Joe Cummings Remembers Dean Conway

Today's conversation is with Joe Cummings, a longtime leader in American soccer who knew and worked with Dean Conway going back over 40 years. Joe's career has spanned coaching, education, and executive leadership roles throughout the soccer community. He served as CEO of United Soccer Coaches from 2009 to 2015, was Technical Director at the New England Revolution, and worked as President and General Manager of the Boston Breakers. But before all of that, Joe was a 7th grade teacher who met Dean in the 1980s when they were both helping to build the foundation of coach education in Massachusetts. Their friendship and professional partnership would span decades. Joe brings a unique perspective on Dean's impact - having witnessed firsthand how Dean helped shape not just individual coaches, but the entire framework of youth soccer development in New England.

For more information about CoachCraft, visit https://coachcraft.info.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro to Remembering Dean Conway: A Legacy in Coaching
• 2:06 Intro to Joe Cummings
• 3:00 Dean's Unique Teaching Style and Philosophy
• 11:53 Building Community Through Soccer
• 14:58 Dean's Impact on Youth Soccer Development
• 18:03 Personal Stories and Memories of Dean
• 21:01 The Man Behind the Coach
• 23:53 Lessons Learned from Dean Conway
• 26:56 The Importance of Opportunity in Coaching
• 40:15 Episode Outro

Transcript

Alf Gracombe (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the CoachCraft Podcast. I'm Alf Gracombe On this podcast, we explore the art of coaching youth sports through conversations with exceptional coaches. But this episode and a number of others I'm recording are a little bit different than previous conversations. This is more personal and I'll explain why. Dean Conway, who was not just a mentor to me throughout my coaching journey, but was also a dear friend and just a wonderful human being. And he passed away in March of this year. Dean's passing was a big loss to the coaching community here in Boston and in Massachusetts and even more broadly. And I wanted to honor Dean and his legacy by capturing through conversations with some of the people that knew and worked with him and the times they shared with him and the influence he had on their lives and their journeys as coaches.

Dean, as you'll hear in these conversations, was an exceptional coach and uniquely an exceptional coach of coaches. He had the gift of being able to convey knowledge, whether you were a coach or just starting out or one with decades of experience. Regardless of who you were, you'd walk away from any conversation with Dean or any coach training session of his, not just smarter about coaching, but truly inspired and enthusiastic about getting out on the field with young players.

and making an impact in their lives. From the professional levels to the grassroots, Dean touched a lot of people, players, coaches, and others just involved in the sport. He wasn't just a coach, he was a loving family man, a loyal friend, a school teacher, a curious soul, and a true intellectual. He was community-minded, people-oriented, kind, and just a really cool guy. I consider myself very lucky to have known him

and spent so much time with him. And you'll hear a lot of the same sentiments in these conversations with some of the people who knew Dean and had the pleasure of working with him.

Alf Gracombe (02:07)
Today's conversation is with Joe Cummings, a longtime leader in American soccer who knew and worked with Dean going back over 40 years. Joe's career spanned coaching, education, and executive leadership roles throughout the soccer community.

He served as CEO of United Soccer Coaches from 2009 to 2015, was technical director of New England Revolution, and worked as president and general manager of the Boston Breakers. But before all of that, Joe was a seventh grade teacher who met Dean in the 1980s when they were both helping to build the foundation of coach education in Massachusetts. Their friendship and professional partnership would span decades. Joe brings the unique perspective on Dean's impact

having witnessed firsthand how he helped shape not just individual coaches, the entire framework of youth soccer development in New England.

Alf Gracombe (03:01)
Hey, good morning, Joe. ⁓ Welcome.

Joe, it's great to have you here. ⁓ yeah, we're gonna talk about our dear friend, Dean Conway. ⁓ Interestingly, you and I met through Dean, but it was a bit later in Dean's life and there's a whole history that you had with him, I think before I even met Dean about 10 years ago. So.

Maybe we'll start with that if you could just talk a little bit about how you met Dean and then some of the work that you did together.

