University of Missouri-St. Louis Men’s Soccer – Coach Josh Alderson
On today’s episode, I speak with Coach Alderson from the UMSL Men’s Program in St. Louis. We talk about how he likes ID camps and tryouts to see players up close. He describes the team’s weekly schedule in a brutal conference. Lastly, we discuss the young, energetic staff that looks to connect with players. Learn more about University of Missouri-St. Louis Men’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi, everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today, I’m lucky enough to be joined by Coach Josh from Missouri St. Louis. Welcome, Coach. Thank
Coach: you very much for having me.
Matt: Yeah. Thanks for coming back. Don’t adjust your screen folks. Uh, it’s been a couple of years, but, uh, so that, and this is something I tell my recruits or kids I talk to all the time, always be nice and make those relationships because you never know where that coach will end up next.
So folks may remember coach Josh was the assistant at Lenore Rhine and I interviewed him, me, oh yeah, it’s two years or. Yeah, about two years ago. Uh, now you’re the head coach, Missouri St. Louis. So that, uh, came full circle, right? Yeah,
Coach: it did. It’s, uh, the coaching industry is a, it’s a small world with a lot of people that know each other and a lot of opportunities that come up.
So like you said, it’s never a good thing to burn bridges and always good to, to keep on the good side of people.
Matt: Exactly. So, uh, you just finished up your second season. It’s January. In fact, based on your bio, tomorrow is your two year anniversary of being named. Exactly. So, uh, congrats and congrats on the nice jump from year one to year two.
And now I’m sure you’re going to keep it going for year three. And a lot of that I’m sure has to do with recruiting. Um, so, yeah. Uh, you know, we, we, we had ECL a couple of weeks ago at Disney’s this weekend, you know, it’s showcase season as a division two men’s program. What is your timeline [00:01:30] looking like right now?
Are you done with 25s? Are you still finishing up a few? What’s your focus right now?
Coach: We’re still looking. Yeah. Um, it’s, um, it’s always interesting to me, um, when. You know, we get to this time of year and especially with the ever changing landscape of college soccer at the moment, um, different eligibility questions and different opportunities for people to play for longer in college.
Um, the landscape is so fluid at the moment, um, but we’re still looking. Um, like you said, two years sort of in the job. Now, the first year was a bit of a rush to get as many in as we could. Last year, we did a good job and I think it was reflected a little bit on the increased level of performance on the pitch.
Um, and this year we’re able to be a little bit more selective. We had a big graduating class this last time around. So we’ve had to do, um, quite a sizable amount of recruiting, but we are still currently actively looking for 2025s.
Matt: So, where, where are your favorite stomping grounds to, to find these folks?
Uh, what are, where are the tournaments that you’re at? And, and making sure you guys are seeing kids.
Coach: Yeah, we’re very fortunate here in St. Louis. It’s a bit of a hotbed for, um, for youth soccer. So there’s a lot of fantastic talent around here. And we’re also fortunate with our school that, um, we’re quite an attractive proposition for especially in state kids.
Um, so these These are sort of our main focus at the moment, but you know, we are constantly sort of keeping [00:03:00] our eyes open and dipping and jumping into showcases based all around the country, watching live streams if we can’t be there. Um, I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve got any that we particularly favor at the moment.
We’re still sort of figuring out which ones are going to best serve what we need, but definitely in the local, in the vicinity of St. Louis, and then a few other little spots that we like to, to venture to.
Matt: Okay. Well, looking at your website, you got an ID camp coming up, uh, next month, kind of, how important are ID camps for you?
Do you guys work external camps as well? What’s that look like?
Coach: Yeah, it’s, we do a good mixture of both. So, um, since I’ve been here, we’ve run three ID camps and we’ve signed a couple of guys from each of them. Um, I think they are massively important myself. Um, we get to see what the guys are like in our environment.
We get to see, um, how they sort of respond to our coaching methods. We get to see how they act on a daily basis through that whole sort of day. We get a really good idea of them as a person, and it helps As part of the whole recruitment process, it’s never just a one day thing. Um, but you know, it’s a great indicator to us of who they are and what they’re like.
Um, but also for them, they get a chance to see how we coach, to see our methods, to see how we behave and act as a staff, to see our facilities, to get a feel of what it actually might be like to come and play here. So I think IDCamps are fantastic. And you know, we’re all so fortunate in this [00:04:30] area. We have some great connections and relationships with Particularly some of the division one schools who will sort of host some fantastic camps with some great quality and some good numbers.
