Pitch to Pro
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, Northwest Arkansas. This is a journey. We want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, Our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way.
Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Pitch to Pro
Ep. 38 - John Harkes: A U.S. Soccer Legend's Journey - Part 2
U.S. soccer legend John Harkes steps into the spotlight as we explore his fascinating journey from a celebrated player to an influential coach. Discover the secrets behind John’s transition to media work with "MLS Wrap" while nurturing his coaching passion through youth clubs. He generously shares his coaching philosophy, rooted in humility and creating opportunities for others, drawing from his time with esteemed mentors like Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard. John recounts his enriching experiences coaching the under-20 national team in Holland alongside the late Sigi Schmid and his professional adventures with the New York Red Bulls under the guidance of Bruce Arena.
In another compelling segment, we shine a light on the pivotal role of the United Soccer League (USL) in shaping the U.S. soccer landscape. We delve into the importance of a robust pyramid structure for both men and women, offering vital platforms for budding talents to hone their skills. Through our engaging conversation, we offer a fresh perspective on the evolution of soccer in the United States and the potential of promotion and relegation systems within the USL. Celebrate the resilience of USL clubs as they navigate challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic and witness the exciting expansion of USL League One, all contributing to a thriving soccer community.
Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of Ozark United FC. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, northwest Arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club.
Speaker 2:Pitch to Pro Podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Podcastvideoscom is Northwest Arkansas' premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high-quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at podcastvideoscom. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Pitch to Pro podcast. I am your host, wes Harris, managing Director for Ozark United FC, northwest Arkansas' professional soccer club, playing in the United Soccer League. I am back for round two with US soccer legend Mr John Harkes, technical director now for McLean Youth Soccer, among Jack of All Trades as well. But, john, welcome back and thank you for joining me again on Pitch to Pro man. Thanks.
Speaker 1:Wow, my pleasure. Wes. Thanks for having me on. You know it's a part of a long line of you know it's hard to get on your show. You know you keep closing the door and I'll be glad you opened it today. It was just great.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Well, last time, for those that missed it, we talked about John's illustrious playing career, path to path to pro, and just what the game means to so many different people in different communities and parts of the world. And today, john, we talked a lot about how you found the game and your experience as a player on multiple platforms. Today, I'd like to talk about how you transitioned out from your professional career and how you found yourself and kind of your path to coaching, to start at least, and then we'll see where it goes from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a great question because you know I I kind of had was I don't know. I was very lucky to, you know, fortunate to to work in media as well. You know, I did the first um MLS kind of highlight show that was sort of like match of the day program called MLS rap, you know, with Fox TV as soon as I retired and I kind of got thrown into that really quickly and I was working out in California and traveling back on weekends and red eyes and but I was coaching my kids in the youth club at that time. So it was a lot and I loved coaching, you know. But talking about the game has always been fun for me, um, and and it brought me, you know, great platforms, you know, and really some great experiences and moments and people that I got to work with and call games with. You know Ian Dark, you know JP De La Camera, like all of these. You know Martin Tyler. You know I got to work with martin in the last world cup, you know, which was amazing and he and I were partners and so that stuff, you know, covering the game that way is is fun, but the coaching aspect for me has always been the most rewarding and it's the most humbling, uh, that you can work hard to create opportunities for other people to love the game and you can find ways to help them through all their adversity, their up and downs, and still find a way that maybe they create a pathway for themselves. There is opportunity there. I think that's the critical part, my coaching aspects. My dad was a coach and I always learned a lot from him and always wanted to be a coach and teaching the game. And coaches become the best coaches they can be when they remove the ego and they know that they're serving others. And that's the hard challenge for a lot of coaches. And it's a hard challenge for a lot of coaches and it's a hard challenge for a lot of former players because it's a completely different approach and it's a completely different platform than what they were used to. So you know, I've learned from a lot of great coaches and studied the game tremendously, went and researched it overseas as well.
Speaker 1:When I retired, I went and worked with louis van gaal, uh, who was coaching at the time at az akmar. I went to danny blind at ix and I I coached and watched under him for a while at frank reichardt when he was at barcelona back in the day, um, and I thought, yeah, I want to pursue this for sure. And so I did that, you know, on my own. It wasn't like I was part of a program. I did the coaching education licenses early when I first retired as a player, and back in 2003. And I got my A license in 2005.