Joe Cummings (03:38)
Sure. You know, everyone, everyone nowadays knows of this, the formality of coach education, especially in Massachusetts, which had been one of the states that really was at the forefront as far as coach education was concerned. Well, what we have right now is not what it was back in the 80s and 90s. And believe me, some of what I'm going to talk about is really going to date me and date Dean as far as.

Alf Gracombe (04:05)
We want

all the history, Joe. So go ahead.

Joe Cummings (04:07)
as far as those times,

it wasn't formalized. You know, the courses that people take right now, some of them didn't exist. And there were a number of people along the way that were responsible for building the coach education curriculum. And then there was a pool of people that helped do these on a very regular basis.

And I met Dean as a staff coach. He was one of those folks that was responsible for building the curriculum, but then testing the curriculum in a gymnasium on a cold winter Saturday in February or in a classroom some evening in a school someplace across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

So it was really a two-parter. Build the curriculum, write the curriculum, get it ready. I mean, there were no videos, there were no books. And let's not even talk about what the equipment was, or what we would carry with us to these coach education sessions. So at the center of this was Dean among a few other folks. Then there was this entire circle of people that implemented this, that brought it out.

to the coaches in Massachusetts that wanted to become better coaches. And what an array of people we would have had in those classes. And it was Dean who really understood the array of coaches, ⁓ men and women that were there to become better coaches. And if you think back to the period of time that I just mentioned to you,

I mean, it wasn't to say, it wasn't necessarily to lay the groundwork of how old we were, but it was 80s and 90s that we were doing this. So when we talk about Dean, I'm talking about someone that I had known over 40 years. And the centerpiece to all of it, the beginnings of it was coach education, curriculum.

and then how do we activate coach education? And from that, we just kept growing and growing and growing and building on it. So that's that. That's how I met him.

Alf Gracombe (06:38)
And so,

yeah, so this was, you were working with Massachusetts Youth Soccer Association at the time or? Okay.

Joe Cummings (06:45)
I was, I was, well, that's the second part. I was a teacher at that

time. I was a seventh grade teacher from 1973 to 1994. So right in the middle of that 20 some odd years comes Dean Conway and the connection around soccer was the initial connection, but

teaching and coaching 12, 13 and 14 year olds was the one that really, really, really brought us together. It was those conversations that are part of the memory bank that I have about Dean. It certainly is the soccer, but our conversations and our togetherness was centered on children, specifically in that age group.

Alf Gracombe (07:41)
Yeah.

So you, ⁓ you know, this has definitely been a theme of conversations and just my own experience with Dean as well as his, his teaching, his ability to connect his knowledge and impart that to others. And he had this, you know, I think very unique gift, but you mentioned it in your opening remark in terms of this array of different types of coaches and maybe people coming in with more experience than others, people from different parts of the state, different.

know, socioeconomic backgrounds, whatever it may be. Talk if you can a bit more about Dean's kind of special sauce, how he was able to deliver his message to such a varied group of people.

Joe Cummings (08:29)
⁓ I'm gonna use a word that maybe...

I'm going to use a word that maybe people haven't used when speaking about Dean or thinking about Dean, let's say. And the one of all of the qualities, the one thing that I knew about him and the one word that I would use is I always viewed him as ⁓ some sort of a protector.

And what do I mean by that? Dean protected.

everything about the game.

Dean protected everything about the learning process and Dean protected you if you were part of that process. So just like in a classroom, the range of coaches, there were some that maybe knew something about the sport. Then there were others that really wanted to

become a better coach so that they could help their son or daughter or the 15 to 20 children that they were responsible for. Dean protected you so that you never felt that you didn't belong in that classroom. Dean protected the game. You know, the game is the best teacher. Dean protected the game so that the game could not be taken over by...

a type of play that didn't bring players joy. And then, or perhaps number one, he protected the children themselves so that they could begin to feel the joy that he felt for the game. And he wanted every single experience

No matter what that group was, whether it was a parent who was trying to become a better coach, whether it was the game itself and how it could be taught or should be taught, and then the children that were involved in playing the game, he wanted to protect all of those people. I always felt viewed him as a protector.