And so the chance to go and work them and dip our toe into them is also a fantastic opportunity for us. So the ID camp scene is one that I think is a wonderful one when used properly and correctly. Um, and you know, if we can get that right, then we’re hopefully going to have a nice pipeline of players from them camps.
Matt: One of the benefits that Division 2 has is the ability to have players, quote unquote, try out or train with your, your, your guys in practice. Do you guys take advantage of that as well?
Coach: Absolutely. That’s, that’s the, I guess, the next step from the ID camp is, you know, if we’re impressed with someone and usually before the ID camp, we’ll know a good amount about, You know, we’re not, we’re not surprised often by guys, ID camps that we run because we don’t have a 200 person strong ID camp, you know, we’re in the 30 to 40 region, uh, we like that because like I said, it gives us the chance to know a lot about the players that are attending them camps.
Um, and because we are in a good place of knowing who they are and understanding a lot about their background, the next step after an ID camp for someone that we like is to try and get them on campus and spend some time with our players, train with us, um, that takes the whole. idea of seeing them in our environment and then getting a feel for our environment to another level because they are in it there and then.
Um, [00:06:00] so that’s a huge, huge part of our recruitment process. Um, we’ve had guys that we have, um, made, uh, sort of final determinations on from, from them, uh, occurrences.
Matt: Okay. Well, when you look at your roster, it’s about maybe 20 percent international, which for D2 is probably on the low side on the men’s thing.
What is your international recruiting like? What’s your goals there and that?
Coach: Yeah, it’s, you’re right. It is low. Um, I sort of, I want to go back to, you know, there is such a immense hotbed of talent here that, that we, you know, we really want to be a pathway and we want to be a school and a team and a program that local kids, not just in St.
Louis, you know, domestically full stop, but but within ST Louis, particularly, um, that they see as a genuine place to come and play at the division two level. Um, I do think that percentage of international, um, players on our roster is going to increase. The school has introduced some opportunities for us to do that, um, with how they accept, um, students and sort of what they’re looking for there.
Um, so I am excited that that is going to increase. I think it’s, An amazing part of college soccer to have people from all over the country all around the world to come together with the common love of the game. It’s a massive part of this experience that all the all the players get. So we will probably increase, but I don’t think we’ll ever be one of the schools that has.
70, 75, 80 percent [00:07:30] internationals on our roster. That’ll never be sort of how we are here. It will always be a nice blend of local talent, some excellent players from around the country, and then a sprinkling of international guys.
Matt: Well, with all that said, what is it that kind of makes up that hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player, both on the field and off?
Coach: Yeah, we’ll start with off because, you know, ultimately there are talented football players, soccer players all around the world. There are talented soccer players everywhere you look, you go on any of these showcases, there are countless players that can go and play at the college level. So the talent is not necessarily the hardest thing to find.
Um, what I think is the most important thing to find is the person. So we look for someone who is hardworking. Driven, um, team centric. Um, that’s probably the most important of all of it. Understanding that the role might be, um, I’m going to come in and make a different straight away on the pitch. Uh, the role might be, I’m going to come in.
And, uh, it might take me a year or two before I’m really contributing on the pitch. So how else can I help the program? The role might be, I’m going to come in and contribute in some games when I’m needed and some games I might not be. So it’s how can that person embrace their role, whatever the role may be.
So that team centric thing. Um, but also, you know, we’re in a position where we’re trying to take this program. Um, to new heights. And in order for us to do that, we need ambitious people. So that’s a huge [00:09:00] one. You know, when we talk with recruits, whether they’re transfers or true incoming freshmen, we want players and people that have serious ambition to be successful across all walks of life.
Um, cause that translates onto the, onto the pitch pretty well, uh, in terms of, as a player, high soccer IQ is really important. Um, that’s going to allow us to implement a lot of the things that we want to implement with them, um, with the team and help us continue to take the team forward. But also, um, you know, solid technical basis is crucial.
We have to have an element of physicality, whether that’s speed, whether that’s strength, agility, whatever it might be, that’s going to allow you to compete because we are in a very strong conference with some fantastic programs. So we have to be able to compete. Tactically, technically, physically, um, so that’s sort of the areas that we look to, to really look into for our players, but the IQ is, is for me really important because that allows us to, to really get to work with the players.