Speaker 1:Two years later, they made you wait, which was great. They made you wait, which was great. So I felt like, you know, I just no matter where the game took me. You know I love coaching and so, whether it was a youth club, you know, and coaching and giving back to the kids in the community or, you know, finding that level of college or pro, and, yeah, so I guess, my first real pro. Well, I coached for the under-20 national team in Holland in the Youth World Cup with Ziggy Schmidt, you know, god rest his soul. A fantastic person and what a great coach, what a great manager. I learned so much from him and from there it just took off.
Speaker 1:You know I would coach new york, rimbles and mls and bruce arena, um, legendary coach and uh you know, friend and mentor, you know for sure, took me on a uva to coach me at the national team, coach me dc united. So a lot of not just winning games but a lot of really good experiences there and uh, and it just grew from there, you know. And then, the more that I was coaching as an assistant at mls um, you know bruce and and dave sarakin and bob bradley coaches like that that I've been able to, you know, manage with and even coaches overseas. You know, every red nap at west hill um, ron, I can see my first coach at Sheffield Wednesday they were all telling me like, if you go into coaching, you've got to go down. You got to, you know. You got to be able to be a head coach yourself and you got to suffer. You got to be able to coach with a frugal budget and you've got to be able to identify players and put that together and negotiate fees. And so the USL was an incredible platform to do that and I was given an opportunity at Jake Edwards. He said that FC Cincinnati was looking to get into the USL championship back in 2015 and 2016. So I was able to get that job and we finished third in our first year got to playoffs and created a great fan base there and the club marketed so well and they had a strategic plan in place, um.
Speaker 1:And then, after I had that experience, I went to greenville, um, south carolina, or greenville triumph, with joe erwin, the ownership group, and um was able to kind of get a sporting director job and a head coaching there, built that club up from the ground up and so being able to do that there's a lot of pitfalls there. You learn along the way your own mistakes that you make. It is about finding yourself and finding your way. That's your journey through that process. You learn a lot Taking on the responsibilities and not just being a manager of people, but you're also a sporting director, so you're doing the budgets and the business side of it and so you have a different responsibility to the club in that way too, and and that's that's really critical, I think, for a lot of guys to have success you know a lot of women coaches as well and you know now the game's grown tremendously and we have the NWSL and the women's side, we have the NWSL and the women's side, we have the Super League, the W League for the women's side and the men's side and there's so many opportunities for great coaches to come through and learn the game and former players to stay involved in the game, and I love that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's been a little bit of my coaching journey Not done, not even close to done and coaching now at home with McLean, where my daughters grew up. In this club, my wife was a soccer executive and a coach herself for 10 years and playing youth soccer, and I'm a technical director now because of the people that I love working with in there. They're awesome. You know, louise Waxler has been in the game for a very long time on the women's side and she's grown the game for both men and women so many platforms over the year. She's our executive director and yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean you give back to the game in different ways. I came home because of health and my family my mom has Parkinson's and my mother-in-law has Alzheimer's, and so we kind of hit over the last two years, two and a half years, and it's been that cognitive decline and so I'm back home to kind of help my family, my wife and everybody else take care of that, because family first, you know, critical, but they're all in good spaces now, which we're doing well, and I've kind of got the competitive edge again and the itch to get back out there. So we'll see. We'll see what happens next. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Well, talk about from your experience and I mean you've been around the game on multiple levels and the highest levels of the game and then coaching. Talk about like people want to know where does USL sit, like how you know, yeah, it's division two in the championship and three in league one, but you know you've got players that are moving up and down between the different levels. You've got US open cup where you get to see the different levels compete against each other, and there's definitely some, some teams that that make deep runs that you're not looking at. You know it's kind of like the I always for anybody. I'm trying to explain it to. It's almost like the NCAA tournament, where you get those Cinderella runs, um, and you get yeah yeah, yeah, the power schools and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But then you get some really talented players in some of these smaller schools that you know and if they play as a team, good coaching, you know the right matchups, anybody on their given day, all those types of stories, but it's drawn out over the year instead of three weeks like the tournament. Anyway, talk about the level of USL and how the growth of the game has allowed those platforms to flourish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it was definitely needed, wes, in order for us to gain respect around the world. It was like we need to strengthen the pyramid structure in our country and that is the Division I, division II, Division III and so on, both on the men and the women. And so I think the USL gives those opportunities to grow the game in the right way and to strengthen her development pathways. Without a doubt and you're seeing, like you said, there's a lot of players that perhaps get drafted into the NWSL or Major major league soccer that you know, maybe they're not ready for at that particular time. So they need a place to play, they need a place to grow and and to mature and to fine-tune their game, and united soccer leagues provide that at the championship level and usl league one which started in 2019.
