University of Chicago Men’s Soccer – Coach Phillip Kroft

On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Phillip Kroft from the University of Chicago Men’s Soccer program in Illinois. We talk about how UChicago recruits on an accelerated timeline compared to most schools, the importance of ID camps and showcases in their process, and what they look for in high-academic student-athletes. Coach Kroft also shares what makes UChicago unique academically and athletically, including the competitive culture, quarter system, and holistic college experience their players receive. Lastly, we discuss the program’s blue-collar mentality, small roster philosophy, and the balance players are able to strike between elite academics, soccer, internships, and study abroad opportunities. Learn more about University of Chicago Men’s Soccer.

[00:00:00] Hi, everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today, I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Kroft at the University of Chicago. Welcome, Coach. Thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for being here. I know, uh, I’m sure people are real excited to hear. Every- everybody gets, gets geeked up about the UAA-

and those, those high D3s. And of course we’re, we’re always having conversations about the, oh, you know, D1 versus D3, and then, and, and how many, how many schools in your conference could, you know, just beat up that, the lower half- … of, of, of Division I, right? So. Yeah. Um- No comment. Okay. Yeah, right. Smart, smart man, smart man.

Well, we’re, we … Look, hey, we’re, we’re talking beginning of May. Um, and, you know, the things like the portal, Division one- Yeah … rules versus Division II versus Division … Like, all the, all, all these things have changed the landscape. So for you right now- Yeah … how much of your class of [00:01:00] ’27 is locked and loaded?

Uh, when… And if it’s not all done, when do you think it’ll be done? How much of your ’28s- Yeah … have you been working on? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we basically, we being like the high academic school, so, you know us, a lot of our, our counterparts in the UAA, your Patriot League schools, your Ivy League, some of your NESCACs, I, I like to phrase it as we all tend to operate like a year ahead of time.

So like my incoming fall 2026 class was wrapped up by September of 2025, right? So like pretty much when we’re starting our pre-season, starting regular season, we wanna be done with the class for the next year. And the big re- biggest reason for that is application windows open up on August 1st, right?

Yeah. So, like, this August 1, 2027s can now start applying to the school. We have the most amount of support with admissions the earlier guys apply, right? So, like, I want my whole class committed and applying in August, September timeframe, not waiting till, you know, the ED1 deadline on November 4th or whatever it is, right?

Then it doesn’t look as, as good to admissions, then you’re being compared [00:02:00] to 45,000 other applicants across the world. So I can obviously talk much more about, about, you know, kind of that type of stuff. But yeah, so for us, we are in the thick of 2027. Most of our offers will come out over the summer.

We’ve signed two kids in the class so far that are kids that, yeah, we’ve been on for a while. Like, they came to our camps last summer. You know what I mean? So, um, we were able to sign them, I would say, a little bit earlier than, than typical. But yeah, for us, normally kind of like this timeframe, May, June, July, August, like that’s when the majority of our, of our offers will be coming out.

And then 2028- We obviously don’t have to operate on the Division 1 timeline of waiting until June 15th to talk to 2028, but I kind of keep that rule of thumb anyway. Like, I, I did coach at one Division 1 school, this is now, now my third Division 3, and, like, that timeline even, even in my mind kind of makes sense.

Like, I can’t be doing phone calls with 2028s every other day when I’m still in the thick of the 2027 class, I’ll just be honest about it. So yeah, we, we, we certainly have a board of maybe like, I don’t know, 20 kids that are already on our board for 2028, but yeah, I mean, I [00:03:00] don’t think we’ve done phone calls with any of them yet.

We’re just kind of like collecting data points at this time. Okay. Now, in terms of getting on your board, right, or, or getting noticed and that sort of things, what, where are some of the places that, that you go, tournaments, events, et cetera, that, that, that you like to see players? Yeah. I think every, every coach, and then every, every college obviously has their niches, right?

So for us, it’s very much the high academic, and then, you know, I’m kind of like an East Coast guy, right? I have my connections in, you know, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, all that stuff. Um, this program specifically has a good pi- has a good pipeline of kids from California, New York. So we kind of know, like, where to, where to get kids, where clubs are still really good.