Matt: Okay, well, let’s talk about the school, uh, obviously must be, uh. Uh, a good fit for you to pull you away from the school that you went to that you were coaching at. So after two years, kind of what have you found? What’s awesome about the school? Maybe some things we wouldn’t even know by going through the website.
Coach: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s, um, you’re right. Cause Lenore Iron meant an awful lot to me. Um, was an incredible place with incredible [00:10:30] people and a huge part of my life. And for me and my wife to take the step away from Lenore Iron and the Hickory community, it had to be somewhere. special and somewhere that we really thought was going to be somewhere we could enjoy an incredible next chapter of our lives.
And, you know, we are very fortunate to have found and been given the opportunity to come here. Um, to be based in a big city is relatively, um, rare at the Division Two level. There’s a lot of schools where there’s not much going on in the surrounding area. So we’re fortunate. here in ST Louis that we have a lot going on.
Um, it’s an incredibly fun place to live. There’s a lot of things to do. Um, and something that I think players and staff, you know, when I’m recruiting my assistant coaches the same, but players can really enjoy their time here, their experience here. For four years, two years, whatever it might be. Um, but in terms of the school, um, for me, the best thing was the people.
I came for my interview just over two years ago now for that part of the process. And, you know, you meet the people here and you just have an incredible department, an incredible administration. Uh, of people supporting that just want us to be successful. What can we do to help you? How can we help you get to the next level?
What do you need from us? There are all sorts of questions that come here. And so the people is something that you never get from a website. You never [00:12:00] sort of get that behind the scenes feel. Um, but you know, here at UMSL we have that. Um, which is tremendous. Um, the one of the major things that attracted me to this job was understanding the high academic standards of this school as well.
I know that players that I recruit here are going to get a fantastic education that’s going to set them up once they’re done playing here for a tremendous career in whatever industry they’re in. And I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re a business major. I don’t care if you’re a nursing major, an engineer.
Um, you know, in an education major, I know that here you’re going to receive a tremendous education and be really well equipped and prepared to go on and be successful in life. And that’s what we want to do. We want to create successful husbands, fathers, brothers, sons, uh, employees, employers. You know, that’s what we want to do here.
And so that’s something that I think is tremendous about this school. And then the final thing I would say is that we’re growing, you know, there’s a lot of the higher education landscape right now that’s struggling financially and struggling for growth, um, and, and, you know, thankfully, and it’s been the way since I got here, thankfully, we’re the opposite where we’re developing.
We’re building new buildings, adding new programs, and we’re growing. So that’s a really exciting thing about UMSL as well.
Matt: Yeah, no, that’s fantastic. Well, take me back to october the heart of that glbc season. It’s a man It’s a brutal conference. Uh when I was coaching [00:13:30] Back in the day, we we played a lot of glbc schools.
So I I know what it’s like. Um Walk me through a typical week, uh, practices, games, meals, classes, all that stuff. What’s it like for a player?
Coach: Yeah, you’re right. The word brutal is fantastic to, uh, to describe it. It’s, um, it’s incredible that we have so many strong programs. Um, it’s, uh An exciting challenge every day.
And so for for a week for us, our our games are on Friday evenings and Sunday afternoons. It’s a very, very quick turnaround between games, which is challenging. Um, it means that our mandated NCAA mandated day off is on Mondays. Um, so we take Monday off that the players are still in class, though, so still doing.
All their academic stuff, um, Tuesday, we will be in class sort of morning and early afternoon, and then, uh, we will do a recovery sort of lifting session, um, with our strength and conditioning coach, our director of sports performance. And after that, we’ll go, uh, out to the, out to the grass and we’ll do a session, which is usually a split session.
The guys that played a lot of minutes the previous weekend will do some further recovery. Um, and the guys that didn’t get the minutes at the weekend, we’ll, we’ll do a more intense session to try and get some in their legs to make up for the minutes they missed. Wednesday, um, same sort of thing class till the early afternoon.
We flip it on a Wednesday and we train first. So we’re out on the grass. We get a good session in, um, probably almost sort of [00:15:00] comprehensive session of the week. Uh, then after that, they’ll go in and do a maintenance lift with our director of sports performance to keep them ticking over, to keep them primed to sort of hopefully avoid injury and perform at our highest level.
