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. 50 - Building the U19s from Scratch
Dean Johnson is transforming soccer in Northwest Arkansas through a remarkable dual role that few coaches would dare attempt. With one foot firmly planted in the OZFC Academy as U19 boys head coach and the other pioneering Northwest Arkansas Community College's first-ever men's soccer program, Johnson brings championship-winning expertise to a region hungry for soccer development.
The London native's journey to NWA follows a fascinating path through American soccer's landscape. After arriving in 2011 to play college ball, Johnson progressed through junior college to Division I competition before a brief professional stint with the Charlotte Eagles in USL. His coaching career reveals an uncanny ability to transform programs – from winning a national championship at Wayland Baptist just two years into coaching to turning Northeast Texas Community College from a middling program into the nation's top-ranked junior college team.
"I would like to think I'm a bit of a specialist in flipping programs at this point," Johnson says with earned confidence. "But actually, from ground zero, this would be the first time." That's exactly what he faces at NWACC – building without fields, dorms, or players, just vision and determination.
Meanwhile, his OZFC Academy team has exploded out of the gates, scoring 20 goals while conceding just one in their first weekend of competition. Beyond impressive scorelines, Johnson is implementing sophisticated tactical approaches, introducing his players to formations and styles they've never experienced before.
Perhaps most valuable is Johnson's ability to guide players through their next steps. Having navigated the complex American soccer system himself, he offers clear-eyed advice about college recruitment. "The journey is different for every kid," he explains, debunking myths that Division I is automatically superior to other pathways.
Johnson's coaching philosophy distills to a simple truth that today's young players desperately need to hear: "You can't outwork work... that may be the one or two percent that pushes you over the edge."
Ready to follow this exciting soccer journey? Subscribe to Pitch to Pro wherever you get your podcasts and witness Northwest Arkansas's soccer transformation firsthand.
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. My name is Wes Harris, your host, managing director for Ozark United FC, northwest Arkansas' professional soccer club playing in the United Soccer League Today. I'm excited about my conversation here. We've got a great guest, mr Dean Johnson, head coach of our U19 OZFC Academy boys, as well as head coach for upcoming NWAC Northwest Arkansas Community College men's soccer team as well. Dean, welcome to the show and thank you for joining me, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to have a chat and talk all things soccer in Northwest Arkansas oh yeah, lots of fun, great content ahead.
Speaker 2:You're kind of all over the place, man, and so you have an incredible background and I just want to let you tell that to the folks and understand how you kind of found NUA. How did you get here?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. I mean I've been here I want to say around two months now, so it's gone by pretty quickly. But, like you said, I've got multiple roles. At the moment I'm working, obviously, with OZFC, starting up the program at NWAC, and then I also got dragged into the Marshall Islands coaching staff as well. So I've been doing a lot of different aspects within the community, but originally obviously from London. I'm not from here in the US, but I came over.
Speaker 3:I came over. It seems like forever ago now now, but it was 2011. I first came to America. So I came over to play in college. I went to a junior college. I then transferred out to division one. I ended up with some eligibility issues and ended up in an NAIA school, finished playing, went into the USL for a little bit, quickly figured out I wasn't going to make a living there at the time and then got into coaching and I've been doing that ever since. I think my first coaching gig was 2017. And then I think, yeah, we won the national championship 2018. So within two years, we built a really good program within my first job and then it's just kind of gone up and up and up from there.
Speaker 2:Well, where did you play within the usl?
Speaker 3:I was at charlotte eagles for a little bit so they the year I was there was actually the year they ended up, unfortunately going bankrupt and dropping down to what is now usl2. Yeah, um, at the time it was called pdl which is where I played when I was in college as well, so a couple of my teammates from our summer team ended up going to Charlotte Eagles together that preseason and then they ended up folding and going down to USL 2.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's nice to see them back in USL 1 now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's going to be a cool transition for everyone there. For sure you weren't there by chance.
Speaker 2:Have you and Ryan talked about this? No, I actually coached against.
Speaker 3:Ryan. So when I was at wayland baptist my first coaching gig, uh, ryan was playing for john brown. So ryan probably doesn't have fond memories of me because that was the year we won the national championship and I think before I got to wayland wayland baptist in texas john brown was the powerhouse in the conference with uh usao as well at the time, and then we brought in a load of transfer boys and went on a little bit of a run and ended up winning the whole thing. So I know Ryan pretty well. He was a really, really good player. We played against him. He was probably their main guy. Him and another lad I think was from Uganda, maybe up top Kelvin Amundi was his name. Very, very quick, played for Coach Scott. Obviously they were the two weapons for John Brown for sure.
