvements going on in campus and, and that’s always good for recruits to see cause it shows that money’s being put into the school and investments being there to help keep the school relevant and upgraded.
Um, and then obviously, you know, touching back on how the community is so involved, right? I think our C has won regional awards for their food. There’s people in the local community that will buy meal plans for the cafeteria. So it won’t be strange to see people from the community in there having lunch or breakfast.
Same with the recreation center. You know, there’s people from the community that will buy gym memberships and you can be in the, in the student wellness center and there’ll be just people from the community working out in there. Um, and then, you know, we have the, where there’s like a sidewalk that goes all the way around campus.
And as the weather improves, as the year goes on, more and more families walking, riding their bikes, going for runs, people walking their dogs, and you know, the people, people are just. Can’t do enough to be friendly for you and say hello. And then, you know, all the, all the people that own the local restaurants and the local businesses, um, you know, you know, there’s plenty of support for, for the athletics and, you know, there’s, there’s, you know, opportunities and, and deals on different days of the week for the student body to go and feast out in different restaurants or, or cafes.
Matt: Sounds great. Well, Besides the soccer part of it, there’s obviously the academic part of it. So how do your student athletes really balance their, their school studies and, [00:13:30] and the sports side of it? And what kind of support systems does a school offer to help them manage both of those?
Coach: So this, this is a, a really good part, right?
Cause we we’re. In academics, we want the girls importance. If lucky soccer will last four if unlucky, maybe right. And we wanna make sure you are best prepared for when you step into that world of work and everything that you’ve learned in the classroom. You’re confident in yourself and you believe that you’ve got the job cause you deserve it and you’re ready for it.
Um, you know, so a real cool thing about our school is that we don’t have classes on a Friday. So first of all, straight off the bat, we play our conference games Friday and Sunday. So we’re pretty much never missing class. Um, now our, our classes are small in size. I think it’s an average of about 21 to a professor.
So, you know, you’re always in class, you’re in a small class. Professors know who you are. Then they’re gonna know you’re on the soccer team. They’ll know when your games are, and all of that stuff comes into helping you be successful, right? The more personal you can be with professors and the more of these intimate relationships we can have, you know, then the more you know, the more success you’re gonna find in the classroom.
Then outside of that, We have the, uh, sharp center in the, in the stadium. And, um, basically our soccer team that’s for student athletes will be in there twice a week. We’ll do our study ball hours in there. Um, if they wanna go in there and at any other times in the day, they have open hours, there’s free tutoring available for the student athletes.
[00:15:00] Um, you know, the director of that facility and, and the other people that work there are more than happy to check over any work if you want. Um, and, and again, that’s another tool that helps them stay on top of their studies. We then have the director of that facility, he, his name’s Austin. Um, he works with our team.
So, you know, he makes sure our team, when it comes to scheduling classes, being on track to graduate on time, being in the right amount of hours to be eligible, you know, he helps take a lot of pressure off of, off of their shoulders on that side of things as well. And again, it’s just, There’s so much in place, there’s no reason that people can’t be successful in the classroom.
And I think, um, you know, over this past year in the fall, we had the highest team GPA in the athletic department. And then this past semester, I think we were like second, third in the department. So, you know, we, we do put an emphasis on it. And then when we were on the road, you know, there’s plenty of downtime in the hotels where the girls can get their laptops out, their books out, make sure they’re just staying on track all.
Matt: Oh, that’s fantastic. Well, you talked about not having class on Fridays, but if, if we were in season, you know, fast forward to the fall, what, what would a normal week look like for the players in terms of, you know, classes, meals, training times, all that kind of thing?
Coach: Yeah, so we practice in the morning, so we’re typically out on the field at 6:00 AM.
Um, and then practices is, you know, full flow by six 30. Um, people typically end starting classes until about nine 30. Um, we kinda keep that 8:00 AM block free, so, so we can practice. Um, there’s some degrees where there might be like one class in one semester that they have to take [00:16:30] 8:00 AM and so, you know, we work around that rather than just have them miss practice.
