SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome to the Pink and Green Podcast, where we explore the rise of Vermont soccer through the lens of community, culture, and the game itself, featuring stories from Vermont Clover FC. Join us as we talk with players, coaches, and the people shaping the future of the game in Vermont. Welcome to the Vick and Green Podcast. I'm AJ. And I'm Chris.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Chris, how are you doing? I'm okay. This is one of those episodes that's actually going to be kind of timely. And we are recording this on Sunday, the day after we've just lost the we just lost two to one in the final of the New England Cup. Yeah. And then still like it's still it's still kind of hitting pretty hard, if that makes any sense. Uh yeah. So I'm like, I'm still kind of still kind of wrestling that emotional bear down to the ground. And it's also, you know, that's also the end of our first season proper. So I'm still kind of wrestling that emotional bear to the ground. And now I'm trying to I'm in the I'm in right like right in the transition phase, right? Where I'm like, now I need to start turning my mind towards other things. So I'm a little bit I don't have any pithy thought for this morning. Just that.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

You're you're sitting with a lot, so I can see why there's no room for a pithy thought today.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah. Maybe here's the thought. Actually, here's the pithy thought, and it just came to me is like I think that success is really based on how well we're able to sit with things and transition while also sitting with things. Yeah. So maybe it's not sit with things, but walk forward with things. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah. How do you like that? I like it. I like that a lot.

unknown 2:26

All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

We're doing something a little different today. I'm very excited about it. You're in the hot seat.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Mm-hmm. It's true.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Um, you know, I think we've learned a lot about you kind of passively throughout, you know, the interviews. You know, we're we're talking about how Clover got started and and obviously you're a big part of that. So um, but we're gonna focus a bit more on you and your background today. Uh, and in the latter half of the episode, I think we're gonna kind of recap you know this this whole season because we're we're sitting with those those thoughts, those feelings, and and stuff like that. So it's a good time to like talk about it while we're fresh on it rather than you know a month from now.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah, it feels weird to do all this like autobiographical stuff on my own podcast, because right from the beginning, we've always said like we don't want it to be about us, we want it to be about the people coming on here and all that and Vermont soccer. And and like, okay, I'm a piece of Vermont soccer, but I always feel like I just don't want it to be about me. Sure. But here we are talking about me.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

What what I've learned is to say that you are a piece of Vermont soccer is like a massive understatement. I don't think that that's uh come on. Come on. Okay. All right. Today's guest is someone from Pink and Green, or that someone uh Pink and Green listeners might uh already know, but not perhaps quite as well. Chris George is the journal manager and co-founder of Vermont Clover, and ordinarily, he's my co-host on this podcast. Uh he he brings uh more than 25 years of coaching experience across youth, high school, and collegiate levels. A two-time academic all-American at Green Mountain College, Chris later returned to his alma mater as headmen's coach and director of soccer. His career also has included collegiate coaching positions at King's College and SUNY Adirondack, along with many years developing players uh from uh in Vermont through Far Post and Queen City.

unknown 4:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Uh at Middlebury Union High School, Chris led the boys' program to 35 wins, two late division championships, and three consecutive state semifinal appearances, earning Coach of the Year honors not once but twice. Uh today he's the founder and director of coaching at Monarch Soccer Club and the head men's coach at Palsmas College. In his first season at Palsimus, uh he led the Bobcats to the first national tournament appearance in program history and was recognized as part of the USCAA Division II coaching staff of the year. Now he brings all that experience to Vermont Clover FC, helping create new opportunities for Vermont players to continue competing and develop here at home in our brave little state. And for once, sitting in the guest chair instead of next to me is a co-host, Chris George. Welcome to the Pink and Green Podcast. Thanks. It's like being welcomed into my own house.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Did you write all that? All that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Um so yeah, yes and no. So so um I do a lot of work with AI, but I don't just say, oh, hey, I go do this thing like I massage it. I come up with appropriate prompts. I review everything before I sit there and read it, and I will go and fact check things to make sure that it's pulling actual information and not just making shit up.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah, that's that's true. I think that that's a really good thing. Um we had a pretty good last season too at at Paul Smith's. I'm like really I'm I'm really proud of the work that we're doing at Paul Smith's.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Really. I mean, it's not in Vermont. We do have a Vermonter on the roster, but I'm really, really proud of the work that we're doing there. And and the reason is is because I think that, you know, I've coach I coach in a lot of different areas, right? I coach kids, like like I mean primarily, primarily kids, right? But I coach in the you know the youth club space, I coach in, you know, the ODP program, I've coached at college, and this is the first, the first time that I've really felt like everything I've learned over all the years, I'm able to apply in a truly holistic way. Sure. Like I'm finally smart enough to actually be okay at this, is kind of what I feel about it. Well, I think you're more than okay at it. No, you know what I'm saying, though. Like I had when I was a and the reason I say that is because when I was in Middlebury, I had never coached the high school team.