Thursday is our match day minus one. So classes again during the day. Um, and then we’ll do a, uh, sort of a light pregame session, set pieces, walkthroughs, uh, some finishing that type of stuff, um, followed by an analysis session, uh, in our film room with, uh, a review of the two previous games. Um, so by that point, we’ll have shared the clips with the guys, sort of Tuesday night, Wednesday morning, they’ll have had a chance to watch them.
We’ll then select some of the specific clips that we really want to touch upon, positive, uh, good things we did, definitely some things we want to work on, and then some things that pertain from the previous weekend. To the upcoming games that we have that following weekend. So we’ll touch upon some clips, have some really honest and frank discussions, but they’re fantastic for the team to help move forward.
Friday is game day. If we’re at home, we’ll eat three and a half hours before the game. We provide pregame meals. It’s a nice hot sort of buffet style kind of meal, chicken, rice, veggies, salad, that type of stuff, some fruit. Um, and then our women will play before us. So oftentimes after we’ve done sort of the pregame meal, which also involves our, uh, pregame sort of presentation, where we go over the final bits of details of the game plan and the set pieces and the opposition, we’ll then go and watch the [00:16:30] women for a little bit.
Um, and our sort of warmup will start about 50 minutes before. before kickoff. Um, 7 30 is usually our kickoff time on a Friday night. Saturday’s tough. It’s a bit of a combination day of recovering from the previous night, but also preparing for the, the, the next day. So we will do a combination of. Two of any of these sort of three following sessions, it might be a yoga session, it might be a session in the pool, um, or it might be just on the grass, um, with a recovery session and some little things to work on for the Sunday.
So any of them three will sort of typically do two of them on a Saturday in the afternoon and then Sunday we play it at 2. 30 and same thing if we’re at home, it’s a three and a half hour pregame meal. If we’re away, we try and arrive. If any of our venues, um, so two hours before kickoff is usually the plan and then it starts again.
The madness starts up again.
Matt: Yeah. It just never ends. It never ends. Well, um, let’s talk a little bit more about the team. I know we were talking about the roster. Is there a roster size that you find is ideal that you’re trying to hit each year?
Coach: So nothing mandated. Um, we we don’t have a JV team. Um, so it’s sort of on me to sort of go with what I like.
I’m a fan of a slightly smaller squad. So we have 26 is the number I like to be at every year. Three goalkeepers, 23 outfield players sort of gives us enough for two players in each position and plus a couple of extra guys in [00:18:00] the anticipation of some injuries or whatever it might be. So, um, one of the reasons that I like that is that there’s no one who well, If we recruit the right people, which so far we’ve done, there’s no one who becomes disillusioned.
There’s no one who thinks I’m number 37 on the roster. I’m never going to have a chance of playing. We don’t have that situation. So in the last two years, you know, aside from a couple of guys that red shirt is everybody, um, that has been able to feature. Um, has features, you know, some more than others, of course.
And it’s complete meritocracy. We, we, we go off how well you train. Um, but it, it’s the idea of being that you might not think that you’re high up on the depth chart, but if you have two, three, four weeks of good training, there’s nothing that will stop me from, from putting you in.
Matt: Okay. Well, besides the roster, there’s a roster of staff, right?
So talk to me, what does your staff look like? What is everybody’s roles? Maybe what other support staff in the athletic department help with the team?
Coach: Yeah, so we were fortunate. We got some incredible, incredible young men. And, um, what I really like about our staff is that we’re all relatively young. Um, you know, we all can still, I believe, connect really well with the current generation of players.
All of us are not far removed from from the game ourselves. So I love that. Um, we have this four assistant coaches that I have right now, a couple of part time assistant and a couple of volunteer assistants. Um, to go through them sort of like my first [00:19:30] assistant coach, Adam Knight, a tremendous, tremendous coach, very well connected within the, uh, the club soccer scene here in St.
Louis, um, quite high up in one of the local clubs. Um, experienced as a assistant coach within this region, a couple of different stops, um, as well as a tremendous playing career at the college level. Um, so he’s, he’s a brilliant, brilliant, um, assistant coach for me. And we sort of run this program together, which is pretty cool.