We’ll kinda just move, move the practice time maybe a little bit earlier so everybody can still be involved. Um, so yeah. And then a typical week, So if we start with a Friday game, we play Friday night, Saturdays, then gonna be kind of a, a recovery session on the field, just going over some kinda tactical stuff for our opposition on Sunday.
Uh, and then Sunday we play at midday again. Monday is typically our day off so the girls can, you know, just kinda decompress, reset, refocus for the new week, the new task ahead, if anybody’s wanting to go and do any extra work. You know, we always have our, uh, equipment out available for the girls and so they’re more than welcome to get out the field or in the weight room.
Uh, Tuesday is then kind of a, a regen session, so, hey, welcome back, new week. Nothing crazy, nothing massive because you know, we’ve had a busy weekend and a day off. Um, usually ends with a bit of fun in a five to five tournament, which, you know, gets very competitive out there. All the girls want their picture with their team on, on Instagram for the week as five to five champions.
Um, Wednesdays then moving into on, then Tuesday after practice we, we lift, so we lift once a week in the fall. Um, and that’s kind of more of a, an injury prevention lift than just making sure that we’re minimizing risks of injuries there. Wednesday we then move into our big session. So you. Um, more areas, you know, more kind of tactical attack against defense, and then a bit of conditioning at the end of it.
Thursdays, then we’ll low again, and then we’re [00:18:00] looking at pre-game set pieces and, you know, a little bit of fun as a team before, before the session starts. And, and we try and have that fun element in there. You know, most days we kinda some fun type of game before, before we get moving into the of the session.
And especially with practicing at that helps. Energized the squad and get the zombies out everybody and, and, you know, get them alert for the session.
Matt: No, I love it. Alright, well let’s talk a little bit more about, about the soccer side of things there. Right? So you mentioned earlier, um, your roster size.
What about your staff size? How many people do you have both on direct soccer staff, as well as maybe support staff in the department? What role does everybody play there?
Coach: Yeah, so we have, um, myself and then my assistant, uh, Jack is full-time assistant, and then we’re just bringing in a graduate assistant this year as well, that start in August.
Um, and he’ll be working with the goalkeepers goalkeepers. Um, and then outside of that, we have a full-time athletic trainer that’s with us for everything, you know, practices, home games, away games, really great at his job. Um, does a real great job when it comes to kinda the GPS data and the analytics. And, you know, we all work together to help, you know, make sure that we’re monitoring the load of everybody, um, a full-time strength coach, that that works with our team.
And so, you know, all of our lifts, he, he takes care of all of that. Um, and then outside of that, you know, there’s a, a nutritionist that, that we have that that’s available and she’ll come in and, and give regular talks with the team. And, you know, if any of the girls wanna [00:19:30] set up appointments with her, she’s the type of person that will go to the grocery store with her and show them what, like a good shop for an looks like and, you know, type good meals that athletes can eat.
Um, we have the, the academic advisors, so, you know, there’s, we’ve got probably what, three. Four kind of immediate staff on, on, on the team. And then there’s kinda two, three E external staff to, to be added on there. Okay. That’s great.
Matt: Well, now you mentioned, uh, GPS and low data. So what, what sort of technology do you guys implement on a regular basis, whether for training or matches and, and, and how does that look?
Coach: Yep. So we have the, the Titan GPS trackers. So the girls will wear ’em every day at practicing games. Um, and you know, we’re, we’re just monitoring basically their, their physical exertion and high speed running, their sprint speeds, how many kinda stops and starts they’re doing, their total distances covered.
Um, with goalkeepers, we’re looking at kind of the inertia and how much force they’re producing, producing, and hitting the ground at, um, just so we can kind of manage our training load throughout the week to, you know, help reduce the risk of injury. Right. No good to anybody. If you’ve got four or five kids on the sideline for a large bulk of the season, you know nobody’s gonna help you win games there.
Right? So the healthier we can keep everybody, the better chance we have in, in competing on the field. And I think that, you know, we do a real great job with everybody on staff that that has an impact on it. You know, I think how number last year was in the fall was about 96% practice [00:21:00] participation. So, you know, we rarely had people out injured.
