Episode #24: Mike Siener

Mike Siener has had an illustrious career as the Head Men's Soccer, Head Men's Tennis, Head Women's Tennis, and Assistant Men's Basketball Coach at Webster University.

Most coaches would dream about having his career coaching just one sport.  Mike has been a championship coach in 4 different sports.  His Head Coaching career includes:

• 10 SLIAC Championships
• 9x Conference Coach of the Year
• 3x National Tournaments
• 306 Wins vs. 152 Losses (67% Winning Percentage)

We had a great conversation about the competitiveness of recruiting and how to build college programs you can be proud of.  He's one of my favorite coaches and human beings on the planet and a man I'm proud to call a friend and brother.  Enjoy!

Learn more about Mike Siener here:  https://websterathletics.com/sports/mens-soccer/roster/coaches/mike-siener/1018

Significant Recruiting Resources — Take the guesswork out of college recruiting with Significant Recruiting: The Playbook for Prospective College Athletes, sport-specific Recruit’s Journals, and the Significant Recruiting Launchpad. Practical tools to help families research schools, stay organized, and build a smarter recruiting strategy. Learn more at CoachMattRogers.com.

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Hi, I'm coach Matt Rogers on this episode of the significant coaching podcasts. I sat down with my good friend of 20 plus years, coach Mike senior, the longtime assistant basketball coach and world class head tennis and soccer coach at Webster University. Coach Cena's bio reads like a fantasy. You could put three to four good college coaches bios together and they wouldn't contain the accomplishments he's had in one career. He has coached teams to ten SLIAC championships. three national tournament appearances, 306 wins versus only 152 losses. That's a 67 percent career winning percentage folks. He's been named conference coach of the year, count them nine times and not one sport, not two sports, but three different sports coaching both men and women. That's the resume of a hall of fame level coach. We had a great conversation in this episode about the competitiveness of recruiting. And we tell stories about how we fought for, for the same kids and how to build teams and programs you can be proud of. He's one of my favorite coaches on the planet and a man I'm proud to call a friend and a brother. Enjoy. So coach, you had an amazing career, which is still going. You're just you're doing other things with it. I know you and I have talked about the joy of recruiting at the college level. Talk a little bit about what that joy is for you, recruiting kids to your university and your program. Yeah. There's different aspects of being a head coach or an assistant that, the coaching, the practice planning the travel. But the piece that I always enjoyed was the recruiting piece. And luckily when I first started here at Webster coach bunch arrived here. And he let me start, start doing that a little bit. And I think he was smart enough to realize. All right, this is his niche. This is what he likes to do. So he luckily let me do a lot of it, which was great. And for the last 2022 years, that, that specific piece of college coaching was what I enjoyed most. Going to showcases, going to high school games. I would get so excited about going to three games a week, which a lot of people are like, That's not something I want to do. Sitting in the gym, sitting in a ball field, sitting in a soccer field and watching kids play and evaluating how they interact with their teammates. How they interact with their coach how they're warming up how they're walking off the field, paying attention to all those things that that to me is so exciting. And then figuring out, okay, that's the kid that I really liked from this game. And it could be not the most talented player. But it could be the right fit for what, that give your team success, right? Go into those showcases and games. I just love that. And then the pieces, After that, I really enjoyed as well, making that first phone call talking with the student athlete and talking to, talking with him about Webster which sometimes initially, a player might right away not be interested. But hold on, let me tell you, tell me why you should be. And then convincing that player that, Hey just come take a look. Like just 30 minute hour visit to campus. And then getting them to campus was important and meeting the player and his parents. I knew once I could get to the campus, I knew regardless of their division two or division one, that we could be in the mix for that kid. My assistant and I did a tremendous job at spending as much time as the player needed doing every campus tour, even if it was, we had three in a day, we spent the time with each player in each pair and answered every question that they had. And sometimes we're, being honest with them as well. Maybe this isn't the best fit for you at the end of the day, but having those conversations and that dialogue in meeting the families in the kids. That was great because I just, I'm a helper. I got somebody that, Hey, I want you to come to Webster, but I want to help you make the best decision. And if I can navigate you or share information, and maybe you don't come to Webster, but guess what you may, I helped you make the best decision to go to somewhere else. I still felt great about