Speaker 1:And, if you think about it, I got flown home, probably like seven, eight years ago, home, I say back to Sheffield, to go to a big anniversary dinner. And I said, yeah, by the way, what is it? And they're like, oh, our 150th year anniversary. I'm like, oh, okay, just a little bit. You guys have been around for a little bit. You know a hot second and uh so.
Speaker 1:So it kind of keeps things in perspective of like how young we are as a nation with the game and how far we have to go. Still, like this united soccer league, um, what it provides is that platform for the, the player that is coming out of the high school or college level or had gone overseas or had gone to MLS or had gone to the NWSL and now they want to play in the W Leagues or the USL or the Super Leagues and things like that, and so it gives them that platform and it allows them to compete and grow and to me that is phenomenal. And now, like you said you mentioned it with the Open Cup, some of the late runs and I remember supporting Mark Briggs in Sacramento Republic when they were going through to the final and I'm like Phoenix has done well, union Omaha, and they had a great run. So you want those to do well and succeed.
Speaker 1:And it's not like you're bitter, like why can't it be our team and our club? It's more about like the overall overarching. You know, representatives of the game itself. That's critical. You know to be in those conversations. And and now you have the jagermeister cup, you know, which is huge in usl championships, going to play against teams in the uh in league one and then maybe eventually we get pro rel. Are we talking west about that?
Speaker 1:maybe one day let's talk about it, sir, I I'm a big proponent of it chris martin martinovich talked to me about that too, you know, a while back, and I'm like, yeah, I think that's something that would have the world's eyes on us. It'd be fantastic to see that happen in our country. It really would, and I think it's just a game changer, without a doubt it is.
Speaker 2:It is, I really do. I do think it will happen. I don't know if it'll be any time in the near future, but I do think it will happen. I think you know, and it's no secret, it's been out there, the usl has been uh talking about it as a test, uh, proof of concept, you know, within its own ecosystem, um, which could be a really interesting prospect as well, because, uh, they have the ecosystem at the multiple tiers to do it. Uh, and MLS does? They skip the second tier, but they've got it in with MLS next row and then obviously tier one. But I think to your point, we're still so young, we're still so young.
Speaker 1:We are young and we have to take these leaps of faith.
Speaker 1:We have to take these risks to start leagues and people are like, oh, a league comes up and then it fails and it comes back up and then this one starts over here and there's too many leagues in this country and that may be true, but we're still the wild wild west and we're trying to find ourselves, and that's okay. I think part of it. You know that structure. When you think back to the hey, I'm leaving West Ham United in London, just had our first child, cindy, and I. Our son, ian, was born in Derby and then I moved to West Ham to be on loan with them and then all of a sudden we talked about coming back home. And I'm having conversations with Tab Ramos and he's like Artsy, I'm thinking about going back to Major League Soccer. I said I didn't even think the league was starting yet and he's like, yeah, I know. And then, you know, here we are. We just played in 94 World Cup in our own country and now I'm competing in the Copa America and Uruguay in 95. And we don't.
Speaker 1:There was a league supposed to start in 95 and then it got postponed and then it might start in 96, and so these are all leaps of faith, and who would have known that we'd come back in dc united would be the club that it was, and you know and compete and win, you know, five trophies in the first three years, like both domestic and international, and it's. You don't know these things, but you have to take some risks sometimes to make things happen, and that's the same with the USL. The USL is look, I mean, there's challenges. Without a doubt, we need more clubs, and certainly USL League One, the third division, is growing and growing, and who would have thought this league would start in 2019 and then 2020 would be COVID? Would you restrict, shut down everything, and clubs would be like, oh, I don't need, I can't afford this anymore. You know, but they survived and a lot of clubs are still continuing on and pushing the game, and you're seeing the growth in the championship as well.
Speaker 1:No-transcript, um, so you know, in the Santa Barbers of the world and everything else. So you're like let's go, keep doing it. These are, these are the things that we need in our country. We need to work towards something, a goal, and that mission statement is more about let's serve the community with a great club, and it doesn't matter if you're an MLS or not. Like you're. You're doing something that, even from an investor standpoint, sure. Is it making you tons of money? Probably not. Is the valuation of your club going up? Absolutely without a doubt? And so you're preparing for the future, right, you're managing that and you're building that, and it truly has to be a community club. If you're not doing it for that reason, then you're doing it for the wrong reason. So you're going to struggle a community club. If you're not doing it for that reason, then you're doing it for the whole reason.