Alf Gracombe (10:58)
Yeah, such an interesting word. And no, it hasn't. I haven't heard that word, you know, used to describe Dean, but the way you talked about that, it's true, very much true. And I think that was. Yeah.

Joe Cummings (11:10)
Yeah, it now it

for me he was He was very much a moral compass. He was very very much a moral compass. I knew And you may see pieces of that in people But I knew that with Dean it was consistent that who he was It bringing you back to protecting the game the people the coaches the children that was him

Alf Gracombe (11:18)
Yeah.

Joe Cummings (11:39)
every single time I saw him.

Alf Gracombe (11:42)
Yeah, and maybe that was, you he was one of these people that he, you felt at ease in his presence. And even if you were, he was talking about.

the game about football, about coaching and some, you know, maybe abstract concept or getting pretty deep, which, you know, he could certainly do. was anything but a surface level guy. ⁓ he was very much a man of substance, but, ⁓ there was never like your, your, your, your views that were protection. Like your ego was protected around Dean. He always, you know, never made you feel dumb or that you didn't have something to offer that you weren't part of that conversation of trying to improve.

whatever work you're doing together.

Joe Cummings (12:25)
That's exactly right. That's exactly

right. And it was interesting because...

When working with him, you never felt that he had the answers, even though he had the answers. And he would, through Socratic method or through giving you options, giving you an opportunity to express yourself, he would make sure that you were the one that was made to feel as if you had the answer.

Alf Gracombe (12:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Cummings (13:03)
when he usually did.

Alf Gracombe (13:06)
Yeah, that's so true. And I think that sat at the center of his teaching method as well, is helping people arrive at solutions or answers to whatever problem was being worked on. ⁓ So Joe, you saw him at work developing this curriculum, teaching. You had this affinity with him as a fellow teacher yourself. ⁓

Joe Cummings (13:11)
Sure.

Alf Gracombe (13:31)
And then you did more work with him though, right? I know you were working with the New England Revolution at one point, and I don't want to take this out of, you know, if there's a sequence of events here, feel free to take us back to what you'd like to tell it. But you did work with the revolution, correct? Yeah.

Joe Cummings (13:47)
I I was

there for a number of years and we wanted to start a ⁓ camp clinic program. so pitching it to the higher ups at the New England Revolution was step one. And it was so early in the development of the New England Revolution and Major League Soccer that it was. It was. Yes. And then again, I was there twice from 96 to 1999.

Alf Gracombe (14:09)
This was what, mid 90s, late 90s? When was this? Yeah.

Joe Cummings (14:18)
and then from 2004 to 2005. It wasn't the 1996 to 99 version, it was later on. And starting a clinic program to get the players involved out in the community, obviously there would be community benefits, but we didn't want it to be, we wanted it to be the joyful aspect again. We wanted it to be something that the players would

that the youth players would feel joy from being part of the clinic program and then connecting to the Revolution players. We did it in probably a half a dozen towns when we launched. And it was just a half-day program. And there were days Dean would come in and I could just tell that there were either too many children or not enough coaches or whatever, but never once

Alf Gracombe (14:58)
In what age groups were you working with at that time?

Joe Cummings (15:18)
Never once would he say we shouldn't continue this or whatever. Everything that he did helped lay the groundwork for a camp and clinic program that now exists in a robust way with the revolution. And he was just like the coach education. He was there at the beginning. I knew just who to ask when the revolution higher ups came to me and said, Joe, who's going to run this? I knew just who to ask. And it was Dean.

Alf Gracombe (15:48)
Yeah, it's funny, the more people I talk with about Dean, you sort of realize his fingerprints are over a lot of different things that we take for granted in the soccer community today, whether it's, you know, state of Massachusetts, New England revolution, certainly Jamaica playing youth soccer, others. And these interviews will speak to that, certainly. Yeah, he.

really was around at this time where it was early days of coach education. I think the US was playing catch up. You could argue still is to some extent, but with Europe and South America primarily. And Dean was really in the vanguard, if you will, of youth soccer development and coach education in the US.