that. Yeah. That's your character. Yeah. So building those relationships and then talking to a player and a parent for parents for months, and it's maybe four months or six months or eight months. And talking to him multiple times and outworking another institution, cause I, I called more, or I showed up more, or we were at the game Or, any strategy you can think of, say, Hey, he sent me a Christmas card, it's all those things that, that, that made it makes it so much fun. And then at the end, when you end up getting that player that that commits and then the next year or the next few years, he's, Two, three time player of the year and how'd you get that kid? People would ask. And it's that's the reward and that player having a great experience here that, that was always the biggest joy for me and still is. And that's why I stopped recruiting St. Louis 24 years ago, Mike, why waste my time? If you're going to recruit the same kids, I was, I went to Wisconsin. I went to Texas. I was like, I'm not wasting my time anymore. We tried, that was always something that that we tried to do is we knew Fontbonne and Maryville at that time we were getting some really good area kids and it was the battle of we know a player's pretty good and we've had him visit. We know Matt Rogers has already had him visit. And I'll tell you one story. I don't know if you remember Kevin Miller. Oh, yes. That's still, yeah, that's still a Yeah. Go, hit me. Hit me right in the heart. Let me, yeah, let me share the face with Kevin Miller. Go ahead. Yeah, let. Yeah, I'm going to tell the story because Kevin Miller I saw at a holiday tournament in Collinsville and he was on the holiday tournament team just had a great tournament and he's, he's 672 70, I thought, there's no way where I get this kid at Collinsville tournament. It's great. But I start calling them and I start, I started trying to get a hold of him and we had a lot of conversations and it died down a little bit and I thought he's probably gonna he's probably going somewhere else you know. So a month has gone by and I thought maybe he's just going somewhere else and we play you one night at Maryville. And I look over and Kevin Miller's sitting behind your bench. I remember that. I go, damn it. This is not going to happen. I'm not looking at Kevin Miller. For the next four years. So I started calling him probably. game and I started callin him as hard as I could. W option than Maryville of course, Maryville was So I got to work real, real hard on him and got a real, developed a really good relationship with him. And I still have that today. And I think that relationship, you build that relationship with that player and parents and they believe in you and they trust in your process and your culture and your program. And that's, he made the decision to come here and barring an injury for one year. But he came back. I think his last year, we had one of the better teams that that we've ever had. And he was an absolute force. You get six, seven, two 60, two 70 on your roster and D three, and all of a sudden everything changes. Yeah, he was a load and we had some other guys around them too. So you knew all that, that's the piece and and coaching basketball for a long time, especially in St. Louis, trying to get a post player above six, four, that's really skilled and good is a challenge. So when you get that, the six, six or six, seven, six, eight. player that you think, other schools passed on for various reasons. And you saw the reason why we should have him. And he was great. I, a lot of schools missed an opportunity on him. They did. Yeah. Next time you see him, Tom, I'm still upset that he allowed your Jedi mind tricks to work. Cause I thought we had him in the bag. I thought it was a deal. Yeah, I I was, I didn't work hard enough. And obviously I know now if I'm going to go head to head with you, I need to call Monday through Sunday every day and go to brunch. I was, yeah, I was a little, I was a little scared. I told Butch Bradford, he said, Kevin Miller's behind his pants. I'm like, no, this is not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So he must've lost that game. I don't, I can't remember. Windsor, honestly, I was probably just thinking about him the whole time. I probably wasn't paying attention to the game. How can I what am I going to do to get him? At Webster moving forward after this game. So I must have been extra honoree that game. And he realized he didn't want to play for now. I will say this about your teams. And we always said this so I'll pay you the highest compliment. And I'm not just saying this I'd always be impressed with all your kids. Just, I wasn't in your locker rooms, but I saw your games and your kids and they all seem to really love playing for you. And that always sticks in my mind when there was timeouts or when there was challenges in the game. Your kids were always standing up, always cheering for each other. They were always into the game. And at times in my coaching career as a head coach, I'd look at my bench sometimes. And I, in, in that enthusiasm sometimes wasn't matched with, I thought all your kids had every game. And I should have called you. I should have said, Hey how are you getting the last five of your guys and everybody to have that kind of buy in and enthusiasm? Because you always, your teams always have that. And they always. They