We have Ned Kudich, who’s our goalkeeper coach. He played here. Um, as well as, uh, the local junior college, um, runs his own goalkeeper academy in the area, supremely talented, um, and what he does very dedicated. And having that tie to playing gear is a great sort of addition to the staff. Um, that takes me to another former player, Myles Barrington.
Um, when I first arrived, he was the first person to, to reach out to me before anybody else. Um, and he’s just, uh, an incredible human being. Um, The type of role model that I think every parent wants their, their sort of son to, to aspire to, to learn from, um, ambitious, energetic, uh, played for a couple, three years here, actually, um, so, um, and just has, uh, an infectious personality.
So he’s a tremendous member of the staff has been with me since pretty much day one. Um, and then this year we added, uh, Josh Danbury [00:21:00] Nolan, um, another tremendous, uh, Young man who wanted to get back into the coaching world, um, has thrown himself in at the deep end and really given us a fantastic sort of new perspective this year.
So, um, another guy that connects incredibly well with the players. And sort of between the five of us, we have a really, really strong, um, working relationship, but also I would say a great friendship, which is something that I think helps the program move forward. The players can sort of understand and resonate with us as a staff more in that way as well.
Um, and then we’re, we’re blessed to have a fantastic support staff. Like I mentioned earlier, the people here is one of the. The most, most remarkable things about UMSL, but we have a wonderful athletic trainer. Our director of sports performance is terrific. Um, you know, we have a superb assistant athletic director for academics who really helps the guys stay on top of that side of things, which is crucial.
But right the way through from Our athletic director, who’s new this year, as well as our previous athletic director. So supportive, both of them of what we’re trying to do. The other coaches in the department were also getting behind each other’s teams. So it’s a it’s a fantastic environment, and I think that’s something that helped us make some good strides last year and something that I’m excited will help us keep moving forward.
Matt: Awesome. [00:22:30] Well, now I got to ask about you. Talk to me about your coaching style and the style of play you look to play there.
Coach: Yeah. So in terms of coaching style, I’m a huge believer in sort of positive reinforcement. Um, uh, there’s definitely a time and a place where some stern words are required. But I think.
To create and to foster the environment that we want where these guys are going to grow and flourish and express themselves and, uh, be their best versions of themselves. I’m a huge believer in positivity that can bring that out of people in terms of how we want to play, um, effective, efficient soccer is what I would say the idea being.
In Possession, we want to be a team that can hurt and harm teams in multiple different ways, so it might be playing through teams, it might be playing around teams, if the space is there to go over them and that’s how we’re going to hurt them, that’s what we can do. Can we build out from the back?
Absolutely. Can we And dissect teams between the lines. Absolutely. Can we switch quickly? Absolutely. Can we be a counterattacking team? Absolutely. Um, almost, uh, sort of a mantra of, you know, there’s many ways to skin a cat, so to speak, you know, and that’s sort of how I want us to be. If one team stops us from, um, One style of play.
Well, okay, can we tweak our, our way of trying to hurt them a little bit and see if they can stop us in that way? Um, it’s something that we work on a lot with the guys and that’s why the high IQ is such an important piece. Um, when we’re recruiting players, [00:24:00] um, essentially it boils down to space. Can we create space in different ways?
Can we recognize it and can we exploit it?
Matt: Well, you’ve been generous with your time. I just have one last question and that is if you had one piece of advice for folks going through this process, what would that be?
Coach: I would say do as much research and due diligence as you can, as much as you can. There’s never too much.
The more information you receive, the better informed your decision is going to be at all times. So if you’re a young player looking to try and find your next stop, do as much research as you can. But then I would say this, which perhaps isn’t always given as advice, but something that has served me really well in my Life, so far, not just career, but life in general.
If you find the right place and your gut is telling you that you’ve got an opportunity that you really need to take, go for it. The gut is often right. Which is, again, not always the advice given, but sometimes you get that overriding feeling of, no, this is, this is what I want to do, this is where I’m meant to be.
Maybe it’s not what I thought it was going to be. I thought I was going to find something else, but this just feels right. Get the information you can and go for it. Once you have that,
Matt: absolutely. Well, coach really appreciate it. Wish you the best of luck as you finish up this recruiting class and go into year three.
And if you get to any of the events down here in a liquid ranch, give me a shout. All right, absolutely. Thank
Coach: you very much. And, uh, we’ll see you soon.
Matt: Thank you.