Joe Cummings (16:38)
Being able to establish something, I think probably is what Dean appreciated. It's not that he wouldn't have stepped into a situation, you know, that had 30 years of history behind it, but he would have seen some things perhaps in that developed program, pre-developed program, that he would have done differently. And he didn't have to do that. He established so many things.

Alf Gracombe (17:01)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Cummings (17:06)
that it gave him a chance to lay the groundwork for what would follow. I mean, now people go to conventions and conferences and everybody's doing a two day or a three day or a week long. And my goodness, I certainly did with what was the NSCAA and United Soccer Coaches. But I go back to Dean having a weekend event.

at the park school or, you know, inviting international guests to come and present. And I was very fortunate to have as my coach at the Breakers, Pia Sundhage I never would have met Pia if I didn't know Dean Conway. I mean, and that was one degree of separation. And then you meet all of these other people.

Alf Gracombe (17:59)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Cummings (18:03)
And keep in mind that those folks that we met, those folks that we were introduced to, those folks that did sessions for us, you had to pass the litmus test from them to have them come and do what they did. You didn't just pick up the phone and call them and say, hey, Pia, how'd you like to come over to Boston and do a clinic? Now, Pia probably would have done it, but it was because of

Alf Gracombe (18:23)
without a doubt, yeah.

Joe Cummings (18:33)
Dean because they knew what he was, they knew what he would bring to that, those sessions, they knew that it would be organized, they knew all of that. He and I traveled together to an organization in England called AFCAP and

It no longer exists, but it was wonderful. You had people from all over the world. And it was amazing how soon into this four or five days that we were together, where people had recognized, again, people at this level had recognized he was somebody you wanted to talk to because of the way he answered, because of the way he conducted himself.

You talk about being a wingman in soccer or football. Yeah, I was like the wingman. Wait, let me introduce you to somebody over here that you should really be talking to. This is this guy, Dean Conway. then the conversation would have like one person around him. And then all of a sudden that person would say, no, no, no, come over here, come over here for a minute. And the next thing you know, Dean was like talking to a half a dozen people. And it was just, nah, was, that was Dean.

Alf Gracombe (19:33)
your Dean's Wing math.

Yeah, yeah. He loved? He did.

Joe Cummings (19:58)
That was Dean.

Alf Gracombe (19:59)
He was so funny because he was so unassuming. He was not necessarily the guy you look at and think, here comes Mr. Charisma. Here comes the guy who's going to step in the room and all the heads are going to turn. But yet,

That was ultimately, everybody wanted to be around Dean. Everybody recognized him for, I guess, his combination of his intellect, his integrity, his curiosity, his desire to connect people with other people. But he did it in such an understated way. I always found that remarkable about his personality. So you've talked a lot about football, about soccer, and your work with Dean.

Joe Cummings (20:33)
Yes.

Alf Gracombe (20:40)
And you alluded to it in your opening remarks, but Dean is the person off the field. You started with soccer with him, but like with a lot of people, I include myself with this, you were a close friend of his and got to know him and other parts of his life. If you can share some of that.

Joe Cummings (21:01)
You know, everything about the coach education was, and still is, very structured. You know, if you're doing a course on a Saturday, it's, you know, arrive at 8 a.m., do an introduction, 8.30, lecture number one, 9.30 in the gym, boom, boom, break for lunch. I can't tell you how many times after we had finished, our conversations would...

continue and They first of all there was the debrief around what it what we were doing and how it had gone But then we did the catch-up We would catch up on how teaching was going how the children were Dean of course two daughters. I had two sons Almost the same age. So we talked about that. We always talked about family You know, we would we would always

marvel at the latitude that our wives gave us to do what we were doing. You you'd say, I'm going to teach a course from eight to noon. And then we would get home at three o'clock because Dean and I had sat around in the gym and just thought, yeah, exactly. Sit around and talk for a couple of hours. So it was it was those. It was those opportunities.

Alf Gracombe (22:16)
Yeah, they knew it wasn't going to end at noon.