always played hard and had that enthusiasm. And really, I could really tell when you left the gym, those kids really like. And love playing for Matt Rodgers. I appreciate the compliment. They would probably tell you something different. I think for me, it really didn't have anything to do with me. It had to do with the kids I brought in and they just I was always attracted to that kid that played with a lot of energy. I wanted that junkyard dog, but I wanted that kid that was just that natural leader. And we were lucky enough, we had a couple of years where we got a bunch of those kids that just, they brought out the best of everybody, probably in spite of me they made us really good. You had kids like that at Webster and, we, we had groups of kids that just were great leaders and they were the Pied Pipers. Yeah. And the other thing for me, I think a big part of why my kids had enthusiasm is I typically played more guys than I probably should have, you go to most high school and college games these days. And if they're playing more than seven or eight, It's lucky. Yeah. I played probably 10 to 15 every game. Yeah. So that was just a commitment I made and it hurt us years Sure. Where I played too many guys and I, and I was just, I remember in high school and college I had coaches that I could sit there for eight games and never see the floor. Or I might get four minutes and to me, I went into coaching with the mindset. If kids are going to bust their butt for me every day for 80 practices, 25 games, I'm going to find a way to give them a role. Otherwise, why do I have them? Again, sometimes it was great. Sometimes it really hurt me, and I had that same philosophy and it probably on the men's soccer side, it probably was a struggle for some to to see that because I just come from a background of playing three or four sports my whole life, I was I'm an unconventional. Soccer coach, unconventional tennis coach, or I'm coaching a different way than maybe somebody that's just coached soccer their whole life. It was always program first and how do I get as many kids involved and connected and make this team our culture better. So same thing on the soccer side, there was times I was playing 22 to 24 kids. It's unheard of for soccer. And yes where we play teams, we're subbing two guys and I'm sure plenty of parents and fans or players were scratching their head of Why is he playing so many people for us, our success and our culture and how we did things it worked. I was always, I'm always open to change in philosophies and in, in ways to do things that's when it's not, when it's not working or things don't seem to be going well, but I started that when I first started soccer and continue that for the 10 years I did it. And worked for us. It definitely did. And as a Division three I think that's part of it as well. But even if I coached at the higher levels I would still be doing, I'd still be the guy that's playing too many. Too many guys. Too many in other people's eyes. In your eyes, it was the right amount. And you're right. You wanted your guys. And I know you, you wanted your guys to leave your program going. Coach gave me every opportunity to be the best version of myself. I didn't have to wait three years to get an opportunity. He gave me that opportunity time and time again. If I failed, that's on me. I got those opportunities. So that, that was important for me too. I wanted my guys to walk out and go, I had a career. Yeah. Whether we went seven and 18 or 18 and seven, I had a career. I had an opportunity to help my team with correct. I don't think enough. I don't think enough coaches think that way and feel that way. Yeah. And sometimes it means more conversations with, The student athlete, right? Where it might be easier just to not play a group when you start playing eight more guys and it's limited minutes. 15, then you're having more conversations of coach why am I not playing more? As opposed to, you're not playing at all. So it does, you have more of those conversations, but then you're able to tell, tell those players, this is how we do things is why we have success. And you're getting that opportunity. And if you play well, more opportunities will come. And especially if. If if a kid's a freshman those minutes will increase. And I never wanted to bring in a lot of freshmen and have them sit for a year or two, and sometimes it happens. You can't play everybody, but to reward a player that's practicing hard or playing well. And for him to know that, or her to know that Their minutes are going to progress and we value them as a freshman. And that was always important to me. I didn't, I want, I worked really, we worked really hard to recruit really good people. And last thing I wanted them to do is, leave the university because they just weren't getting play time. I think the results of 10 conference championships, nine times coach of the year and three national tournaments, I think you were onto something. I think we can clearly say you were doing something the right way from, it was from your heart. It was your perspective. But your strategy obviously was pretty awesome. I want to go back to what we were talking about with recruiting, because I think it's really cool. I think families need to understand and student athletes need to understand what that flow of recruitment process looks like. So you talked about your joy