unknown 6:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

I'd coached plenty of youth teams, I'd coached plenty of players that are that same age of all different levels. I'd coached college teams at that point, I'd coached a JUCO team at that point, but I'd never been the head coach of a high school team. And I'd actually never spent any real time on a well, that's not true. I was the assistant coach for a high school team for a while, five years or something like that, at Rice. And but it was a long time ago, and I'd never had to be in that particular hot seat, right? So I was kind of like learning as I went along a little bit, even though like the soccer is the soccer. If there's anything I want to impress on people, is like the on-field soccer stuff is like 10% of the job of ND Coach, is the easy part too. It's you know, that's the easy part. It's all it's all the other stuff. So I was learning that as I went, and I didn't feel, and because I was kind of learning as I went, I didn't necessarily feel like I was able to bring in all of the stuff. But here I've at Paul Smith's I was able to, and and instead of I mean, yeah, I mean we could talk about Kaizen and all that stuff if we want to, but maybe that's for later.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Well, I I want to start you know, where we kind of start with some of our other guests. Like, when did you know that soccer was this this thing that you wanted to do? When did you know that football is life?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I don't I can't I can't I can't I don't know. I don't have any idea actually. And I say that because I always loved to play it. Yeah, but I also really loved to play basketball when I was when I was uh younger, right? And those uh there's similar games with like similar, but I I just really loved it. And and then I with a little time away from the game, I got back into it, help like coaching a friend who had just graduated from college was coaching this team in a club that we had both played in when we were younger, and he kind of needed an assistant, and I wasn't really doing anything, and you know, we like and we just started doing that together, and uh we were not very good. Like the team was okay, but we were very young, and we the what we thought about coaching, we'd not had any training or anything like that. We had just played, and but it's that like the I got bit by the bug and I just wanted to keep doing it. Nice, and it was and really I think that my football is life thing has developed more through me as a coach than like my playing thing. I was a when I was when I went to Green Mountain, I was able to go back and start playing again. But when I went into Coach Gilmore's office, it wasn't like, hey, I want to play that on the team because it I had been in a college and then I wasn't at a college, and then when we moved back to Vermont, I went back to school. So I was a little bit older, a little bit more mature, and in the and before that I'd been coaching and stuff. So I had already been coaching more recently than I'd been playing at a really high level. And when I went into his office and was like, hey, I'd like to be involved with the team. And I don't know exactly what I said, but that's how I phrased it and how it was in my mind is I'd like to be involved in the team. Like, do you have a job as a student assistant or as a team manager or whatever? And he was like, Well, can you play? And I was like, Yeah, I can I can play. Played at a pretty high level. Like, you know, here's the ABC of my resume. What do you think? And he said, Well, why don't you my guys are playing pickup, you know, like go play pickup with them, and then you know, the next morning, like, come into my office and I'll talk to you. And I went and I played pickup and it was fine, and I was good enough. And he was like, Well, we got a spot on the team for you. And so, like, that was you know, it was in the spring, which timing is everything. And it worked out that I got to be able to play again, which was the highest which ended up being the highest level I played at at Green Mountain at the col at the time the college was in the NIAA, N-A-I-A, transitioning to N CAA Division III. So our schedule was like all D2. So we played a lot of the Northeast 10 schools, Stone Hill, Franklin Pierce, whatever, but we also played the Vermont schools, Johnson, Linden, you know, Castleton, whatever. So it was a yes, this is a pretty high level. And after that, it wasn't really continuous. Like I I wasn't coaching for about a year and then I started coaching again. And and what I the reason that football is life is because I function a lot better during a soccer season soccer season. And what I mean is that um there's a certain structure to being in season that as a person is like I struggle to create without it being externally imposed. And a season imposes structure externally. Yeah. Right. So when you gotta be at practice at a certain time, when you gotta do all the stuff you gotta do, I I'm just a lot better about managing my own time when I got these things I have to do. So my grades were, you know, as an academic, all American, right? I got good grades in in college, but my my GPA was always higher in season, even though I had less time to do all this stuff. You just have to manage yourself better. There's no like wait till the last minute and then be like, yeah, whatever. You can't do that in season. You have to like you have to proactively well, I did anyway, proactively kind of manage out, okay, if this thing is due on this day and this thing's due on this day, and this thing's due on this day, and this is what our schedule looks like. I really need to start working on this thing here.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Kind of thing. And that for one of the skills that col like college athletes are in demand to be hired by all sorts of companies. And I think that the time management thing is the biggest thing. This successful student athlete has to manage their time like no other college student does. Because there's just because you just don't have like the time just isn't yours all the time, especially in season. So I think it was a real asset.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Talk to me about Chris George, the the soccer athlete, right? Like what what were you like as a player coming up?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Like favorite position, what what'd you like about playing the game?