Um, One of the girls came in as a freshman who was already carrying an injury and was out for the year, and that’s kind of one of the main reasons why our participation was even not even higher. And so we do a real good job at managing that. And then camera wise, you know, we use this video camera which helps kind of automatically track and follow, but it’s brilliant for us when we’re editing and clip and film to show the girls.
You know, you can drag and, and scroll through the camera and, and if we had two different drills going on in practice, we could watch one side of the field and then we could flip over and watch the other side of the field. So we, yeah, we use, uh, this video camera for film and then tighten for the, the GPS tracking.
Matt: Okay. That’s great. Well, going to on the field game stuff, how would you describe your style of coaching and the style of play that you guys wanna implement?
Coach: So the, the biggest thing for us is making sure that the girls kind of don’t have a fear when they’re on the field, right? It’s very important that they all understand that mistakes are inevitable.
Everybody makes mistakes, especially in a game of soccer, right? Even the top, top level players, they’re gonna give the ball away. You know, they’re gonna get tackled. They might make it, they might make a bad decision. That’s perfectly fine. Right? We need to accept that and then it’s how we, we cope with that and move forward.
And so a big, a big thing for us is, you know, we’re not gonna be on the sideline berating people if they’ve done anything, even in [00:22:30] practice, you know, we’ll, we’ll be vocal and help people in positioning and you know, sometimes. If there’s a, if it’s urgent, we might be even a bit more louder, but, um, we we’re never gonna be, you know, screaming at somebody or subbing someone off if they’ve had a, if they’ve had a real bad moment, you know, and we’ll kinda talk them through it and, and, you know, use it as a learning moment.
See if we can do better at that next time through, um, playing wise, obviously, you know, we wanna play to win and so, Whatever we’ve scouted on our opposition each week and you know, what we, what we’ve been fit and how to go into a game to, to get the best result possible. That’s how we’re gonna set up. And so if it means that, you know, we might have more of the ball in the game, and so be it.
If it means that we, we might have less of the ball in a certain game, then so be that. You know, I think one of the biggest things that, that we talk about as a staff is. It’s, it’s a real pet peeve when people lose and then they, they come out and say, oh yeah, but they didn’t play the right weight. Well, you know, there’s, there’s no nobility in losing, right?
Everybody wants to win. Everybody wants to get that ring at the end of the season. And so, you know, we, we, it would be perfect. In a perfect world, yeah, we would keep the ball for 85 minutes of the game and have a thousand passes and create chances after chances, but in reality, you know, it happens few and far between.
You know, with the analytics and the video analysis and you know, when scouting our oppositions, we come up with a game plan that we believe is the best, get a result and change from game to. Sure.
Matt: Well, coach, I really appreciate it. You’ve, you’ve given us lots of information, [00:24:00] but I want extract one last piece from you and that is, if, if you had one nugget, one piece of advice for anybody going through the college recruiting process right now, something you wanna make sure any parent or player knows, what would that one piece of advice be?
Coach: So, biggest thing that I always tell recruits is, is don’t shut any doors. You know, the world is full of doors and you wanna get as many of them open as possible, so you’ve got more opportunities to lead down further roads. Right. And I think that for nearly everybody, there’s a college out. Right?
Obviously for the sheer number of how many people play soccer and and how many colleges there are, right? Yeah. Technically there’s not. But there’s so many people that. Shut a door because they’re instantly, I don’t wanna leave my state, or I don’t wanna go to the other side of the country, or I only wanna play d1.
Right? If a coach is interested in you, listen to them. Listen to what they’ve got, say, entertain the conversation. You know, go on a visit, go and look at the place, because you may end up actually stepping foot on campus and thinking, wow, I actually could see myself living here beyond college, you know? And so, yeah, my biggest bit of advice would be, don’t shut in doors.
Keep as many open as possible. Okay.
Matt: Awesome. Well, coach, really appreciate the time. Really interested to see how you guys do in the fall. And if you get to any of the recruiting events down here in Bradenton, gimme a shout and we’ll, uh, we’ll get together. All right.
Coach: Definitely. Thank you for giving me the time to come and talk to you about our program and, uh, hopefully yeah, we can, we can touch base and keep in touch and meet, meet soon.
Matt: Awesome. Thanks, coach. All right. Take care.
Coach: Bye-Bye.