Joe Cummings (22:30)
that cemented, that was the bond. Look, football, soccer brought us together, of course, but it was those opportunities to have conversations about other things. And that's where the friendship and the relationship was really formed. In 2009, I was leaving.

Massachusetts to take the position as CEO of what was then called the NSCAA. So I'm moving from Massachusetts to Kansas City. And for those of you that knew that for those folks that knew me as a New Englander, they said, you're moving where? Where? To the Midwest? And so Dean and I both agree that we had to get together before I left. And we went, course, to his favorite restaurant, which we all know so well.

and sat there for hours and hours and hours. And as I was leaving, Dean said, wait, wait, wait, I have a couple of gifts for you. And I said, Dean, come on. And he said, no, no, no, really. He said, I want to give you these two books. ⁓ what a surprise. The master wordsmith was going to present me with a couple of books.

Alf Gracombe (23:43)
Yeah, always literature, always literature.

Joe Cummings (23:53)
I should have known that they would not be soccer or football books. I should have known that. It wouldn't have surprised me if they had been, but I should have known that because the circle of those things we spoke about had been small at the beginning. It had just been football and soccer and it had grown bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. All of the things that he had interests in,

I mean, I never knew until talking to his brother and sister about baseball, how much they enjoyed baseball as a family. So Dean gives me these two books. One of them was a selection of poems, just a selection of poems that he said, I think you'll like some of these poems. And I said, wow, well, get home, look at the book. The poems and their topics.

Alf Gracombe (24:29)
Yeah.

Joe Cummings (24:52)
are centered on conversations that we have had. It was if the book had been written and the title was Poems that Joe Cummings Would Like to Read. I mean, he had searched and this was pre-Amazon. So he probably had gone to Barnes and Noble and sat there for a whole day looking at different books. And then the second one, and the second one really, really came back up again in the past month or two.

It was the lyrics, the words from Bob Dylan songs. And of course, with the movie that just came out, Dean and I had talked about Dylan, the years, and I've already dated the years that Dylan was making an impact societally and musically, the years that he was performing and how much some of what Dylan sang about.

and how he delivered his message, than those during that time period that sang a Bob Dylan song that he had written, either the lyric or music. And this was the other book that he gave me. So these two treasures that I still have in a bookcase here in our home, these two treasures from Dean Conway,

to me tell the story of that person. Yes, we all knew about the soccer side of it, but there was so much more to this man, layers of things that some of us knew about and some of us didn't know about. The personalization of those gifts and I'll bet, I mean, you know, we all got the postcards, we all got the notes.

Alf Gracombe (26:43)
Mm-hmm

Joe Cummings (26:52)
I mean, there was something about his script and the Christmas cards. I asked him once, did he start his Christmas cards in July so that he could write every one and send them out at appropriate timing come December? It was the layers of the man and those two books as a personal gift to me, because I was leaving in 2009. ⁓

Alf Gracombe (26:56)
Yeah.

Joe Cummings (27:21)
Those were the two gifts. Now, what was my gift back to him? It didn't happen that day. We're at a convention one year. I think it was Philadelphia. I'm walking down one side of the street. Dean is walking down the other side of the street. And the thing about Dean was he had this incredible smile, this smile that could start very small. It was still a smile and it might get bigger and bigger if appropriate or...

Alf Gracombe (27:26)
Yeah, he ⁓

Joe Cummings (27:49)
and he was walking down the other side of the street. I saw him, he didn't see me. He was walking with about a half a dozen people from Mass Youth Soccer. And there were people walking to sessions, you know, left and right down the street. We were fortunate because we were outside in January in Philadelphia. And I stopped and I yelled across the street, the best coach and educator in the United States, right there, Dean Conway.

right there, Dean Conway right there. And of course his smile explodes over his face. And those people around him from Matthew Soccer just collapsed in laughter. And the people that heard me say that recognize, and at that point I probably was walking to a session, but those people recognized that I was.