I think a, a common question you hear is like, you know, MLS NEXT versus ECNL nowadays. Like, ECNL in, like, California is still incredible, right? If you go up to, like, the Northeast, MLS NEXT kind of runs the Northeast right now. And again, those are obviously gen- sweeping generalizations. But, um, yeah, I [00:04:00] mean, i- in general, the vast majority of the kids we’re recruiting are gonna be MLS NEXT and ECNL kids.

That’s not our entire roster. I think we have three USYS kids on our, on our current roster that, you know, we did fly out to Denver Nationals each summer and, you know, we got to see them play and things like that. But, um, yeah, going out to showcase is gonna be the main thing, sending highlight videos, right?

Obviously, putting us on, you know, putting yourself on our radar before you even go to the showcase is huge. Um, just a little tidbit there. I cannot tell you how many kids reach out either the day before or the day of a showcase, and it’s like, dude, if I’m flying to Dallas, like it starts on Friday, I’m already flying on Thursday morning, like I’m not checking my email Friday morning before I go out to the fields, right?

So get your showcase schedules to us multiple days in advance, preferably, like, preferably like a week in advance. Um, but yeah, so no, kids that reach out to us, our ID camps have, have been fantastic for us. I think seven of the last 10 kids we’ve committed have been kid- kids that have attended our ID camps.

And again, that’s not, hey, they came to a camp and that was the first time we [00:05:00] saw them and boom, we signed them, but a lot of times that was like a last step or we had seen them at a showcase and, and things like that. And then yeah, they came to our camp, we worked with them, we saw they were coachable, and we were like, boom, that’s the kid we want.

So those are pretty much our main avenues. So on the ID camp thing, that’s a- Yeah … question I get all the time is- Yeah … what– Have you had any kids who they walked into an ID camp, it’s the first time you’ve seen them- It’s the first time, you know, may- maybe they sent you an email ahead of time- Yeah … but you hadn’t talked to them.

You hadn’t really watched their film. They walk into camp and you went, “Oh, yeah.” D- d- it… Does it happen or not really? I wouldn’t say it’s like, “Oh, yeah, we sign them,” at that weekend. No. Um, but very much, like, yeah, this is the first time we’ve seen this kid. Sure, maybe we’ve gotten some emails, but then we saw him in person at our camp, and we’re like, “Okay, that’s good, good.

Let’s collect some full matches. Let’s see him at the next showcase.” And then, yeah, within, like, two or three months, we had signed them. So that’s very realistic, but I, I think it’s normally the, the opposite. Like I said, normally ID camps for us are almost like [00:06:00] a last check or, yeah, the way to, like, really get on our radar early.

So going back to your first question in terms of timelines, like the 2028 class, 2028s that come to our summer camps, we, we offer three of them each summer, like, that’s huge. Because, again, like, I’m just getting started on that board, so if you come to a camp and you do really, really well, and I’ve already worked with you, I know you have the academics, I know you’re coachable, all, all those things, you’ve essentially already been on campus, like, you’re, you’re essentially kind of like skipping the line in front of so many other kids, right?

Like, you’ve already checked a bunch of boxes for me. Um, and then, yeah, I get to watch you play at, you know, the winter showcases, whatever. We could sign you by January, and again, that’s a very accelerated, like, idealistic timeline. But I- I think, like, for 2027s, camps will kind of be like a last, last effort type thing.

Um, again, maybe last data points for us even before we make offers on those, but for 2028, that’s, that’s a really good way to, like, originally get on our board, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. Well, when it comes to camps, showcases, wherever, kind of what makes up that hierarchy of things you’re looking [00:07:00] for in a player both on and off the field?

Yeah. So I- I’m very fortunate to be at UChicago, right? Where, you know, I- I’ve been at schools, right, like Johnson & Wales, where, where I had my first head job, where, you know, we would… I think my first year, we did, like, 250 phone calls to put together a class of, like, eight kids, right? Whereas here, I might have, like, 80 kids on my board for an entire class, right?

Phone calls with maybe 60 of those kids and still able to put a class of eight. So UChicago’s obviously a different beast from where it is academically. There’s a lot of kids that, you know, very first phone call were their top choice, right? That, that maybe wasn’t the case at some other schools I’ve coached at.