Speaker 2:And for those who don't know who we're talking about, we're talking about Coach Ryan Williams, who was with Coach Scott Marksberry kind of the two head coaches there for the U20 OZFC program. That kind of kick-started the OZFC Academy originally, and Ryan has been on the show, been on the podcast. He's got some episodes out there. Go check him out. He's an incredible individual and we're lucky to have him in the.
Speaker 2:NWA community as well in the soccer community, growing it, but still involved at sporting and a little bit in OZFC as well. But it's too funny how kind of these things overlap.
Speaker 3:The football world here in America is huge but it's also very small. So like, obviously, when I first started to talk about coming down here, I knew Scott for a little while just because of the college stuff, and then I realized after that, oh, ryan is still down there as well. So it is kind of crazy how everything lines up and everyone kind of knows everyone within the soccer realm.
Speaker 2:It is. It's big, but small to your point. So you were at Wayland Baptist, then you were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so after we won the national championship at Wayland, I'd kind of decided I wanted to move on and do my own thing, because I was an assistant at Wayland. So I took the job at Northeast Texas, which is a community college in Plainview, which is about an hour and a half two hours outside of Dallas. We've done pretty well there. We actually played Weyland in our first ever game in preseason and we beat them 4-0, which was nice for me, not for Weyland much, because it was a pretty heated game but really really fun time.
Speaker 3:And yeah, we for wayland much, because it was a pretty heated game but really really fun time. And yeah, we were able to change northeast texas from an okay program. I think they won four or five games the year before and within two years we're number one team in junior college in the nation. So that's awesome. We've done really well. Um, I wasn't planning on leaving there and then I got called from a school in west virginia uh, division two and then moved over there for three years as well. Okay.
Speaker 2:And then you were at Loyola Marymount.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Davidson Elkins for three years, similar to Northeast Texas. Again, it sounds crazy because we had a school of about 600 students in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and we were the number one team in NCAA in division two. So we quickly turned that program around I say we because my staff has kind of come with me for most of the spots I've been in and we were able to flip that around, turn it into a powerhouse within division two. We had University of Charleston in our conference, who are traditionally the best team in Division II as well, and we were able to make it really competitive with those guys. And then, yeah, I had two years at Des Moines whilst I was at Davidson Elkins, which is another team that is going into the USL Championship, so that will be a team for OCFC to play against. And then I ended up moving over to LA, to Loyola Marymount against.
Speaker 2:And then I ended up moving over to LA, to Loyola Marymount. Okay, and how did?
Speaker 3:you kind of hear about NWAC. Yeah, it was a weird one. So I was the associate head coach at LMU and I loved LA. It was just so expensive to live, to be honest. So we did really well. We went to the elite eight in year one, which is the first time, I think in the school's history they'd ever done anything to that kind of level. So I loved it. It just wasn't sustainable for forever, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:No, perfectly.
Speaker 3:In regards to NWAC, I don't know how it first came about, because I'd originally spoke with Chris, who is down here, through a friend of ours a kind of mutual connection, isn't it? A guy named Robert McCourt who works at Monmouth University. So he had mentioned Ozark potentially having a team, and then that led to somehow me finding out NWAC were also creating a team as well, and then I ended up speaking with Brooke down there and it kind of seemed like both came at the same time, if that made sense. Um, so I ended up flying down to see the campus and everything on the college side and I really liked the area and then it just worked out that both would kind of work hand in hand for me and just decided why not see how it goes?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, that's great, that's awesome and uh, so you've jumped in. You you're kind of in this interesting limbo spot where you're building a program, but you have a year where you're kind of without players to build the program for. So you're out scouting and so we put you to work. So talk about and, by the way, I have to give a massive shout-out to Brooke Brewer, the athletic director at NWAC, for allowing Coach Dean to come on board here with the OZFC Academy and lend his skill set and put on your NWA hat. So hats off to NWAC and Brooke for being super collaborative and allowing him to do that. So we're very, very fortunate to have Dean as part of our program allowing him to do that.