of going to games, going to showcases, going to tournaments. You see a kid that you love. What's the next step? You're in the stands. You see a kid you love, the game's over. Yeah. What traditionally are your steps when you're recruiting a kid? I'm pretty aggressive, so I'm calling or texting the kid almost before the game's over before he's out of the locker room and I'm letting them know that I was there or I'm talking to them after the game, right? And sometimes you can't, but I really want them to know on that drive home that, Hey, this is, I really liked how you play, but this is, these are things that I saw from you that I really love. And I think You could be a great fit for our soccer team, basketball team, tennis team. So that's usually the first step for me is just letting them know that if they, if it was a random game and they didn't even know I was there or didn't know I was coming. Normally they would know, but sometimes. I would give them an honest and good evaluation after the game right away. And if I'm excited about him or her right after the game, I'm right away. Now other coaches don't do this or haven't or I would try to get them to campus as soon as possible. As soon as possible, because I know if I can meet them and I can talk to the family and the player, I can connect with them and get them more interested. If they're just if it's just phone calls, they can become interested in, and they can connect with you, but man, that face to face interaction and that handshake and the laughs and the smiles and that connection, they're going to leave campus. And they're going to know, Hey, this is a good guy. This is a good program. They do things the right way. So that's usually the would be connecting with them but I would always tell my assistant. Get, we got to get them to campus. If you got off the phone on a Thursday night, see if they could come on Friday. Right away. So I didn't let time pass a month or two months. For me, it's. It would, if I was on the other end is how excited, how interested is the coach in me if I haven't been on campus in three months. And I know we've talked a couple of times. But I knew for me to have a really good chance to get in a really, I was, we're trying to recruit division two kids maybe even division one kids if we're going to be good. So we have to get on it. We have to move. We have to be aggressive. We have to communicate a lot. And we have to get them to campus as quick as possible. I believed in me and my staff to connect with the family. And. The campus here always showed well I rarely had a student athlete lead Webster and weren't impressed with the campus and there's qualities here that could be improved and our qualities and other schools that are better. Overall it's a nice area. The facilities are good. It's a nice, it's a nice campus and oftentimes these kids just have a perception 'cause they've driven by, or they've heard about or they've seen something on the internet. Yeah. But when you get them on campus. It might be the first time they've actually been inundated on a college campus where they've gotten to see dorms. They've gotten to see classrooms. They've gotten to see the locker rooms. I think that's hugely impactful. I don't understand the coaches that wait to the 11th hour to offer a visit. I don't get that at all. Yeah. And I think we've been in a lot of long time where that could not be a strong suit for some. It means they have to spend an hour or two with a family. Me, maybe they don't work real hard to connect with the student athlete. Maybe they have an assistant do the tour. Maybe they have a player do the tour, which is okay as well. We just never did that. In 2020 years, I never, we never had a. a player do a tour or just an assistant do the tour and gosh bunches. I don't know how old he is, but I guess what? On a hot day like today, he's driving, he's walking around and spend an hour or two with the family. He's not having an admission to do a tour. This is to do the tour. And maybe that's, I got that from him. Maybe probably that's just what we did. And I feel like. If a kid is driving from anywhere, they're spending the time coming to campus. I'm going to spend that time with them. And now I heard that the last couple of years, I heard that a lot. Families would say, Hey, coach is amazing. You spent two hours with us. We've been on three, we went on three campus tours and we had tour guides doing the tour. We had an assistant one time. And we went with the coach, head coach, five minutes. But again, the kids we are trying to get, we have to go above and beyond and do those things. Where if a scholarship school or other schools that have great facilities better than ours maybe they don't have to do those things. You couldn't cut quarters at division three Webster. And you know what? I like it that way. I always liked it that way. I want to go all the way. With a parent and a student athlete, I want to do it all. You too. I was the same way. Yeah. If I did have an assistant do the tour, it was just because scheduling, it was the only time they could be there and my schedule wouldn't work, but I'd still. When they get back to my office, you have me as long as you need me. Sure. Yeah. And I think you understood this. You understand this as well as anybody and probably better than most people. These parents are seeing us as a surrogate