Um, so for us, like, you know, again, it might sound kind of cocky or whatever, but, like, we have very, very talented players on our board, and I think I’m very fortunate that I’m then able to kind of sift through and see, like, all right, which kid’s gonna fit in the best from, like, a competitive standpoint, mentality standpoint?

How are they gonna grow for four years? Like, kids stay at UChicago. They value a UChicago education, right? I don’t really have to worry about kids transferring, right? [00:08:00] So there are a lot of other dynamics that kind of help me with recruiting in that sense, where, like, I know, say, one to five at every position on my board is gonna be a very talented player.

I then get to be very picky and choose, “Hey, this kid might not be number one on our board, but he has the exact mentality we want at that position in this class.”

All right. Well- We, we did talk about the portal just a little, and I do- Yeah … if you look at the, the, your rosters, there’s a couple kids who had been somewhere else before being on that roster. A couple, yeah. But so- Yeah … I mean, a lot of D3s you talk to, transferring in tends to be difficult just for- Yeah

academic reasons, for finance reasons, well, whatever it is. So how do you guys kind of approach the portal? Yeah. So we do get a lot of kids that reach out on it. Again, we’re, we’re very fortunate in that sense. Um, but yeah, undergraduate transfers are, are very difficult. Like, our admission says that you basically still have to have the academic requirements of, like, a first-year student, right?

[00:09:00] So we’re still gonna collect, like, how you did on the SAT, right? You can’t just, “Oh, well, I got a 4.0 my freshman year of college, and let me just ignore that I had a 3.0 in high school.” Like, our admission still very much looks at all that stuff. So undergraduate transfers are difficult. Grad transfers are a little bit easier.

Um, and so you’re right. The past three years we’ve had grad transfers on the roster. I think a big piece of that was, like, coming out of COVID, right, and fifth years, and, you know, we had Princeton’s all Ivy League center back had a fifth year, and, you know, Princeton doesn’t have graduate courses, and we do.

So we were very much the benefit of that for a couple years. But I, I think now it’ll kind of start to even out, where you go back to just kids who have a red shirt year, um, something like that. So yeah, it’s not gonna be something where we’re making up half our roster with, with grad transfers. But yeah, every now and then, or every year I should say, like, there is a high chance we could have, like, one or two.

Okay. And one of the things we’ve seen a lot of on the men’s side, especially D1, is the rise of internationals- Mm … and international recruiting. H- is that [00:10:00] something that, that comes into play for you guys? Or yes and no? Yeah. Or what does that look like? A little bit. Like, I’m not flying overseas to go see kids.

Like, w- we’ll get invited, invited to some events. Um, there’s one in London that we have a good relationship with that guy, so we’ll try to go maybe once every other year to his event. So, um, we do have a couple international campuses, right? Like UChicago has a campus in Hong Kong. So again, like, we, we do have a decent amount of internationals that are interested.

But a- again, if you look at my roster, there’s, like, two to three out of, you know, 28 to 30 guys. So it’s, you know, once every two or three years we’re, we’re taking an international kid. Um, it’s more just you’re gonna see the domestic players so much more, right? It’s not to say that we can’t get an international kid.

You know, we have a fre- a freshman striker this past fall that, you know, is a, is a British kid who ended up earning a starting role for us. So, um, internationals can still have a big influence, but yeah, in general it’s not gonna make up a huge, a huge number on our roster here. Okay. Well, let’s, [00:11:00] uh, before I leave, let you go o-o-on, on recruiting, ’cause you did mention it.

What, you, roster size, what, what is- Yep … what are you aiming for, for each year? Yeah. So I’m a big fan of a small roster, um, just in terms of competitiveness, guys feeling like they have a chance. Like, I don’t really believe in the whole, like, program player thing. Um, I personally was very happy when Division I came up with a 28-man roster cap.

I thought that was good for college soccer in general, right? So, you know, yes, that hurts the kids who really wanna play Division I or whatever, but I would argue you shouldn’t wanna be the number 36 man on Div- Division I roster. You should wanna be in the top 10 on a Division III roster, Division II roster, whatever.

Um, so yeah, like, I was, I guess I wa- I was, I was done with Davidson by the time that, that roster cap came out, but I remember playing against, like, UNC, right? And it was just like, man, UNC’s like 30th man on their roster would, like, start for us. And that was back in the day. I’m not speaking ill of Davidson.