Speaker 3:So we're very, very fortunate to have tn as part of our program. Yeah, so it's been the first year or so, is it's difficult, to be honest, because we're starting pretty much from scratch. So we have no field, we have no dorms, we have no players right now. So a lot of it's been as you've probably seen with ozark as well a lot of it's just funding finding funding. How can you raise money to support these players, to support these staff? Funding finding funding. How can you raise money to support these players, to support these staff, kind of as we move through the process of fielding our first game next August? So we're under a year away now from the first game, which is exciting but also a little bit daunting.
Speaker 3:I have a spreadsheet full of players that we're trying to bring in that have come from various backgrounds. You know some local guys, some guys from across the world, some guys from other states. So there's a lot of players on the radar and we have a lot of interest for guys that want to come in. It's just now finding the funding for those guys. Obviously, with no dorms, the housing situation is tricky.
Speaker 3:Can we? Can we find some host families for these guys? Can we find apartments for these guys to live out? So there's a lot going on. So I'm kind of running around here, there and everywhere at the moment trying to figure out this problem and then something five minutes later comes up and it's like hey, we need to figure out this problem and we're just kind of bouncing around at the moment. So a lot of administration work. I'm going to be really excited when the team's here and it's more on the field and coaching and going through that stuff. But uh, you have to do this stuff first before we get to that well, and I mean it's also I, I imagine.
Speaker 2:But you tell me uh, is this your first time kind of staying in a program from scratch at this level?
Speaker 3:yeah, from scratch. Yeah, um, I would like to think I'm a bit of a specialist of flipping programs at this point. We haven't done it with three or four now, but actually from ground zero. Yeah, this would be the first time. Um and that was part of the reason I was really interested is like, um, yeah, it's, it's starting from nothing, but like you get to make that whatever you want. So to have the ability to come in and kind of have my own impact on what I want this to look like, you know how I want the culture to be, what kind of players we want to bring in, how can we help the community in different aspects like that's a really cool thing to have. So that was a big reason for me coming and taking on the project. It's not easy at all by any means. There's a lot of work that goes into it, but I like a challenge, so I'm excited for it all to keep rolling on.
Speaker 2:That's really really cool and exciting, I think. Um, and very interesting too, because trying to build a pro you know team and build and everything that we're doing with with ozfc. But you guys are kind of in a similar vein, right building a program from nothing, um, and in that builder, builder mode, um, and also you know resource strapped and trying to, you know, pull things together and, and you know, figure it out.
Speaker 2:You guys just gotta make it happen, you know, um, and so there's a lot of parallels, I think, which is, yeah, a lot of similarities.
Speaker 3:Me and chris obviously talk about this from time to time and he says like yeah, you're crazy, you're in two programs now that started from scratch and trying to make you know crazy. You're in two programs now that started from scratch and trying to make you know an impact, one in the same community but also in different spaces. So yeah, um, yeah, it's cool. I'm excited to see how both projects kind of kick off and and where they can go, because I do think there's a lot of potential in in the area for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so talk, let's. Let's jump in a little bit here into your work with the OZFC Academy and the U19s. So, scott, obviously a lot of those players kind of played underneath him or against him for a long time and kind of handing the baton over to you to kind of take those boys to the next level. So talk a little bit about that group and your experience so far.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the group is great. I think for me, ideally I would have been able to be here a little bit earlier and help to kind of pick who was on the team, but just time-wise it didn't work. So I kind of got thrown in. On the first day of training I was like here's your team, do what you want with them. Pretty much.
Speaker 3:They've been great so far. There's some very talented players on there and I think having the best players from all of the teams in the area is a cool concept that maybe hasn't been done before here. So it's been interesting to see how the guys from different teams have kind of integrated. I was obviously able to bring one of my own guys in as well to play with us this year, which is exciting. So it's been been again a process of coaching a new team, them getting to know me, me getting to know them a little bit. A lot of them have had scott for the coach for the last five, six, seven years, whatever it is. So, um, it's definitely been a process, but they're they're doing well. We've had some good results so far and we're we're really excited to see where the season will end up for us.
Speaker 2:And these guys a lot of them are in that kind of space where they're looking for, kind of, what is my next step in that journey? Right, whether that's college, whether it's just I really enjoy playing at this high level and I just want to do it for as long as I can. That's okay too, and you're just a good player and that's it and that's what you want to do, great, or there's a lot of them are trying to see how they can use this as a vehicle into an education or to a pro academy, and there's several on that squad that have gotten multiple trials. So talk a little bit about what does that conversation look like? Why are these from your standpoint and talking to your players, what do they see this as in terms of um, how do I say like a tool in their pathway?