parent. They're giving their kid to us. These aren't 25 year olds. These aren't 30 year olds. These are 17, 18 year olds that are home for the first time. So those parents need to know who you are. They need to know this guy cares about my kid. If they get sick. This guy's going to help them get medicine, get them to the nurse's office, get them to the hospital. If they need be, this person's going to care about their grades, going to make sure their academics are up. So I think coaches that don't spend that quality time, I don't know what they hope to get out of that. Sure. So I love that man, that mantra. I want to talk to you about offers and I know as a D three coach, you don't have a scholarship. Your offer is, Hey, you're going to be a varsity guy gal for us. We see this role and we see you being able to compete right away. When you make that offer. So you're on them, you're aggressive, you get them to campus as you can. At what point. Do you say we really want you, there's an offer on the table. Yeah. What does that sound like? When does that happen for you? Yeah. I'll just go back to my most recent, so the 10 years as head soccer coach, it changed over time. When we were getting things going the first four or five years financial aid would come out in March, February. And at that time you were not offering kids, you are more hoping they would choose you. And then over time, once we got better and the program was getting better and we're getting better kids then things changed. The last five years or so, we're able to get on kids the spring before and summer before, and then. Really be super selective a certain amount of kids and in the fall that changed. So our recruiting and our commitments changed from springtime of, Oh gosh, are we going to get these kids? Then it became a fall decision of, Hey we've got a certain amount of roster spots. I could carry 60 kids, but the goal was to limit it enough to where the kids are going to have a good experience. Forecasting how many kids we wanted on the team that can change where you have. You only want to, you only want five kids to come in that class. Could you have eight or could you have eight or nine? Sure. But in the fall we would have our, all of our evaluations done mid season before the season started. We, we knew who we liked and we would then be pretty aggressive on. That student athlete and tell them like we've, it's October or November, but we've got five spots. We're gonna offer you a spot on the team. I understand that you're considering division twos. And you want to wait and see and that's okay. I wouldn't put, I was never comfortable putting a deadline on a player and for forcing them to make a decision. I want them to make, I want them to want to come, not what coach has to know by next week. And I wasn't really, if the kid's a difference maker, they show up in August when school starts you're going to find, you're going to find a place for them if they can help. Of course. So we would put a, I would put a little bit more pressure. the last few years being able to tell a student athlete, Hey, we'd like to know in the fall and sometimes financial aid still wouldn't be out, but you'd have to do the estimator and figure out those pieces. And I would always tell a player too, is listen, if if you're gonna wait for division twos for the spring, that's totally fine. And but I want to let you know that if we have five other kids that we really like commit by March and you call and say hey, I've I really want to come to Webster. I'm going to tell you it's too late. And when we first started it, it'd be, it would be hard to do that. Because you want every good kid and you want every kid in your program. But there in the last 4 or 5 years, it was okay. I felt okay. It's okay. It's okay to tell this player. It's really good that we had five other players that when they visited campus, they knew right away and they said, coach, I'm coming to Webster over Lindenwood because this is where I want to be. Yeah. I want that kid. And sometimes it takes a long time to make those decisions, which I understand as well. But I definitely get excited about that player who visited and knows that this is the place that they want to be. So we would make those offers in the fall and it wouldn't always go our way. So it would drag out some, and then, sometimes a player or two transfers or leaves that, that gives you some flexibility and wiggle room to add in the spring. And as you said, if. If there's that exceptional player that, that comes in the spring, you're not, you're of course not going to tell him no. But it moved up for us a little bit. And again division three, you don't have offers but you do want to, I think. Have control over who picks your program. And just because they decide, Hey, I'm going to come to Webster. It doesn't mean if he's not the right fit for various reasons, doesn't mean you, you don't tell them like, Hey, I just, I don't think we're the right fit. I love that. I love that. Mike I really appreciate your time. I got a couple kind of closing questions for you. Just your many years as a college recruiter and talking to so the diversity of parents that you've talked to over the years and the kids that you've talked to. If you had to give a 16, 17 year old a piece of advice about their recruitment, they said, coach senior, what, how do I, what's something I need