They’ve done well. But, um, you know, I, I’m very glad about the roster cap essentially maybe creating a little bit more parity in college athletics in general. Uh, but for us, [00:12:00] going back to actually answering your question, like, I, I wanna keep my roster under 30. So, um, this is my first year I think I’ve officially achieved that, so I’m going into my fourth year, and our roster for this fall is at 27 guys.

We have 24 field players and three goalkeepers. Um, we’re gonna have to reload a little bit for 2027. We have a good amount graduating, so that’ll be a, a larger class where we might bump back up to, like, 29 guys. But yeah, like, my goal is to keep it u- under 30 where, like I said, I just want guys to have a fighting chance, or you have your one or, one, number one and number two at a spot, and you have, like, a number three that’s being groomed as a freshman or can still fill in in case of injury.

Like, that, that’s the way I kind of view it. Okay. Makes sense. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the school. I mean, I think, uh, most folks are familiar with, with UChicago, but, uh, you’ve been there a couple years now. Kinda what things have you found that are kinda awesome about the school? What, maybe some things we wouldn’t even know just by going through the website.

Yeah. The, the place is awesome and very unique. So we, we’ve risen in the academic rankings, so now we’re up to the number six academic school in the [00:13:00] country. Um, while you can easily look that up, I think that even still surprises some people. I think they know UChicago’s a very good school. I think they’re surprised that we’re, like, ranked higher than half of the Ivy Leagues.

You know what I mean? So, like, most recruiting kind of, um, I don’t know, I don’t know if you wanna call it disputes, but, like, we’re, we’re normally almost, like, fighting with the Ivy Leagues for players, right? Um, again, that’s, that’s a sweeping generalization. There’s all sorts of, you know, Division Is and, you know, some other Division IIIs that the guys are interested in.

But it seems like, in general, it kinda comes down to, like, “Hey, I’m between you or Yale,” or, “You and Princeton,” or whatever. That tends to be the norm. But, um- Oh, yeah. I- in terms of the school itself, so, like, what I have found coaching here is that the, the players that I have are very much pursuing excellence in everything.

And, and I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but, like, again, you gotta consider the personality of a UChicago kid, right? We have a 4% acceptance rate. These kids are top 10 in their class, or valedictorians, or 1,500 SATs. And, you know, again, none of that’s minimums, but, you know, th- they’re so used to doing well in [00:14:00] everything, and so soccer is no different to that, right?

I got a couple guys on my teams that have, you know, done their own startups. They’re doing internships over this, over the summer on Wall Street. They’ve already picked the med schools they wanna apply to. So again, when it comes to, like, the soccer, they show up and, like, they’re ready to go. Like, it’s incredibly rare that I have to, like, get into my team about, like, bringing intensity in a training session.

So working with this, these types of players in this environment is fantastic. So, um, again, it’s not, not the case at, at every school. Like, I, I recognize that what I have here is unique. But yeah, other places I’ve been, you have to, you have to, like, really get into guys during the spring season to care and show up and things like that.

So it’s, a … it’s fun how, like, competitive yet collaborative this place is. Like, you’re, you’re gonna leave being a very impressive person, and you are already a very impressive person coming into it as a freshman. Yeah. No, for sure. It’s gonna be, uh… I, I mean, obviously, if you, if you get in there, you’re, you’re an academic, you know, you’re high academics.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, [00:15:00] and the athletics matches that, but, but it still can be a challenge, right? Balancing- Yeah … the demands of, of academic rigor like Chicago plus, plus soccer. Yeah. So how, how do your, how do your guys do it? What kind of support systems are there to help them manage it, especially for those incoming freshmen?

Yeah. So our, our guys are doing really well, so I’ll give you a couple tangible things. Our, our lowest GPA on the current roster is a 3.4, so everyone is crushing it. You know, I, I don’t have a single guy that’s, you know, flirting with a 2.0 or being ineligible or dropping out of the school. And again, it, it’s the environment.

Like, this place almost isn’t gonna let you fail, right? So, um, here, like, people are actually doing their schoolwork in the libraries. No one goes back to their dorm room to just study by themself. Guys don’t sleep through morning classes, right? They’re very accountable. And again, this place is gonna, is gonna make you that way if you’re not already.