Speaker 2:and they're yeah, right, like how do they see it and view it?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think, just in general, it's just a platform for them to kind of showcase themselves and you know, if you're that good, you will get to the level you think you need to be at.
Speaker 3:So for us it's just giving them that exposure, you know, playing against some good teams, connecting them with as many coaches as possible that may be interested in them. But the journey is different for every kid, so no one's recruiting process for colleges over the same. So there there's some guys that have to go through the junior college. So there's some guys that have to go through the junior college route. There's some guys that can go straight to Division I, there's some guys that go straight to Division II and there's no right path for anyone. So I think the biggest thing from my standpoint with the guys has just been educating them on the different levels and the different teams and like, hey, this could be an option for you. I would recommend you to go this path, because it's a very weird landscape, like college soccer especially there's some junior college teams that will destroy some of the Division I teams and I think a lot of people don't understand that.
Speaker 3:So just being Division I doesn't mean it's the best and just being Division III doesn't mean it's the worst, if that makes sense. So a big part we were speaking with Kevin as well also is just educating these boys and like, hey, can we help you? But let's be open to all options here and see what fits the best.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a really good point too. I mean not just to have you I think it makes sense, based on your experience as a coach, but also kind of your background and where you come from to be with that U19 group number one but number two, and we're very lucky to have you here, having experienced coaching at that level and multiple levels throughout the collegiate system where a lot of these boys may take that next step it's not a definitive but it may happen right as kind of a next option. But then also to combine that with the experience of kevin, yeah, and and kind of where he's been and at, there's a lot of incredible value for these boys just in educating them and helping guide them through that and helping them navigate that, because it's it's it can be really daunting and confusing it is and like it's a tough process.
Speaker 3:There's no hiding that, I think, for for each kid they're going to get more no's than yeses and that's just reality. Um, but I think them understanding that that's normal and that's the process. Like myself, when I, when I went through college and I was in junior college, I was a two-time all-american at junior college and you would think, oh, you can go wherever you want. No, that's not how it works. I had a lot of offers, but some of the schools that maybe I was trying to go to just weren't interested in me. Um, so I think breaking that down for the guys and really giving them an insight into like where we see them, kind of level wise, and this is probably the best route for you is definitely a big thing. Um, we're definitely having them speak with multiple coaches and having coaches come out and watch and see what other opinions are, but giving them the best path is the main thing for us.
Speaker 2:I love that and that's it's what we wanted out of the program is ultimately providing opportunities for players and coaches, frankly, to just continue their journey and whatever that looks like for them, but continue to provide opportunities that may not have been there without this program.
Speaker 3:We have some really good players, so I think we'll have a lot that will move on and play at various different levels. Hopefully, when the pro team is established, some of those guys are good enough to make that jump as well. Time will tell with that. But I think the main aim from us on the academy side is establish some of those guys are good enough to make that jump as well.
Speaker 3:Um, kind of time will tell with that but, I think the main aim from us on the academy side is to develop these guys so that they have both avenues, that if they want to go college route, perfect, here you go. If they want to go the pro route, we have that there for you as well. So having both avenues is really unique and I think it will help the area grow as a whole for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's we, believe me. We've been asked that it's kind of funny. We've been asked that, you know, will you have a player? The talent is there.
Speaker 3:We hope so. The coaches are gonna be the ones to ultimately make that decision.
Speaker 2:But believe me, everybody that's involved today in any capacity would love nothing more than to hear John Doe from Northwest Arkansas now making their debut right or part of the lineup, whatever it is. We would love nothing more than that. You know that's the dream, and almost every single USL club has a player like that, yeah, a couple come through every year.
Speaker 3:It's never going to be the whole team but, even getting one or two through from your own academy is such a cool experience for the fans and for the players, and it's someone of your own to support so I would love to see that and I'm sure it will happen at some point, but I'm excited to see who is the guy that does that and also when does that happen?
Speaker 2:so exactly, it's going to be really cool and then it's also cool because then it's something tangible for sure for the younger players in the academy to kind of look at and in the area just in general. Maybe they're not in the academy, they're just little tykes looking yeah, and saying if they can do it, so can I.
