University of Charleston Men’s Soccer – Coach Daniel Smee
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Daniel Smee from the University of Charleston Men’s Program in West Virginia. We talk about how they have a larger roster that includes a development team. He describes the school’s high percentage of student athletes. Lastly, we discuss how they like to play a possession-based style. Learn more about University of Charleston Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Daniel Smee at the University of Charleston in West Virginia. Welcome coach.
Coach: Thanks for having me, Matt. Looking forward to it.
Matt: Yeah, thanks for being here. You guys are having a, another great season over there. I’ve, I used to go to, there used to be a tournament called the Sternwheeler in Charleston.
Uh, when I was. 12 years old that we would go to every year. So that’s that. I haven’t been to Charleston in 30 plus years, but, uh, , I’m sure it’s changed a little bit
Coach: since. We had a thing this somehow The Sternwheeler regatta. Yeah. Like the big thing. And apparently it was the first time it had been here in 20 to 25 years.
Oh, wow. Okay.
Matt: Talking about, Yeah. It must be, uh, crazy. Um, well let’s talk a little bit about, uh, your recruiting process. Uh, we’ll start there, but when do you usually start looking for, for players? Really start watching ’em, getting ’em on your radar and, and, and sorting out your recruiting classes.
Coach: Yeah, I think we’re a little [00:01:00] bit different to, to a lot of other programs.
Just we, we’ve had a, we have a large squad of, of student athletes. Um, I’m in my sixth season now and we’ve, we’ve sort of averaged probably around 60. Um, this year we have 54, um, which is I think the lowest that’s been since I’ve been here in those six seasons I mentioned. Um, so for us, honestly, uh, we don’t start the process till fairly late.
Um, For example, obviously we’re looking for 20, 20 threes right now, uh, which is the next class. Um, and we, we probably won’t even really, um, do too much with 2020 fours until next year. Now we do have camps and we do invite 20 fours, 20 fives, and 26 high school age kids to come to those camps. And it’s always nice to get on our radar and, and for us to know who you are ahead of time.
Um, and obviously if you’re a good player, we think you’re a good person and you might be a good. We’ll keep in contact with you over the, over the years prior to camp or, uh, [00:02:00] after camp, sorry. Um, but for us it’s mainly just one year in advance. Um, just because of the, the, the large roster size and with everything that goes on with the transfer portal now, um, and how easy it is for student athletes to transfer.
We just never know how many guys we’re gonna need, like sometimes. For our roster, we might expect to need 10 new players next year. And then you have some transfers. Some guys, um, might, might just go and, and do school instead of playing soccer. Um, so it might end up being 20. Um, so I do think we’re a little bit unique in that regard.
Matt: So that must mean you guys run kind of a development squad as well then?
Coach: Yes. Yeah. So, um, Two crosses, two headquarters previous to me, um, created that. I think he, he was probably, I think he was the first one to do it and I know it’s a lot more prevalent within division two in particular right now on the men’s side.
It’s coming into the women’s side as well, I think a little bit more as well. Um, but Chris Grassy, uh, who’s now the headquarters at [00:03:00] Marshall University on the men’s side, he was the one I think who sort of pioneered it, uh, back in 20 13, 20 14. We’ve had one here at uc ever since. So yeah, we, we run a first team on the development team.
Yeah. Okay.
Matt: Well, you know, looking at your roster, you kind of skew heavily internationally, so how are you finding players there? How does that, how does that work with your overall recruiting methodology and, and, and are you seeing, are you going overseas to see kids or are you kind of just going through video?
How does that work?
Coach: A bit of both. Um, we’re doing both. Matt, to be honest. We video nowadays with technology. Every, every email you get for, um, a potential student athlete has a video on it, which is great. Obviously. Nice to see, um, someone in that first contact. It’s always nice to take a look at that video immediately and see where you, you obviously feel like they might fall within the roster.
Um, when it comes to internationals, yes, we do travel internationally to go and. A lot of international companies now have [00:04:00] showcase events, um, do showcase games, things like that, like they do here in the United States. So we’ll go to those if we feel like it’s a company that can provide student athletes for us.