So, um, yeah, they’re, they’re doing really well. We have all sorts of majors on, on the team. I would say econ very much runs this place right now. You know, we have the number one business program in the entire world. Um, the Booth School of Business is, yeah, why the vast majority [00:16:00] of kids reach out to me in the first place.

So I think, I think we’re up to, like, 80% of our current roster are econ guys. From there, the second most popular is probably pre-med. Definitely got some political science guys, and then it’s kind of a, a hodgepodge from there. I got a psychology guy, a journalism guy. Um, but yeah, it’s … Yeah. It’s, it’s one of those places where I think almost, like, every single program you do is ranked somewhere in, like, the top 10, right?

So again, econ is number one, but I think, like, our law school is number two. Pre-med is, like, number six, you know, depending on what poll you look at. So yeah, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a fun place. Yeah. For sure. Well- Let’s, let’s… Well, you can either rewind or fast-forward, your choice. But back to October, right? The heart of that UAA schedule.

Yeah. It’s tough, right? Yeah. So walk me through what does a typical week look like in terms of classes, meals, practices, games, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I, I’m, I’m glad you asked ’cause it ties into the last question you asked as well. So we are on the quarter system academically. Um, and so for us, we do not start classes until the last week of September.

[00:17:00] So it’s a huge competitive advantage in the sense that almost our entire out-of-conference schedule is played without the distraction of classes. So guys, they’ll show up in August for pre-season. We have about six weeks with them where, again, w- we basically get to treat them like pros. They all live together in the dorms.

We do as many two-a-days as we want, as much film, pool recovery sessions. I mean, you name it. So th- that time is fantastic. Um, so again, it ties into the balance because they’re not essentially in season the whole time dealing with these really hard classes, right? It’s basically right when conference play starts, right, when we get to the most important part of our season, is also when, when classes start.

So we try to help, help them out with that, where we plan, uh, our training times around their class schedules. So, um, some of our, our days do end up being in the morning. Sometimes we’ll train at 7:00 AM before, you know, guys go off to 9:30 AM classes. Um, and then we try to find a couple afternoons where there are windows.

So, you know, like 3:00 to 5:00 PM is normally a good timeframe for us. So maybe we train like Monday 3:00 to 5:00 PM, Tuesday 7:00 AM, then we have a Wednesday night game or, or whatever the schedule might be for that week. So, [00:18:00] um, you know, we’ll try to help our guys with that. Like, “Hey, we know every Thursday morning we’re gonna go in the morning, so you guys can plan all your labs on Thursdays.

You can go as late into the evening as you want for labs.” Um, but yeah, so that, that, that balance i- is interesting. Like being on the quarter system, they’re only eight to nine-week quarters, so like you’re having midterms in like week three. So like it comes at you, you know, pretty fast. We might be in the hotel at NYU, and guys are, you know, in the lobby studying for a midterm, and I’m telling them to go to bed ’cause we have a game the next day, right?

So, um, but my, my argument to it is like every place has their hard weeks and midterm weeks and things like that. Um, like I said, ours just a little bit more condensed with the whole eight to nine-week quarters instead of like a 16-week semester. Yeah. Wow, that, that moves things around for sure. Uh, but let’s talk more kind of about the team.

You talked about roster size. Talk to me about the rest of that roster. Who are the other coaches on staff? Maybe what other support staff are there helping out with the team any, on any given year? Yeah, so, so just like our, our roster of [00:19:00] players, like, I’m very fortunate that a lot of people are being, uh, interested in being at East Chicago, and I, I like a large staff because for me it’s more touchpoints for the players, right?

Um, I think your typical Division III staff is, yeah, you have a head coach. A lot of first assistants in Division III still aren’t full-time. Um, we’re very fortunate that our first assistant is a full-time position. Um, and then we’ve been able to fundraise for our second assistant. Um, so I’m able to pay two guys, you know, a pr- a pretty decent salary to, to be here with me.

They’re both young assistants that I know will probably have head coach interviews in the next couple years. They’ve already had some, just, you know, it hasn’t, hasn’t happened for them yet. So, you know, I, I selfishly wanna, wanna hold onto them. But yeah, this place is, again, it’s, it’s a great place in all ways, and so we have eyes on it.