Speaker 2:So we want to create that right, um. So let's talk a little bit about you know you've we've talked a little bit about the u19s, the players, how you got here. You guys kicked off with a bang, uh, with an opportunity that doesn't come around very often and the Outrigger Challenge Cup and being a part of that with Turks and Caicos and US Virgin Islands and the Marshall Islands. Talk a little bit about your experience there. You kind of wore two hats on the coaching side of things, but give people a little bit of a shout on what that was like for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was great. It was probably one of the most busy weeks of my life, to be honest, because was doing ozark and then I was on the coaching staff for the marshall islands as well. Um, I loved it. You know, I'm I'm all about as much football soccer as possible, so my whole day was filled with that from either side. I'd leave the marshall islands training and go straight to ozark training and vice versa, so I I really enjoyed it. Um, but what a cool, cool concept to have international football here in Springdale, arkansas. That probably is never going to happen again, or maybe it does now because of Outrigger, but what are the odds that happens? So great experience for me. Great experience for the guys to play against senior national teams is again something that rarely happens for guys of their age, and they performed really well.
Speaker 3:They definitely stepped up to the challenge really well, um, some very, very good individual performances, but also just as a team to compete with those guys in that heat that we played in as well. It was so hot, those conditions so, yeah, hats off to those guys man. They stood up, represented northwest arkansas really well and they should be proud of their performances for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean leading against both Turks and Caicos and US Virgin Islands at one point throughout the game and even 2-0 up at Turks and Caicos at halftime.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think our age got to us in the second half a little bit and we could have done a couple things, maybe tactically a little bit different, but I also wanted the guys to to have the experience I didn't want to go two nil up and hey, let's just camp it in and win the game. And what's the point of that?
Speaker 3:I want the guys to go out and play and test themselves and and let's see what level you guys are ready for. So, um, yeah, overall unbelievable experience. Uh, the guys performed incredibly and we're really proud of them. But very busy week for me, for sure.
Speaker 2:Very busy week yeah. And I mean I think you know you don't really know what to expect going into this, especially from the Marshall Islands side, and you know I want to give them and you guys a shout there too. I mean, not only competed but scored first ever goals, goals, multiple From run of play, what a moment.
Speaker 3:yeah, Honestly, what a moment. I haven't been involved with them for too long. So I got a random message from Lloyd one day and said, hey, we're doing this in Arkansas.
Speaker 3:Is this something you'd be interested in helping us with. And then, yeah, I ended up being the assistant manager for the team, so it kind of happened really quickly and I got to run sessions for them and helping the game day and the coaching. And, again, a great experience for me to be able to be there for those first ever games for that group and an incredible group of guys that came together for a week, some from America, some from the Marshall Islands, that had never left the islands, had never played 11v11 football before. That was what was bonkers.
Speaker 3:It was crazy and obviously, as I'm running these sessions for these guys throughout the week, to see the development from day one of some of these guys to day four or day five. It was insane because the first day was rough and then by the fifth day we're competing and nearly beating a national team on the last game. So great experience again.
Speaker 2:I can't thank them guys enough and, um, I plan to stay with them for a little while so that's good, that's awesome and I think you know hopefully we get to kind of repeat this in nwa annually for sure, and hopefully one day be able to put that up in a nice professional stadium that would be really cool and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I mean just really, really cool. And you just I can't stress it enough I don't know if there's ever been an international match in arkansas before I don't think so from what I'm aware of.
Speaker 2:Yeah and not only that, but you have, you know, multiple. And the first ever for the marshall. It was such a fun week, yeah, an incredible historic week, and I can't wait to kind of do it. Yeah, and the first ever for the martial art. It was such a fun week, an incredible historic week, and I can't wait to kind of yeah, and the fans, the fans showed out for it.
Speaker 3:There was a lot of fans. We had quite a lot of our game because we had the other academy boys coming out and families. But, um, I mean, even the first game it was turks against virgin islands, which there's no real correlation there with the people here in town, but there was a lot of people there to watch the game.
Speaker 3:So absolutely it's cool to see the interest and I think it bodes well for for ozfc going forward that list. There is a lot of interest for soccer here, so absolutely, um you know, if we're able to do this right, it can be really successful and they braved some incredible heat yes, as fans, even in like metal bleachers.
Speaker 3:I know it was hot for the players running around doing all that but I can, I can well, I was going and taking a cold shower in between games because I had back to back games so I was trying to cool down as well. But yeah it was, it was crazy hot for sure yeah, it was unreal.
Speaker 2:You got a taste of the arkansas heat I did.