Um, or maybe in the past they’ve provided student athlete. That’s worked out for us. We’ll, we’ll go back. Sometimes we’ll go abroad. Um, just to look at a specific player, maybe see them in their sort of home environment playing for their, their team that they’re playing for, just like you would, uh, just like we do as well within the United States.
Matt: Now, one question that I get fairly often, uh, and, and I think, again, I think it usually more prevalent on the guy’s side, but is, you know, aren’t, aren’t there, you know, Good soccer players in America. Why, why does it seem that a lot of college, especially D two n a, I go overseas to pull players? So, and it’s kind of a loaded question, but it’s one I think parents always ask, and I have my answer, you know, as a former D two coach, but, but I’d [00:05:00] love to hear where, where you’re coming from.
Coach: I, I’ll have an opinion on that, Matt. Um, first of what I would say is for us, since I’ve been at this program, it’s been heavy international, so, We were so successful before I came. Doesn’t make sense for me to then come in and try and just change everything. Sure. Um, we have, since I became the head coach, tried to recruit a lot more regionally, so we do our best to at.
Let the West Virginia kids know, and the local Ohio kids, Kentucky kids, like if we feel like they’re a good player, that this is a potential option for them. Um, but we also encourage them to go and look elsewhere. If you wanna move outta state, then just know, go and look outta state and if you want to come back to us, we’ll be here waiting.
Um, we don’t have a, a maximum cap on the amount of student athletes we can have. So if someone last minute is a local kid and we really like them as a, as a person, and I think they might help. Um, and they don’t have any other options. We, we’ll take ’em. Like we, we are happy to provide that opportunity, but again, we only like to do that for [00:06:00] local kids and give that opportunity to the West Virginia kids if we can.
Um, my theory on the, what the, the main question you asked them at is what I’ve learned, and again, I was, I was a youth soccer coach here in the States before I became a college coach, or while I was doing college or coaching, uh, a few years ago. The majority of high end. US based soccer players grow up their whole life saying, I wanna play division one soccer.
Uh, and then it gets to a point towards the end of their high school years where maybe they have those options to play division one. But often, more often than not, they don’t, obviously, because we know how difficult it is to get into a top program. Um, and the majority of young men, at least at that stage of their career, I have found.
Would rather go to a division one school and not play soccer than go to a division two school or division three school or a junior college and play soccer. So, [00:07:00] perfect example. Um, five or six years ago, I had the 2001 boys team who were going into their senior year here in West Virginia, and it was probably 16, 17 young men on that team.
And they were all good players. They were obviously, you see some youth teams where maybe you’ve got eight, nine, and then you’ve got eight, nine, who, who went up on a plane? We had probably 16 or 17 that could play in college somewhere. And for two years prior to them graduating high school, I said to them, Listen guys, you need to make a decision.
Cause you can all play. The best player might be able to go to a big division one, like, and be a squad player, might be able to go to a mid-level division one and play every week. Um, you could go to uc and, and be a squad player and get on the pitch occasionally and, and play it. Or you can. Go to West Virginia University and not be a student athlete and just enjoy life.
That player chose to go to West Virginia University and enjoy his collegiate experience, which is fine. Like that’s his decision. And then we’ve got guys at the other end, [00:08:00] or maybe we had two or three guys that I thought were good enough to play at that level. We probably had 12, 14 that were good enough to play a D three whatever.
Um, mid-level D two and I think two or three of that group of 16 or 17. LA are playing collegiate soccer. Now one of them’s at a division three school and he’s the best player, gets all region awards and is doing great and loves it. One of ’em went to Concord University, um, here in West Virginia, which is a low level division two, and he has been playing, um, for the last two, three years.
The rest of them chose to go to a different school, usually a bigger school, um, and just enjoy it. So my theory is, There is options out there. There, there is, um, op opportunities to play, but the reality of the level, um, needs to be either explained to the, the young PSAs or they need to kind of figure it out themselves.