So yeah, we’ll see how long I’m able to hold onto those two assistants. And then from there, I do have a goalkeeper coach. We have a GA that played for me who’s just here doing, doing obviously a graduate degree that stayed on, on to help us out as well. He does a lot of kinda like our data analytics. We have a mental skills professional, um, and then we also have a, a [00:20:00] data analytics person who’s just like a 45-year-old lawyer in Chicago that loves soccer, and his son played, and, you know, he’s here to help us out.

So my, my staff, I would say, is, is much larger than, again, your typical Division III staff. Um, but, but it’s fun. Like, I’m, I’m protective of my environment in a sense of, like, you do have to be careful around who, about, you know, messaging, who comes around the team, all that stuff, but, like, when you get someone good, you have my full permission to help out the team in any way possible.

So that’s where we’ve, we’ve grown it to, what, seven or eight of us now that are, that are there at every single training session, so it’s, it’s fun. It’s a big group. Yeah, no, that, that, that is impressive, uh, for sure, especially at the D III level. All right, so talk to us then about you. Uh, what… How do you, how would you describe your coaching style, the style you wanna play there?

What can kids expect if they, if they were on your team? Yeah. The, uh, the program tends to take on the personality of the head coach, right? I’m sure you’ve heard that before. So, uh, I consider myself a pretty, like, blue-collar person. Like, mom was an elementary school teacher, dad was in the [00:21:00] Navy, and then, you know, worked on tow trucks and things like that.

Um, so yeah. So, like, I’m a pretty, I would say, like, aggressive, you know, down to earth, hardworking, blue-collar. Um, I think I mentioned ear- earlier, like, we’ve had, like, a pipeline from New York going, going, right? Like, we love New York City kids that, a- again, kinda tend to be blue-collar and willing to work hard and press and things like that.

So, um, yeah. I would say one of my, um, big- biggest flaws but greatest strengths is I’m, is I’m impatient, right? So it’s the same way throughout 90 minutes. Like, I wanna have a lead at halftime. I wanna put a team away and score multiple goals. So I’m not one to kinda, like, wear you down and hope we score a goal in the 80th minute and hold on.

Like, we wanna, we wanna kinda put teams away. So we, yeah, we tend to be pretty attacking-minded, pretty aggressive, wanna play in the attacking half. But again, we’re fortunate that we, uh, we tend to be one of the most technical teams in the country- So, like, we are able to play through lines. I know me saying I’m aggressive and score, wanna score a lot of goals, some people kinda misconstrue that as, “Oh, they just must, like, play a lot of kickball or whatever.”

But there’s definitely games where you go [00:22:00] direct or that’s the halftime speech because they’re man-for-man pressing you, and you have a 2v2 against their center backs at all time. But, um, again, we, we tend to be a team that is able to be on the ball and build through the lines, and play, play some good soccer from time to time.

Okay. All right. Well, let’s, uh… You know, I mean, it’s May, I don’t even know, uh, if the kids are still in classes at this point. I guess they would be since you’re on quarters, but- Yeah, yeah … uh, with that, you know, I mean, one of the things I loved about being a D III athlete, now again, that was many, many, many moons ago when, uh, Catholic only had a part-time coach, so there wasn’t even anybody in there- Nice

in the spring. Nice. Uh, so, um, you know, w- we had… We didn’t do, we didn’t really do anything in the spring. I had, but I had internships every spring, which was great, which was one- Yeah … of the reasons I wanted to play D III, and I’m sure all those business guys, right, they wanna be able to do stuff like that.

So what- Oh, yeah … what does your spring off-season look like? What kind of things can players expect to be able to do on the non-soccer side of things? Yeah, like I, I, I’m very biased, but I, [00:23:00] I think that Division III provides that biggest holistic balance of everything you’re, like, supposed to get out of a college experience.

So, you know, just like every division, like, in the fall we’re, we’re full gun and go, right? The NCAA requires that we have one off day per calendar week. Other than that, we are together, the team, six days a week, right? So that’s gonna be the same at every level. But yeah, the off-season’s the biggest difference.

So, um, for us, during the winter quarter, so eventu- essentially they come back from holiday break, and all the way up until spring break, they are with our strength and conditioning coach three times a week in the, in the, in the weight room doing team lifts, and then our captains organize futsal. So that’s nothing that we as coaches are a part of, right?