Speaker 2:So you know, you're gonna struggle a lot, you know, yeah, well, I'm glad you brought that up because you know we, we talk about it and everything that we do. The community is at the, at the center of it and, with them in mind and this is their club, we're just the stewards, um, but you, you've lived it, you, you've been there, done it both as a player, a coach, um, you know, executive in the media. Talk about what in particular. I think it'd be great, uh, for your from your experience within the usl in particular, because I think that those clubs are truly just, you know, almost like the, the old school UK, grassroots, the way that it still is over there, in a lot of ways, very grassroots, just embedded in their community every day, beyond just the games. Talk about your experience there and what those clubs mean to their communities and the communities to the team.
Speaker 1:You mean in the UK or here or everywhere.
Speaker 2:Here in the USL oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean because community engagement is critical to the growth of your club and also for you to be relevant. You know, when you show you care I mean this is what I say to each of my coaching staff every single year. Every time I have a coaching staff, whether it be pro or even the youth game or whatever, it's just like do not be afraid to show them that you care. And that's critical. Um, you know, because everybody says it different ways like oh, the trust to buy in all that stuff, it is inclusivity. You're you're letting them know that they are part of your journey too. They matter to you. And every fan that asks for an autograph, don't you dare shake them off or ignore them, because the day that they stop asking for it is when you're in trouble.
Speaker 1:That's critical, and so you know, it's a lifestyle, it's a you know, it's a cultural thing that there's only a few people that really get it. They say it sometimes, but it you have to make sure that you're taking care of the people that are coming to your games. It's, it's really important, because then you share the love and you also share, you know, and the highs that come in the game and those successes, but you also share the losses and you share together through the growing pains and that adversity. That's there too, and when you do that with more people, that's when you get through. That truly is growth. So that becomes your foundation. And when you're all in it together and wow it's, you can't fail, can't. Yeah, that's the best part and you give them value.
Speaker 1:they are important you know, fans are reported, people that work on volunteer game day operations are important. Kids that are coming to you and that want to be future coaches or referees and they're asking you if they can come to training sessions and stand on the sideline. Absolutely, yeah, that's important, you know. Those type of community engagements are critical, you know, uh, being a mentor and giving back and and growing, helping somebody else grow if that's part of your journey, that's what you should be doing on earth, you know, and so if you do it, soccer it's the best thing in the world. It's like wow thank you, god.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, finding finding that avenue to make the world a better place through soccer is yeah one of the cool, one of the coolest, um, you know, coming together of purpose and passion, um, that at least I've been able been super fortunate to be able to experience. So but I love that, that approach and that take. I mean I think we'll we'll end on this what for? For one of the cool things about Northwest Arkansas and Arkansas as a state is and it's zero disrespect to the double ball clubs that are here in baseball, with all due respect, we're going to be a different product than first kind of real professional sports team in Arkansas and it's going to be with soccer on men's and women's. Yes, that's exciting. Why should? If you're a Northwest Arkansas resident right now, from your lens and your experiences, what can they expect? Why should they be excited about this?
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, the number one thing is because it's a positive influence. It's something that's being done for positive change within your community, within your local town, within your state. It's a go-to experience and if you do it right and you build the club the right way, that game day experience wow, that lasts forever. And the families come together. And it's about the families come together and you know it's about, it's about the families. You know it's about that experience that they they find when they go there and they're proud to put on your scarf and they're proud to wear your jersey. And you know, through the losses and through the wins, they support your club. You know, thick and thin, because you're transparent, you're an honest club and, uh, you roll up your sleeves and you have great work ethic and that's why people want to come see you, they want to support you, right, that's. That's the beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:That's what we all work for beautiful game.
Speaker 2:I love it well john thank you so much again, man, for joining me for this episode of pitch to pro. We hope you guys enjoyed it. Be sure to catch all of our episodes on pitch to procom. Look for Pitch to Pro on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts content. Until next time, cheers, northwest Arkansas. Thank you. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Pitch to Pro podcast. Be sure to tune in again in two weeks for the next installment and check out the Stoppage Time series for a recap of today's episode. Be sure to find us at Pitch to Pro on YouTube, instagram and everywhere you get your podcasts. Until next time, northwest Arkansas cheers.