Maybe I’m not good enough to play at [00:09:00] a Wake Forest, a Clemson, uh, whatever it is. Maybe I can go and play, but it has to be the smaller school in a different.
Matt: Yeah. No, no. Makes sense. And, and I’ve seen that, uh, a hundred times as well, uh, through the years. So no, that makes probably,
Coach: probably more than a hundred, I would say,
Matt: Exactly. Well, you know, you mentioned camps earlier, so you know, are camps a big part of your recruiting process for the, for the local kids, or do you guys work other camps? How does that kind of fit in?
Coach: Yeah, we, we try to do, um, two ID camps a year, so one in the fall, one in the spring, and, and from a domestic, PSA standpoint, those are very important.
Um, we try to get out to showcases and events in the spring semester within the us. A lot of those events in the fall are kind of during our season. And touch wood, I’m gonna touch wood here because hopefully we do it again, but usually we’re playing all the way up until December, right? Or we have been since I’ve been here.
And a lot of those events are in sort of November, late [00:10:00] October, early December. And if we’re still playing and trying to focus. Win a national championship or win a game or whatever. It is difficult for us to get out and about. And it’s the same, we don’t go internationally at that time cause we’re focusing on the season.
So camps are very important for us as they are for a lot of programs. Um, we try to keep the cost as low as we can because for us it’s not a huge cost building measure. I don’t think we’ve done an ID camp since I’ve been here. That’s I more than 30 kids. Which is good because if you are a person at the camp, by the end of the day, every coach, you’ve got six coaches.
This year, all six coaches are gonna know your name. They’re gonna where you from. All six coaches are gonna know where you’re from and, and. What your background is as opposed to going to one of those huge camps with hundred 50, 200 kids and where you’re just gonna get lost in the crowd I think a little bit.
Yeah.
Matt: No, makes sense. Well, you mentioned tournaments. Are there kind of, obviously you’re not hitting ’em in the fall, but what are some of the maybe winner or spring tournaments that are, you know, must, [00:11:00] must go to on your list?
Coach: We, um, we’re always heading, We don’t go too far west. I’ll say that. We spend a lot of time in this.
Um, Maryland, Virginia, um, heading over that way. There’s a, there’s usually a region regional tournaments here for clubs that are this past year it was hosted here in Charleston, which was great for us cuz we were able to get three coaches there. Um, but mostly the, the, the major tournaments here in the sort of northeast area are the ones that we target again, just based on experience.
A kid from California, Texas. While they may be very good soccer players, difficult to convince them to come to a small, private division two school in West Virginia. Um, don’t wanna be that far away from home. Um, probably have a similar option closer to home out there on the west coast or whatever it is.
So, um, usually we’re spending time here in the northeast area, those showcases. Okay. The good thing for us as well is we have, uh, like [00:12:00] I said, we have six coaches. I think I’m the only coach. On staff that doesn’t coach a youth soccer team as well. So in the spring semester when these youth soccer tournaments are going on, on the weekends, we typically have representation there, um, who are probably coaching their own team, and then they have time in between games to get out and about and take a look.
Oh, that’s helpful.
Matt: Um, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask the, uh, the, the question most parents want to know. And, and that’s about money, right? So with you bringing in, you know, 60 man roster and, and the limits on scholarships, kind of, can you just, and I’m not holding you to, to hard numbers here, but just kind of give me a broad sense of, of what an average student athlete coming into Charleston’s gonna be looking at.
Cost and financial aid perspective.
Coach: Yeah. Obviously it’s a really important question for a lot of people. It’s the most important question, right? So, um, for us, as I said, we’re a small private Division II school. It’s if we run about 40,000, uh, annually in cost for tuition, room and board. [00:13:00] However, what’s great here is every student gets an academic scholarship.
So even if you have a 2.0 GPA out of a 4.0, you’re gonna get four, 5,000, four or 5,000 in, in academic scholarship, which is obviously not a huge number, but it’s gonna help, uh, if you have a 4.0, those academic scholarships run all the way up to 20,000. So, um, the 4.0 student. Uh, from a domestic standpoint is gonna get almost 50% of their commission room of world costs covered through an academic scholarship with us.