to be doing for my recruitment to get seen, to get coaches to pay attention to me? What advice would you give that student athlete? I've worked with my niece through this and many others that coaching my three young it's, I've got a nine year old, a seven year old and a four year old they play, they're playing everything now. And I have parents on the teams that have older sibling or kids that are in high school and I'm I feel like I'm guiding. People all the time because I love to talk about it because if a parent says, yeah, I've got a son, he's a junior, he plays baseball. My first question is, Hey, how can I help? Is he, what's the recruiting process look like coach? There is none. All right let me, you got an hour because I want to talk to you. And I want to help. And so I think that's important for parents is to find someone and reach out to someone who can help and knows what's going on. If you sit around and you wait and you think coaches are going to come and watch your kid play all the time, just not realistic. So I would tell my most recent parent on my son's baseball team is I gave him some guidance of, okay, he's a junior or a sophomore. You need to start formulating and thinking about does you want to go to college? Does he want to go to way away to his school? No, he wants, he's a homebody. He wants to stay close to home. Okay. Then that narrows it down. So start coming up with a wish list of your 15 or 20 schools now here within four hours that he would want to go to. And division one, Hey, let's shoot for the stars, division two. And then, Hey, let's also include four or five division threes. And let's start contacting the coaches. Let's see if they've got a ID camp or a showcase. And let's make sure that those showcases there's a lot of coaches there that are going to be visible to you that you're interested in, not just a money grab. Making a highlight film, making a resume or cover letter, and sometimes those emails can get, thrown in the trash or deleted. But the more you're aggressive, I think. And telling a coach senior, I'm interested in Webster. And here's layout. Why I'm a local kid, I wanna stay close to St. Louis. You have my major that I like, I've driven by campus. It's a small campus. That's what I want. Not, Hey, do you have soccer? And I wanna play at Webster, right? Getting those emails and knowing those things that, that gets me excited that, that gets a response and being aggressive with it and multiple emails, phone calls. If they have camps, ID camps, attend those, introduce yourself in the camps, go up. Do you like it when kids introduce themselves to you? Absolutely. Because I'm a visual person. I will remember your face. forever. The rest of the camp, you're looking for him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. John Smith come up and shake my hand to coach. Happy to be here. Webster is one of the schools I'm considering. There's a lot of things here at the university that excite me. Just keep and keep an eye on me this week and let me know at the end of the week what you think. And that's what I would, that's what I've been advising parents to do with their sons or daughters. And that's hard. It's hard to get. And I'm sure I'll go through it. And it was a little difficult. My niece too, she's playing at Memphis right now, soccer. And is to have the courage to pick up the phone and send out the emails and do the late work. Do as many coaches as possible. To give yourself as many options as possible. So when you're going on those visits, you're not going on just a couple, maybe you're going on five or seven or 10 and you're really then figuring out, okay, what are we looking for? What's most important for us in the family. And on those visits, I think, and I would. Tell kids that would visit here at Webster, I'd say Go on your other visits. I would encourage them to go on all your campus tours because I was confident that we did a good job. Yeah. So I, I was encouraging go down to F bottom because I think I'm confident that you're gonna come back and say hey, you guys did a better job. Yeah. I think I told my niece this, do your campus tours. You'll know when you leave campus. Did the coach spend time with me? Did they value my education? And did they talk with my parents and they lay out a plan for me here and getting playing time. And so the campus tour I think is extremely important. But I think the first stage is the most important. I think parents and families need to be. Need to be aggressive in reaching out to making a pool of schools that you're interested in and really doing as much as you can to get on that, the coaches and the staff's radar screen to have them come out and see a play. Cause if you don't, if you don't, and you're not in the top elite bracket of players, like here in St. Louis or our city the really good group of kids that are still really good. They're not being seen. There's just not enough time for coaches to get out to three games anymore. And how we used to do it, the coaches don't do that as much. So it's fallen on the players and families a little bit more, a lot more to work hard and put in the legwork if this is what you really want. Yeah. Matt Regan is the perfect example for me. Eric Delabarre walks into my office in, I don't know, May and says, and he's got Matt Regan behind him. He goes, Hey, Matt, we're, this is Matt Regan. He's