My Story in Soccer

The Journey Begins

“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.” – Henry David Thoreau

I am originally from a small rural town less than 30 miles away from Niagara Falls.

Our family had a one-story ranch-style house situated on 3 acres of mostly open land that bordered a farm. I was always running around and finding ways to be active, so my parents signed me up at Newfane Soccer Club when I was 5 years old along with my identical twin brother.

We had also played other sports like hockey and basketball over the years, but like most young athletes around the world, soccer was the most accessible sport for us, so we never missed a season since the beginning.

Opportunities

“Not for ourselves alone, are we born.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Unlike the modern times of soccer in the United States, an organized club system like the Elite Clubs National League (ECNL) didn’t exist when I grew up. There were also never really any notable club academies around the Western New York region besides Empire United Soccer Academy, which is now Rochester New York FC Youth.

In addition, USL League Two side FC Buffalo and their Youth Academy weren’t established until after I had graduated high school. To this day, the Buffalo-Niagara area still lacks high profile development opportunities. There aren’t any MLS NEXT academies west of Rochester, and WNY Flash is the only club that represents the area in ECNL competition. Niagara 1812, a new NPSL club, was only just announced in March 2024.

So for us, club teams were referred to as travel teams. The first team I was selected for was called Lockport Lightning, which is now Lockport Soccer Club. After one or two seasons, I moved to Newfane Nitros to play on teams with peers from my local school district where I continued through the U10 – U17 age groups, often playing up two age groups due to the limited player pool.

Most people associate the Western New York area with a lot of snow and they would be correct. We were still desperate to play, even in the winter. We would often look at the weather report to find upcoming days above 35 degrees and shovel a large section of our backyard in front of our wood framed goal, so we could play on the grass for the following day or two. Fortunately as well, we had a few indoor facilities to play in winter leagues between Kenan Center, Sportsplex, Epic Center and Sahlen’s Sports Park.

The majority of the players that came through the Newfane Nitros travel team ended up attending Newfane Senior High School and playing up in age groups turned out to be largely successful for my junior and senior years on the team. During my junior season, we had won the Section VI Class B Championship and Far West Regional Championship en route to a NYSPHAA State Semifinals appearance, losing 2-1.

Being from an Air Force family, it was almost expected to join the armed forces in some capacity, so my brother and I enlisted in the Air National Guard during our senior year of high school. After returning from Air Force Basic Military Training (BMT) as the following college spring semester had already begun, I thought that I would join a few of my former high school teammates at Niagara County Community College for the following fall semester, which was at the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) level. Already having taken a year away from school to finish military training, I was able to get started at SUNY Buffalo State University (NCAA Division III) earlier than expected, where I chose to participate on the cross country and track teams due to the more flexible schedule and a new challenge.

Do I regret not continuing my playing career into college? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t. Everybody always wants to know, “Did you play in college?” as if it’s a qualifier to coach or scout at a high level. It has been reassuring to see other coaches and scouts without extensive playing careers in their CV throughout the world of soccer today. Arsène Wenger had always been one of my favorite managers and Andre Villas Boas was also an inspiration for what was possible if you dedicate yourself to the game. It’s not all about having played at certain levels. It’s how you understand it, analyze it, and communicate it.

I was able to stay very connected to soccer throughout college, despite choosing distance running for the school. Rudy Pompert, the Head Coach of SUNY Buffalo State University Men’s Soccer at the time became a close coaching mentor and offered me a job coaching at Delaware Soccer Club during my summers as a college student. From there, I joined West Senior High School in West Seneca, New York as the Head Coach for the JV team. The following year, I was student teaching for my first graduate degree, and served as an assistant within a few high schools in the Western New York area.

The importance behind sharing much of this background is that ever since reflecting upon my experience, I have wanted to help players find opportunities beyond what were available to me. This is a core motivation for the scouting portion of what I try to contribute. A lot of players put a lot of time and effort into developing their game. I don’t like seeing the best ones fail to find opportunities just from a lack of exposure or options.

The origins of how I formally expanded beyond coaching and into scouting started with an opportunity to work with Regis University Men’s Soccer program in 2016 where the Rangers ended the season with a 14-5-1 record and an NCAA Regional tournament appearance. I worked in opponent analysis and advance scouting for Tony McCall and his staff, attended a couple of practices each week as well as home games. I had also done several scouting assignments for Regis University while also considering youth players for certain academy levels, so more formal player identification started to find its way into my skill set. During that time, I was also roommates with three guys who all worked in professional soccer, so it was a great environment to be around.

Fast forward a little bit after I got further into player identification scouting, there have been several players that I have recommended that have featured for MLS clubs.

More Than Sport

"The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football." – Alan Shearer

Coming from a small area, the coaching wasn’t really that in-depth and a few of the main coaches I had growing up weren’t exactly memorable for the right reasons. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but during school, there was always an anxiety around that team and the atmosphere wasn’t ideal for growth. When creating any team culture now, the lessons learned as a player are things that I have been conscious about. I also take my coaching roles very seriously in how I prepare and run each training session and set up each player for success on match days. Back in November 2023, I enrolled in the PSV Coaching Academy that is offered by PSV Eindhoven over the course of the year to further my knowledge.

I was naturally pretty good at soccer even from the beginning, but was also always pushing to become better and achieve more. Also, as an identical twin, it’s inherently a competitive environment, so I definitely had a competitive spirit. People would say that we were competitive because of our family and maybe that’s true to some extent, but for whatever reason, I was the type of person that hated losing more than I liked winning. Winning a championship was more of a relief than anything else. Sometimes I lost sight of the fun side of the game as a young player, so as a coach, I keep that in mind as well. I always want to create and cultivate the fun aspects of the sport and combine those naturally with the serious aspects of it. It seems to have been successful so far. In my first three seasons in North Carolina, I’ve only coached in 2 losses while also having a strong underlying feeling of enjoyment in our style of play and how we approach training, void of the kind of anxiety that my teammates and I experienced when we were playing.

You learn a lot about yourself and life in general from sports, and soccer certainly provided me with countless opportunities to learn and grow. In my early twenties, comparative philosophy and psychology became an interest of mine as I really started to reflect upon my life. Being able to look back my experiences and draw the philosophical lessons from accumulated history has been an important aspect of my personal growth as well as my overall understanding of the game.

If you were to ask any athlete, I’d be surprised if any of them disagreed, but sports also provide some of the best friendships of your life. The community is a special one. I have a great appreciation towards soccer for that as well.

Individuality as Self-Expression

“Insist on yourself; never imitate.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

No two players are the same, as no two people are the same.

Growing up with an identical twin brother, I know this truth very well. Though similar in nearly all interests, beliefs, and experiences, my brother and I are still different in many ways. Interestingly enough, we test nearly opposite for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and quite differently for Enneagram as well. On the field, our playing styles and attributes had differed as well, and ultimately tied back to our personalities as individuals.

As a fan of soccer for all of my known life, I would argue that the best players have been true individuals, both in personality and in play. Self-discovery in a player’s personal life is valuable in the way they approach the game. The more the person understands oneself, the more authentic they live.

The experience of being an identical twin is one of the most important parts of my life. I owe a lot to that experience. We challenge one another, motivate one another, and support one another.

This detail of my life deeply plays into my coaching and scouting as well. I think it’s important to understand the players and challenge, motivate, and support them in a way that is authentic to them as an individual.