Uh, and then obviously again, if you’re a domestic student, um, you’re going to be looking at fast far and, and some other potential federally that could help you. Um, most of our American guys, if I was to pick a number of the, the cost of their P each year, I wouldn’t, I would be surprised if it’s anywhere more than 10,000, but from an average, Just because of the academic scholarships, as I mentioned, and then obviously the, the grants and the [00:14:00] aid that they can get through the, the government.
Matt: Okay. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the, the school itself. You mentioned, you know, you’re a private school there in Charleston, West Virginia. So what, what are some of the awesome things about your school that, you know, I might not find out just by clicking around the website?
Coach: I think, um, obviously we we’re, we’re location is, is not what we tell to PSAs is, um, obviously we’re not a New York City, We’re not a Miami, we’re not a, even a Charlotte, North Carolina when it comes to size of city.
Well, we are still a capital here at West Virginia. Um, so we have about 50,000 people in Carson in the surrounding area. Um, as you know, as most people know, West Virginia is very big outdoor state, so lots of things to do outside hiking, um, walking, um, whitewater rafting, all of these things In Charleston, you kind of have everything that you need from a social standpoint far as restaurants, cinemas, um, Every ax throwing [00:15:00] all of these things.
So it’s, you’re not going so into the middle of nowhere, I would call it, into some of these really small schools that you, you’ve got an hour before you within civilization, it feels like sometimes. Um, so from a location standpoint, we’re pretty good. I don’t, I think it could be a lot worse. It could obviously depend on what you’re looking forward could be a lot better as well.
Um, when it comes to the university where we have 2,500 students, but only about seven 50 of those are on campus. Um, and of those seven 50, there’s about 650 that are student athletes. Um, we have 20 athletic programs here at uc, and 95% of the, um, population on campus are gonna be fellow student athletes.
So we’ve got people from all over the world, um, tennis. Um, ourselves, women’s soccer, tennis, um, some other sports have a lot of, uh, track cross country and track. Have a lot of international students as well. So for our [00:16:00] international students, it’s good for them because they know there’s probably gonna be someone from their home country somewhere here on campus.
And then from a domestic student standpoint, same thing. Most states in this country are represented here on campus that you see within the student athlete and population. So I like that from a diversity standpoint. You’ve got people from sort of all over the place. Um, I just bringing their different cultures and things like that to campus here.
I really like that. And then the last thing is obviously the athletics programs. Like I said, we have 20 programs here. Um, and the majority of those are very successful in the sport that they compete in. Um, we have a lot of conference championship winners, winners conference tournament winners in some regional representation and national represe.
Not just in our program, but in, in a whole bunch of other programs as well.
Matt: Awesome. Well, on the flip side of things, from an academic standpoint, you know, how do your student athletes balance their studies and sport commitments, and what kind of support mechanisms does, does the school provide to help them with that?[00:17:00]
Coach: It’s a great question. And something else I think that we, um, do really well here, and I, I probably should have mentioned it in the previous question, very small, um, teacher to student ratio, I think it’s about one to 12, one to 13. Some classes up to maybe 15, 16, but you’ve obviously, the good thing about that is you building that personal relationship with the teacher.
Uh, it was very good for me when I was a student. I went to West Virginia Wesleyan College, which is another school here in our conference. Similar size and similar sort of style of, of college to uc. Um, and it was great for me to, especially as an international, um, build that relationship with a teacher, learn the ropes a little bit, be able to ask questions directly, be able to go and see that teacher in the office during office hours.
And, and if I, if you have any questions, ask them. Um, I do think at small private schools, if you just do those things, do your homework on time, go to class and show an effort. In class, I think you’re gonna get a c . I think you’re gonna pass the class because the [00:18:00] teacher appreciates the work that you put in and they’ll do their best to help you.