thinking about coming to play soccer here. But he really wants a place where he can play both. Would you talk to him? It was like, great. A soccer player. Yeah. I'll talk to him. Come to find out he scored 22 points per game at his high school basketball. And his first team all conference basketball, first team all conference soccer, he's 15 minutes from our university and I've never heard of the kid. So I'm like. I'm going to tear some ears off of my assistant coaches going. How did we not know about this kid? He's 15 minutes away from us, and we got so lucky with Matt, I'll thank Eric till the day I die that he brought Matt into my office, so I don't think parents get that. There's 28, 000 high schools in the United States alone. Yeah. If we can get to 12 high schools a year and see games, we're lucky. So I think that's really great advice. I find myself constantly talking to parents about the bad things that parents do, that turn coaches off. Are there things that you're drawn to the parents when you're recruiting a kid, are there things you just love about mom and dad? You're like, gosh, I don't just want the kid. I want the family. Are there things that. You want to recruit the kid because I'm a dad. Yeah. And again, as we got better, we were able to be more selective. And so that was great early on. I'll just be honest. I didn't pay attention to it as much as I should have now, but it was a little different 12, 12 years ago, 15 years ago. Now it seems like it's shot up there in terms of importance. And sometimes. I would know five minutes into a campus tour that I liked the kid, but the P I don't like the parents and this is not, he's not going to be a good fit. What were some of those characteristics, some of those things that were triggers for you? Red flags. Yeah. Speaking a negative about high school coach, club coach. Negative about their team. He plays for such and such team and team's not very good. And so a negative tone early walking into the first building or two and getting the body language of, or a comment of, ah, these classes are small or the building is built, and you're picking up on those cues. Sometimes it, it happens really fast. Of, they get out of the car, gosh, this campus is small parking, and it's okay. And that doesn't, it's not a deal breaker right away, but first impressions matter 100%. If I usually would try to turn on my charm, I don't know if I have it all the time, but usually early, I would try to crack a joke or try to get them to smile and I would know right away if. If how their response was and they're polite, they're nice they're laughing, they're enjoying their time. They're excited. They seem excited to be there, not a, oh, gosh, we got to go on this visit. We don't even want you to go to Webster. We can't afford it anyways. Why are we here? You'll get that vibe and you know that so I think parents have to be open and honest and be open and even the player when you get to campus. Be excited. Be generally coach. We're excited to be here. Even if you're hesitant and be open to what that coach and university is going to show you because you might, I will, I bet 90 percent of the players and parents that came here and they would tell me this a lot. Coach, we had no idea. Like we came here and we were thinking we were just wasting our time. But you were exceptional. Your staff was exceptional. The visit was exceptional. The campus, I had no idea it was this big, this nice. All the information you shared was fantastic. I think going to any campus is making sure you're getting out of the car and you're going to try to have a really good experience with that coach for the hour or two hours and be open to everything they're sharing because you might be surprised. Thank you. Because the better fit. Might be at a division three versus division two or a school that might be a little bit more expensive. But your child is going to have a better experience and stay four years. Then being able to tell someone your son's going to X, Y, Z school. 10 years in 10 years, that extra four or 5000 a year that you're paying, you're not going to think about it because your kids happy. They have a degree, they have a job, they have so much support that friends. Yeah, yeah. So making parents making a connection with the staff that you're doing a tour with too. And again, we're doing the tour. So I would do them. So I'd spend an hour or two with the family. So I get a really good read. If you're talking to the coach in a meeting for 10 minutes, it's going to be hard sometimes, but spend as much time as you can with the coach, learn as much as you can about the background of of the team. I would always share this as well with parents. And parents don't ask this. I would always offer it of, Hey, can, I'm going to share with you three or four players for my team. I'm going to share with you their contact info. I want you to call them. Awesome. Love it. I want you to call them. Most parents don't ask for that. And I, yeah, they should. And I will probably, and I'll tell them, ask the, ask my players. The things that you may be not getting on the tour. Hey, how are you traveling? What's the mood like on a bus ride? How's the hotel situation? How do you guys pick hotels? How's the meals on campus? Coach told me they were great. Are they good? Is it good? Is he being honest? I was always I thought I wanted to be