Alf Gracombe (28:24)
Hehehehe

Joe Cummings (28:44)
saying to you if you were involved in coach education and didn't know who this guy was you best you best walk across the street and find out who he was and That's who he was the best coach educator in the United States as far as I was concerned

Alf Gracombe (28:47)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

that's a great story and I think it also tells a little bit about Joe Cummings as well and his... ⁓

Joe Cummings (29:06)
Well, it probably embarrassed him a bit, my personality was a little bit different than Dean's, but I didn't want to miss the

opportunity.

Alf Gracombe (29:18)
Yeah, you know, you, you mentioned the, books and things that he would share. Dean was very much a man of letters, right? think he loved to read. loved to write. He was so curious. It certainly wasn't just the world of football. Like football did connect a lot of these things for him culturally, certainly. Um, and, uh, yeah, he, he always had something for me, uh, whenever we'd meet up for lunch, you know, we were, I had the benefit of being a neighbor. So I, you know, we'd have lunch, I don't know, every month or so.

and he'd always give me something. And then for my son, who was a young, you know, soccer player, ⁓ he'd have like some stickers from like, you know, Ajax football club or something that he, that he'd give me, he just had around the house or from one of his trips to the Netherlands or something. So he was always giving little, little things. It was great. He was great that way. And, ⁓ but he could write, that was the other thing, right? He, he was kind of old school in this way. You know, I'm.

Joe Cummings (30:02)
Yes.

Alf Gracombe (30:17)
sort of one of these people that came of age around the time, the personal computing and the internet. But Dean was very, he still wrote and he really liked to write and communicate and share that way. And like we have all of these.

things that Dean's written that are stored on our file drive, with Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer that are these like tidbits or Dean would just feel inspired to write and he'd crank out three pages about last night's training session. And that would be nuggets of gold sprinkled throughout that. We've got a bunch of these documents just laying around that we still refer to. ⁓

Joe Cummings (30:47)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So many times after matches at the New England Revolution, if Dean had been there, I would see him. But if I hadn't been there, I would call him on the way home. He would watch the game. I would call him. And I didn't feel like I had really seen the game until Dean told me what was happening. ⁓ You know, it was. You know, we watch coaches now. And there are some sports.

Alf Gracombe (31:17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Cummings (31:26)
that I just shake my head at because I think right now in college basketball, there are as many coaches sitting on the bench as there are players. And they all have these different responsibilities. I mean, basketball coaches are standing up all the time and then I watched some other coaches, even at the professional football, professional soccer level that are very animated. And then there are some that just believe that the game is the teacher.

Alf Gracombe (31:39)
Yeah, what are all those people doing?

Joe Cummings (31:55)
and still behave that way. It was never about Dean. It was never about Dean. Could have been, could have been, would have been justified with his knowledge. Could have been, but it wasn't. It was never about him. It was always about improvement. It was always about...

You spent time with Dean Conway and you left wanting to become a better person.

not because you had spoken about football or soccer, not because of that. You wanted to become a better person because of something he had shared with you. And that conversation could have been 30 seconds or it could have been three hours. It didn't matter. He was there in those moments to help you not

Alf Gracombe (32:43)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Cummings (32:58)
He didn't start it by saying, I've got to help this person today. It was just part of who he was. It was never about him. It was always about the interaction he was having with that person and making you feel like you were the most important person in the room. That was Dean.

Alf Gracombe (33:16)
Yeah, he, so when I first started coaching, that's right. When I met Dean, it was, my son was entering first grade and it was the U8 Academy at Jamaica Plain Youth Soccer and it was Dean and Chris Hoeh just two guys and they'd been working together for about eight or 10 years at the, at that point.

And so that's when I got to know Dean and it was, you know, coaching kids and like I played the game, but I didn't have a lot of experience coaching. So really quickly I knew, okay, I need to pay attention to Dean. He clearly knows what he's doing here. But the thing that he really taught me that I appreciate to this day.

and try to do when I'm coaching is he was such an astute observer and he would, to your point, he wasn't out there yapping about, that was not Dean. He was taking all of this information in and then, I don't know, he'd carry these index cards around, right? He would take notes, he would, and he had this great ability to just take it in.

make some sense of it and then share it back out. And that's what I learned from him. I mean, I wish I were as good as he was at it, but take it in. Take that information in, watch those kids play, watch that game. Really try and observe what's going on in the field and what you can learn from just watching.