And every class that we have here at uc, there’s a free tutor available. So anyone who’s really struggling and, and needs the class for their major or whatever can, um, sign up with a tutor, uh, once or twice a week and, and get themselves in there for any help. And again, that’s all free, that’s all part of the process.
I think that’s a great benefit that we have. Being such a small private school, like I. That’s
Matt: awesome. Um, can you just real quick, walk me through what a quote unquote typical, uh, week looks like during the season for your players in terms of, you know, when they’re eating practice games, you, you know, uh, I know there’s no such thing as an average week, but, but the best, the best of your ability, just just to give folks an idea.
Coach: Yeah. Yeah. So most of our games are, uh, first team games are Wednesdays and Sunday. That’s decided by the conference every year. We do have the option to change those days, but most of the time [00:19:00] we we’re keeping them on Wednesdays and Sundays Our development team plays on a Friday evening usually. Um, we like to give that sort of day gap in between each game so we can prepare properly before each one and then sort of review after each one and not have a rush to try and get to the next game.
So first Team Wednesday, Sunday Development team Friday, uh, with one game per week for that group. If we’re just talking about the first team, typical schedule, we’ll go. Um, Sundays obviously a game. As I said Monday there’ll be a sort of light session, a recovery session. Tuesday is a pre-game session.
Wednesday we play, um, Thursdays, Typically an off day. Friday and Saturday we’re ing again. Um, during the week, our practices are in the afternoons. Our university has the window between two and. Where they’re on no classes. Um, and all athletic teams are sort of encouraged to, to practice in between those hours.
So our first team usually goes two to four. Our development team usually goes four to six. Um, and classes are usually [00:20:00] before that window and, and some are after. So usually having class anywhere between eight and two, um, lunch whenever you want. Obviously between that breakfast whenever you want in the morning practice in the afternoon there after those classes.
Um, dinner afterwards, and then you might have an evening class as well. Uh, at some point. We usually train on a Saturday morning and we like the guys, and to be honest, the staff like to have our Saturday afternoons to kind of relax and have some downtime. So Saturdays we’ll get out there early, sort of nine and 10 30, get our sessions done and, and out of the way, and then we’ll, we’re looking towards that Sunday game at that point.
All
Matt: right. That makes sense. Well let, let’s talk a little bit more about the, the, the team and, and the soccer side of things. Um, you mentioned your staff, you know, can, can you gimme a little bit more about how big they are, who does, what kind of the roles they play, et
Coach: cetera? Yeah, so we usually have five members of staff.
Um, this year we’ve got six because we have a student assistant that’s doing a great job in helping us [00:21:00] out. So it’s myself as the head coach, obviously from the. Our full-time assistant coach is from Virginia Beach, American, um, played at Marshall University and then went on to play professionally in the United States and in in the Netherlands.
Um, we have two graduate assistants, um, who study a master’s and then help us as well as an assistant coach. One is from Scotland and one is from Argentina. Um, the Argentinian there is our goalkeeper coach. We also have a part-time coach from the UK as well from London, who was the graduate assistant last year and just graduated.
Um, we all kind of share roles. Um, we try to albe at every training session that we can. Myself included, I’m at every development team training session. The rest of the staff are at every first team session and same for the games. Um, we try and chip in, we try and share the load as much as we can, but we all, um, chip in with, with all of that.
Travis, our assistant coach, full-time assistant coach American, [00:22:00] who I mentioned is our recruiting coordinator. So he kind of is in charge of our recruiting document, uh, list of list of potential student athletes. Obviously he is more of a spreadsheet where we can, um, We have a star rating on there, a graduation year position video, and it’s just one database where we all get to take a look.
Travis is in charge of keeping that together and we actually have a recruiting meeting in a couple hours just to kinda review and see where we are. We try and do that every couple weeks, um, but a great staff, to be honest. Matt, um, love it. I think myself, Travis and Gary, three of the coaches have been together now for, this is our third season.
I think we kind of probably see too much of each other and know how we work, how each other work too much. Um, a little bit, but great staff and certainly helps us, um, with everything that we need to do on the, on the week to week.