as honest as possible, so there was no, no surprises when they came on campus and when they followed up and talked to one of my players, they were providing the same information. I was told I tell parents and kids all the time. I go, if you're on a visit and you don't ask for. the players or time alone you're making a mistake b I tell parents and kids w with the players go, hey, came here? What do you th You know, and it's okay. Yeah, and it's okay for them to say some negative things about you, right? Because I want to know the truth. Absolutely. So I was never afraid of that. Cause I felt like I was always given an honest and good experience. I thought I worked hard to. So there was things I'm sure I didn't do well. There's plenty of things and that's okay. So you can share those negative things, but I would feel really confident. There's going to be way more positives shared with that player and parent than some negatives. And I'm, I would pick, I'm picking some kids that, that I like and they're seniors, but I tell them, be honest With him, I know there's things about, I know there's things about Webster that maybe you don't, that you don't like, and that's okay, because I don't, I want to give, and I'm at the end of Mark Tours, and my goal is always, was always, or still is to give them as much information as possible. Yeah, you too. So they can make the best decision for their son. Here's all the information and I don't want them to come to campus in August and then have a surprises or they're learning things for the first time. I always loved it after the family went to lunch with my players, the dad would come back to my office you know I'd spent another 45 minutes hour with them in my office afterwards. And the dad would say. Your guys told me that you're harder on them than any coach they've ever had, and then I'd wait and he go, but they also said they love playing for you or they love it here. And I go it's, there's a lot of truth to that. I would imagine, I push them hard. I yell at them. I have high expectations for them and that's why we win usually, I wanted them, I wanted to hear that response. Oh, I don't want my, the mindset, I don't want my kid yelled at, I don't want them challenged. Yeah, they're not gonna, they're not gonna last year, not a good fit. You can't be hollered at, you can't be pushed. This isn't a good place. And I wanted to find that out. Yeah it's all about, it's all about people wherever you're working or whatever you're doing. So they got to know what Matt Rogers is about. And you want to know what the student athletes about because you want them to come on campus and you want to, you don't want to have 10 kids that you're just fighting with all day. Yeah, you want to, there's some surprises because you get to know the kids through a long recruiting process, but you don't, know them all the way yet, I should say, but yeah, but when you know, when these kids are coming on campus in August, you got a pretty solid idea of what they're about and they have a really solid idea of what you're about. Absolutely. So I was proud the last four or five years. Our retention, We'd only have a guy or two quit each year. And when you have a roster of 45 kids and 20 of them are not playing, I would always feel like we're doing everything we can to give them the best experience as possible. The playing time, that's not, everybody's going to get to play. But you're going to enjoy everything else that everybody else's is getting to enjoy. We traveled, everybody leave kids at home which probably didn't make a lot of sense for other teams. But we made a commitment to doing things, I think the right way. And so in picking and finding the right kids. So we didn't have to, a lot of times, replace a big hole in our roster with kids that are, they're leaving if kids weren't happy, most of the time it was, Coach, how can I play more, which I totally get, but it's impressive what you've done and the numbers you've put up and the kids that you have in your program that are happy and healthy and do get the opportunities. It's soccer is there's nothing harder. You can't substitute five at a time and like you can with basketball. So what you've done is really impressive. And Mike, I. I really appreciate the time you gave me today. Give me an hour out of your schedule is huge. So thanks for talking, recruiting and coaching with me. It's it's always a great joy when I get to spend some time with you. So thanks for today. I love it. Anytime you want to talk recruiting, who to call. I could talk about it all day. I will appreciate you. Thanks for your time. I miss you. Wish you were here locally. I could hang out with you more, but we always find time to. The chat on the phone, which I always enjoy. Yeah, me too. It's the best part of my week when you and I get to talk. So I appreciate it. So good luck with everything. And and we'll talk soon. Thanks coach. Thanks, Matt. See you. That's a wrap for this episode of the significant coaching podcast that is available. Audio only wherever you get your favorite podcasts. I'd like to thank my great guest and friend Mike scenar championship, college soccer, tennis and basketball coach from Webster university. For sharing his contagious passion for coaching and recruiting. He truly is a special coach and human being. I'm Matt Rogers have a significant week. Goodbye until next time.