Coaching Philosophy
My Approach to Leading People and Players
I am solution-oriented and optimistic, with a restless and relentless drive to improve my life and the lives of those around me. I have a passion for personal growth, navigating challenging learning experiences, and acquiring knowledge about the game and business of soccer. I have a passion for giving back to and inspiring positive change in my community - within my hometown of DC, the MLS & US soccer ecosystem, and the Black soccer community as a whole. Lastly, I have a passion for positive youth development, player development, and investing time and energy to facilitate the growth and development of people around me.
Creating a Player-Centric Experience
Listening and Engaging Authentically: Strive to get to know all players and staff on a deeper level. Have the mental and emotional capacity to understand and accept the entire spectrum of player and staff personalities with respect to personal history, family history, and personal/social factors.
Style of Play and Tactics: Develop team playing style and tactics based on player qualities, personalities, and overall team disposition. Be flexible within the club game model to accommodate strengths of players and the team as a whole.
Democratic Approach: Involve players, staff, and key stakeholders in decision making. Create interactive feedback loops using player meetings and video analysis (facts) from training and games to enhance development.
Development Principles: Treat each person / player differently based on needs, motivation and personality.
Creative Expression: Allow players time and space to express themselves in communication, team meetings, training and in games.
Training Philosophy: Maximum engagement and enjoyment. Implement game scenarios to enhance decision making and tactical game awareness. Performance goals in key focus areas to encourage players to solve problems and implement team principles.
Building a Winning Culture
Defining and Realizing Purpose: Allowing the team space to define goals and objectives. Define and maintain a collective higher purpose through our work in training as a team.
Team Development Planning: Team building and psychosocial training. Social functions, team activities, monthly team meals and special outings for players only.
Clarifying Roles and Expectations: Define clear roles for staff and players. Communicate roles clearly for everyone to see, hear, feel on a daily basis. Establish accountability measures and self-policing.
Attitude over Talent: Reward attitude before talent. Commitment to the team, growth mindset, positive disposition, work ethic, consistency, discipline, and respect.
Performance over Results: Emphasize performance before results in training and in games as much as possible. Consistent positive results are a byproduct of maximizing collective team performance.
Ownership and Responsibility: Offer opportunities for players, staff and key stakeholders to take ownership and responsibility of selected team tasks and functions.
District of Columbia Football Club
My Role and Responsibilities as Academy Director of DCFC
Community Integration: Our first step to starting a free-to-play youth club in DC was navigating the red tape in the form of permits, licenses, field space and general “politics”. After effectively branding and marketing ourselves, I quickly learned that other challenges for our demographic include: training & game locations, transportation, logistical considerations, and family or social factors that may affect player attitudes and attendance. We navigated those initial hurdles by building trust and understanding our community’s needs, then gradually building the program’s intensity once we knew the nature of the demand for our club. After playing an independent schedule in 2020-21, DCFC completed our first season in a formal league (EDP) in 2021-22.
Organizational Development: In 7 years since co-founding Open Goal Project, our organization has grown from 2 to 11 staff members and 3 advisory board members. My role encompasses identifying and vetting all new staff members, DCFC coaches, and volunteers. A big part of my organizational growth strategy is to place a premium on allowing opportunities for individual growth and empowering those around me to take on new challenges. As a club director I am always encouraging staff and coaches to take responsibility for identifying and addressing team and club needs.
Player Identification and Development: Player identification for our demographic in inner-city Washington DC is complex yet rewarding. The number of talented youth players in DC far outnumbers the talented players that have sufficient time and resources to play on traditional youth soccer clubs. We hold quarterly tryouts to consistently identify new players and create the most competitive environment possible. From a development perspective, our players are operating on a much steeper learning curve than some peers who start playing club soccer at 9 or 10 years old. The DCFC game model and training methodology is being adapted to identify our players’ deficiencies in technical and tactical development, and close the gaps efficiently to bring us up to the appropriate levels.
Leadership of Staff & Coaches: My leadership values are closely aligned with and reflected directly in the four pillars of DCFC culture: Family, Respect, Honesty, and Discipline. Similarly to my coaching philosophy, my leadership philosophy with staff prioritizes consistent listening and engaging authentically in order to gain an understanding of personal history and motivations. This information helps me to formulate individual strategies with each of my staff members and consider their strengths and opportunities uniquely. Some of the other cultural principles that I encourage throughout our staff are: committing to investing in the people around you, being patient while allowing space for growth and maturation, instilling discipline and holding people accountable to being the best version of themselves, and maintaining an inclusive family environment that is safe and supportive to ALL players, coaches, staff members and their families.
Cardozo HS Varsity Soccer
My Approach to Developing Players and People from Marginalized Communities in Washington, DC
As a volunteer head coach at Cardozo HS in DC for 3 seasons from 2016-2018, I was fortunate to learn early in my career that coaching is much more than technique, tactics or whatever may happen between the lines of a field. Building genuine relationships, learning what motivates people, and understanding the challenges that people and players face in life are a few of my key coaching strategies to maximizing player performance. Tapping into what drives individuals and a team in order to help people overcome obstacles and find success is a social, psychological and emotional journey that I relish from start to finish of each season.
The difficulty of coaching this particular demographic of youth players is the unpredictability with which their life circumstances can impact their pursuit of a youth soccer career. I coached players who were young fathers, players who had jobs and commitments to their respective family financial situations, players who were the primary caregiver for their younger siblings, along with the myriad of other distractions and obstacles our young people must learn to navigate in a city like Washington, DC.
My experience at Cardozo made me a better coach by helping me understand how I want to approach the human element of my coaching philosophy. The leadership skills that I enhanced in my role as the head coach were my adaptability to unpredictable situations, my versatility in coaching a wide spectrum of diverse student athletes, and my agility in leadership situations to pivot to different strategies.