Matt: No, that’s great. Uh, that’s, that’s a benefit. A lot of, lot of D two schools don’t, uh, get that much staffing help, so you’re in a good spot there.
I know, I know. I didn’t when I was coaching
Coach: D [00:23:00] two. Yeah, I know, I know all about that. This is my fourth division II coaching job and. It’s the first one that we’ve had more than two members of staff. No, it’s, it’s
Matt: amazing. Well, it’s a blessing. Can, can you give me just, uh, Uh, quick, and it’s kind of a general question, but you know, I always like to ask it just cuz folks wanna know.
Can you just gimme an idea of your, your kind of, your style of coaching team, style of play and just that overall culture of the team? Yeah.
Coach: Um, from my standpoint as an individual, I’m still quite young. I like to think I’m only 32. Um, I still played until fairly recently at. Very average level, but , I like to, I like to feel like, because I’m so similar in age to a lot of our, I’m getting further away obviously, but I’m, I’m quite close in age to a lot of the student athletes.
I feel like I have a good personal relationship with a lot of them. I try to. Um, get to know every one of ’em from a personal standpoint. Cause I do think that’s so important. When it comes to playing style, we, we are just, typically [00:24:00] it’s the way it’s been since I’ve arrived. We’re sort of a possession oriented team.
We typically, and I don’t think this is big headed to say, we typically have better players than the teams we’re playing against because of all the benefits we’ve mentioned. Obviously scholarship dollars are, are a huge part of that. We’re very well funded and we’ve had a lot of success. So we get good players because of.
Um, and obviously when you have better players, typically you’re gonna have more of the ball in the game. So we, we talk about trying to dominate and control the game in possession as much as we can all of the time. We try to, to say that it’s, it is okay to not have possession. Um, I know a lot of, a lot of teams that have 60, 70% possession.
When they lose it, they kind of panic that we gotta get it back immediate. It is nice to do that, but sometimes it’s okay as long as you’re organized out of possession. Uh, and we like to be a team in the third part of the game that are really good in transition moments. So when that possession turns over, we like to be really dangerous in the opportunity to go and score if we can.
Uh, and on the flip side, if we lose it, we do [00:25:00] try and be one of those teams that you hear about a lot on the modern side who try and win that ball back in the next few seconds. And of course you can’t do that every time, but that’s what we try to do at least. Okay.
Matt: Well we’ve gone over a ton of stuff and, and gotten a great insight into your program.
I always like to end these the same way and that’s what didn’t we talk about? What did we miss? Is there anything you wanna tell us more about the school, the program, the team, or anything about the recruiting process in general? Now’s the.
Coach: Yeah, well, I would say Matt is, um, in relation to the recruitment process, always, um, available via email.
If, if we want to go on our website, it’s, uh, uc golden eagles.com. Um, obviously visit the men’s soccer page. Myself, Travis and, and Gary’s email addresses are all on there. If you are a, a potential student athlete that would be interested on. Interested in, in looking, I have to potentially join us here at uc.
Feel free to send us an email. We’ll certainly read that email and, and let you know our thoughts. Uh, we do have a camp coming up at the end of this month that all [00:26:00] that information is available on social media and online as well. So, Um, we, as you’ve, you’ve mentioned, Matt, we kind of have student athletes from everywhere.
So whoever’s listening to this, wherever you are in the world, really, there, there could be a potential opportunity to join us. And I do think, as I said, the, uh, I think the healthy academic packages that we can offer that uc are, um, very appealing to, to a lot of potential student athletes as well as the.
The scholarship dollars that we have from an athletic standpoint. Oh, that’s
Matt: fantastic. Well, coach, we wish you the best of luck. You’re off to, uh, a wonderful, wonderful record so far. So we wish you, uh, all the luck in getting to that, uh, national championship goal that I’m sure you guys set for yourself.
So, uh, thanks for joining us and, and we’ll talk soon. All right.
Coach: Brilliant. Thanks, Mark. Take care. Thank you.