And keep your orientation developmental. That's what it is. So that's what I learned. I feel like I'm a long way off from how he was able to do it. But I don't know if you agree with that or if you saw the same thing with Dean.

Joe Cummings (34:47)
it.

It was his gift to all of us. It was his gift to all of us. And, you know, they tell you that in the coach education classes. They tell you all of that, you know. mean, step in, make your point, step out, let the kids play. They tell you all of that. They teach you all of that.

Alf Gracombe (35:14)
Yep.

Joe Cummings (35:19)
Then you watch somebody do a session and you say, my goodness, you who, you know, what do they say about coaches? We're really just teachers in short pants, you know? So I mean, he was a teacher. He was a teacher. Listen, Dean could have taught piano. He could have, you know, taught any subject. He would have mastered it and then he would have taught it. And he would have taught it exactly the same way.

Alf Gracombe (35:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Cummings (35:48)
He was a master teacher and coach educator. And those of us that had the great good fortune to spend time with him are better for it. We're better for it.

Alf Gracombe (36:06)
Joe, really so appreciative of what you've shared. I want to ask you one last question about Dean to wrap things up. If you could distill it down or one lesson or philosophy from Dean that you've carried forward in your own work, and maybe you've alluded to it previously here.

But if there's one lesson or philosophy that you've carried forward with, in your work with young people or with other coaches, what would it be?

Joe Cummings (36:40)
everything. ⁓

Everything for Dean was an opportunity.

Everything for Dean was an opportunity.

opportunity for what, Joe? An opportunity for what do you mean by that? That opportunity would have been dictated by that interaction.

anytime you were with him individually or in a group.

you should have been the one observing him. And that was, I spent more time observing Dean than Dean may realize I was observing him because he sought opportunity, opportunities to improve on whatever it was. Now let's go back for a minute and how I've answered some things.

No curriculum in Mass Youth Soccer? ⁓ Dean Conway. Helping start a program for camps and clinics with the New England Revolution? Dean Conway. The work at Jamaica Plain? The layered work at Mass Youth Soccer. What began that way, then the clinic programs, the weekend ⁓ invitation-only clinic programs? All of that were opportunities. He saw things.

usually before others, that needed his attention. And it would be...

Alf Gracombe (38:18)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Cummings (38:28)
egomaniacal for anyone to say that he saw things and wanted to make them better, because that means that you're putting him as the center of wanting to make things better. That's not what it was. Dean saw an opportunity to help, whatever that may have been, whatever that may have been. And I think I'll go back to one of my first words and this word also.

He protected you, he protected the children, he protected the game itself and the opportunities to make you a better person when they became apparent. He did not shy away from them, but he embraced them for your benefit.

Alf Gracombe (39:19)
beautifully put ⁓ and I couldn't agree more with that. ⁓ Yeah, opportunity. was, Dean was always looking for the next thing. He was a big hockey guy, right? He was always skating to where the puck was going to be, not where it was. There's a sports metaphor for us. But yeah, that was beautiful, Joe. Thank you. ⁓ Well, Joe.

Joe Cummings (39:36)
Exactly.

Alf Gracombe (39:45)
This has been great. I love having these conversations about Dean. I miss him like crazy, as I know you do as well, but getting to hear these stories and how other folks knew him and what they shared with him ⁓ is a real gift. So thank you for offering up that gift today. All right, Joe, thanks so much. yeah, I look forward to talking again soon.

Joe Cummings (40:06)
You're very welcome.

making.

Very good. All the best.

Alf Gracombe (40:16)
A big thanks to Joe Cummings for sharing those stories and those thoughts about Dean. And thanks to you for listening. And if you knew Dean, I really hope this served as a way to remember him and his work. And if you didn't know Dean, I hope this conversation maybe helped you feel as if you did even a little.

To those of us who care deeply about coaching and developing young players, young people, Dean's life serves as a great model for us all. I hope there's something you were able to take away from this conversation. Thanks again for listening.