The NCAA doesn’t even allow us to be a part of those things, so your team has to have intrinsic motivation. They have to have leadership from within, where I’ve talked to some Division I buddies about that. They’re almost kinda like envious of, like, we have this built-in time where teams have to, like, again, lead themselves from within.

Guys have to step up as leaders versus, you know, Division I, “Hey, January 15th, I’m back with the head coach and he’s telling me everything to do,” right? So [00:24:00] just, just some differences. Not necessarily positive or negative, but just some differences. And then once spring season starts for us, which is right after spring break, that’s when we are with the team training three times a week.

We get 24 days. They keep doing stuff with our strength and conditioning coach, and then we get to play one spring match. So the one spring match thing, I know people in Division III have been trying to change forever. We would love to play two or three spring matches, but as it is right now, we just get, just get one play date Yeah, that is a- Yeah

that is a bummer. Um- But again, in terms of, like, uh, the whole holistic stuff, like, my whole junior class studies abroad every winter, and we hope that they’re doing the lifts that my strength and conditioning coach is still sending out. Um, and then again, like, they can do internships during that time.

Like, we had a guy that went to San Francisco for the winter quarter to do a startup with his buddies, and then he came back for spring season, you know? So, um, same thing over the summer. Like, we want, we expect all of our team to be playing at a decent level over the summer, right? USL 2, UPSL type opportunities, but they have big time internships as well that I’m not gonna tell them they can’t do, right?

Like, again, they’re getting a UChicago [00:25:00] education, and that stuff stays in the forefront of their mind, even as competitive as they are on the soccer side, too. Yeah, for sure. Well, hey- Yeah … I really appreciate you giving us a lot of good info, but I’m gonna leave you with one last question. Yeah. And that is, if you had one piece of advice for, you know, any- anybody going through this process right now, what would that be?

Yeah. Thank, thank you for asking that. My, my biggest thing is stay open to schools that you do not know anything about. So basically, if you get a personalized email from a coach that, that is actually genuinely towards you, right? “Hey, I saw your team play. I saw that screamer you scored in the 87th minute,” right?

It’s very, like, obviously directed towards you, not just, “Hey, I was at the showcase. Come to our camp,” I, I think it’s worth hearing that coach out a- and at least having, like, a phone conversation or, or doing some research. And, you know, we’re all a product of our, of our own experiences, but, like, my… I was fortunate enough to play Division I.

I was a lefty and I worked really hard. My, my college coach told me that. He’s like, “It’s the only reason you, you made it Division I.” But I, I went to a showcase. I reached out to [00:26:00] all the schools. I didn’t reach out to all of them. I looked at the list of schools that were gonna be there. I did my own research, ended up reaching out to, like, 20 of them.

One of them came and watched me, and before that showcase, I knew nothing about that school. It was Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland. Ended up falling in love with it. Like, I, I ended up transferring because of academics, but I love that coach. I still talk to him. I didn’t leave because of soccer. I had a great experience at two Division I schools, but I never would have even, uh, have heard of that school if I wouldn’t have went to that showcase or reached out to them and then done some of my own research.

So, you know, again, especially coming from a place, like, I was at Johnson and Wales, where, yeah, most families had never heard of it. Like, again, if it’s a genuine interest from a coach, like, there are 1,200 college soccer, men’s college soccer programs in this country. It’s impossible for you to know about all of them.

Everyone knows about UNC and Alabama football, and whatever else, but, you know, your little podunk, you know, NAIA school that might have the exact major you want and be top 10 in the country for it, but you’ve never even heard of the school, right? So anyway, I, I think, yeah, if someone’s genuinely interested in you, this is a relationship [00:27:00] business, so you should, you should probably at least hear them out.

Well, I, I couldn’t agree more. It’s one of the reasons I started the podcast, right? There you go. So the folks, uh, can learn about these schools they may not know about, and, uh- Yeah … ho- hopefully we’ve done that. Well, coach, really appreciate the time. Wish you the best of luck. If you get down to, you know, any of the events here, Lakewood Ranch- Yeah

Bradenton, make sure you give me a shout, all right? I appreciate that. Thanks, thanks for the time, Matt.