Speaker 2:I got very burnt that week for sure. Well, let's uh, you know we kicked off the season kind of informally there, obviously friendlies, uh, not necessarily part of the normal run-up, but talk about kind of, you guys have jumped in, you've had some training sessions all summer, kind of involuntary uh, and then now kicked off into training and we just had our first weekend and a couple of matches. Talk a little bit about you know, what did you see, what did you like opportunities and kind of talk about yeah, yeah, it's been interesting.
Speaker 3:So we've been working a lot on some shape stuff because we're playing a completely different shape and different style to what the guys have played before. So, um, going into outrigger, that was a challenge because some of these guys have never played in with three at the back before. They traditionally always play with four. So, um, we've been working on it a lot and looking at which patterns of play we want to use and stuff like that. Um, so it's been exciting to see them develop that as the weeks go on, because the more you practice it, the better you get, obviously.
Speaker 3:And we're playing some really good football right now. You know, we won the first game 14-0, which I told the guys to go out and make a statement that we're going to be a serious team in the league, and they definitely did that. To beat any team, 14-0 is a big mark in our game. So, yeah, for sure, and I intended for them to go out and win in a big way, but they even surprised me a little bit in the second half of that game, so did really well. And the positives for me was I saw a lot of the stuff that we worked on in training, in the games and all the kind of feedback from a lot of the fans and the parents were there were like, wow, these guys are playing really good football. Um, not just that we're winning, but the style that we're playing is pleasing for the fans and yeah um, it was enjoyable to watch, so that was great.
Speaker 3:And then we bounced back sunday um, quick turnaround, again rotated, some guys played, some guys in different positions and we were able to win that one 6-1 again good result. We're a little bit disappointed that we conceded, but we're probably not going to go the whole season without conceding a goal, so we get out of the way now. But yeah, just in general, really happy with the application of what we've done in training. That's, that's the main part for me. You know the results will kind of take care of themselves, but happy that they've been listening and trying to implement what we've done in the sessions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Two wins, 20 goals for one against.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Most coaches would take that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, see if we can keep it rolling now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll talk a little bit about MLS. Next, the platform and kind of what's to come. What do you see your experience with the platform and kind of? You know, what are you guys looking towards next?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think now it's it's kind of established itself as the premier tier now for youth soccer in the us. So a lot of my recruiting you know, when I was at the division one schools was looking at mls next kids. So I think it's great for the exposure for these guys. Um, we're able obviously now to play in MLS Next Fest, which will be a really cool event, but we're really focusing now on can we win our league?
Speaker 3:and dominate on that side of things and then the rest of it can kind of take care of itself in an essence. So really excited to be involved with it. I think for all of the age groups it's going to be involved with it. I think for all of the a troops it's going to be a cool experience to test themselves against the top level competition in the us, especially in this area. So it's been a blessing for us to to jump straight into that and we're excited to see where we end up at the end of the year well, dean, I think I'll.
Speaker 2:I'll cut us short here. Well, not short. We've talked a lot, you've covered a lot, so thank you for joining me. Uh, I should say we'll end it there. I will give you a kind of. I always ask folks, especially in the coaching realm and and that have played and played at a very high level what advice would you give to a young player out there that aspires to maybe play for one of these teams or for, you know, collegiately or professionally one day?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think the big thing for me is just you can't outwork work and I think that's something that kind of goes missing these days with youth football is like people think they're working really hard, but there's always someone that's working harder than you, um. So I think, really pushing it as much as you can and and trying to maximize what talent you have and what determination and ability you have and put it all into one pot, um is a big one, and I've emphasized I've emphasized sorry a lot with my guys. Like you can always work harder. You might not think you can, but you always can, and that that may be one or two percent might be the thing that pushes you over the edge, that gets you to where you want to go. So just keep working, push yourself and give everything you've got every day, and if you're meant to be there, you, you will be there for sure yeah, you say that again for my son, just kidding.
Speaker 2:Um well, thank you, dean. I really appreciate all the insight, man and and everything that you're doing with the boys in the program and and just growing the game of soccer in the area yeah my pleasure?
Speaker 2:uh, it's. We're just so fortunate to have someone like you in the area and doing what you're doing. So, thank you, no problem, that'll do it for this episode of Pitch the Pro. We hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to catch all of our episodes on pitchtheprocom or look for Pitch the Pro on YouTube, spotify, apple or wherever you get your podcasts for more content. Until next time. Northwest Arkansas Cheers, cheers. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the pitcher 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.