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah, I was a I was when I was coming up until until college, actually, I was a I was a goalkeeper. And so you learn a lot about how the game works from back there. And I was lucky to work with some like really high-level goalkeeper trainers, and I really I really took the time to learn the game at an intellectual level as well as a physical level. So I, you know, I I'm a little bit I'm not a real tall guy. So and my athleticism is like good enough, but it's not like yeah, it's not like exceptional, right? I'm not an ex an exceptional natural athlete. I'm a good enough natural athlete who works hard to get good at things. So what I really I learned pretty early that what I really needed to focus on was try like understanding how to run a defense well enough to just see as few shots as possible, right? Because I didn't I wasn't I mean, making a big save is cool, but I'd rather just like have an easy time back there and not have to make saves.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Especially as a smaller guy, like you just can't do the things as well as some of those you just can't get you can't bail yourself out of trouble in the same in the same way a guy who's six five can. If you know I'm five, I I mean I self-identify as five nine, but I'm not quite, right? So like I just can't get myself out of trouble in the same way a guy is six one, six two, six three can, because these are just longer, right? Um so I really and my dad I played for my dad as well, he was a coach, and and so like we would have these conversations about the game, and I just learned how like okay, this is how this game is meant to work to not give up shots. When I went to college, I uh there were already two goalkeepers on the team. So when I talked to Coach Gilmore, I was like, you know, like I could be the goalkeeper, I could be the goalkeeper, and and I maybe I was good enough and maybe I wasn't at that point, but this is like not the point. The point is there was already a number one and there was already a guy who was like condo 1B, and it's just like we don't need that. So I played in the outfield, and when I played in the outfield, I played I played as a midfielder, primarily in the middle of the field, but also on the outside sometimes too, because um, you know, and and what did I do? What I'm pretty good at or what I've always been pretty good at is playing kind of like longer balls that can unlock a defense, is what I've been pretty good at. I'm a pretty good I'm I'm a good one-time player and I'm good at like short passing one time ta-t-t-t-t-t-t. But I'm also good at playing those longer balls when and where they need to be. And what I kind of struggle with is like I'm not like a I'm not a particularly strong mid-range passer, right? Just not, especially in traffic. And you know, I'm not a guy who's got these exceptional foot skills and control that can get myself out of trouble with the ball. So I gotta get in and out in I gotta get onto it and off it quick. And then I gotta really think about pockets of space to get into to receive it to be able to play those balls that are a little bit more like like impactful, right? Because a ball that you get from one center back and you play to the left back is not impactful. A ball that you get from an outside back that then you turn and kind of play to the you know outside forward or other outside midfielders, is not it, those aren't impactful balls. But a ball that you can receive on the turn and then play diagonally 40 yards across to the forward running and behind, or a through ball that you can put your center forward in on, those are impactful balls. So again, the strength was like understanding what I was good at and then trying to create situations on the field where that would happen. So as you can imagine, I wasn't because it was relatively limited, my speed's like okay, my strength's okay. I'm not really a ball winner, I'm not a great tackler. I'm pretty good at keeping it in front of me, but I'm not a great tackler. So the times that I got, I wasn't a regular starter. I played plenty, but I wasn't a regular star. I started sometimes and I played a fair bit, but I wasn't like a regular like the team would have been just fine without me on the roster, if that makes any sense. From a like from a you know, have success or not success perspective.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Um and then but but if you think about like the common theme here is like me having to be really self-aware about what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are, and then kind of think my way through the game in a way that's like I'm not actually thinking about it. I'm like playing in such a way that I can maximize what I'm good at. And if you uh spend enough time around me and you listen to me talk about my coaching philosophies, and then this is me putting this together right now. It's not a thing I've actually ever had this revelation of. It's very much about how I was as a player. Like it like the relationships, like understand your strengths, it's all this stuff about like can we just you know, being organized defensively, can we just do the things that we're really good at and let everything else cover it? It's like exactly what I wish someone had told me as a player, but it wasn't true. I just I'd never thought about that before, actually. Revelations happen, I suppose. Um Yeah, so I think uh recognizing like that was gonna be the pinnacle experience and then getting done and then having the opportunity after I graduated, I wasn't like I wasn't planning to to keep coaching or anything like that. And then I had an opportunity to an opportunity came up at Kings and I took it. And then that I really that first season at Kings was awesome, right? I mean we we can go into that later when we ask talk about the coaching stuff, like maybe that's a segue. But the guy that the person that was the head coach, his name is Mark Bassett, he coaches at Bloomsburg University now, which is D2 is a D2 school. He played a Messiah and he had been working as assistant at a college called Goucher College in Baltimore where he was teaching. And he got this job at King's College, and he was the first full-time soccer coach there, and it was his first head coaching job at the college level, and he was young, like we were both young at that time. I graduated, I was 27 when I graduated from college. He was a year younger than me. And it was like the following year, so he must have been 27 and I was 28. And he hired me, and we were literally figuring it out as we went as we as we as we did, and we were figuring it out together because that's not the sort of thing that I mean, he's got a real specific kind of leadership style, and I've got a real specific leadership style, and they worked really well together.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

They worked really well together, and because I mean he was absolutely the head coach, right? But there were a lot of stuff because we were kind of both figuring out these new situations, we went into a situation where we knew there were there were some really significant cultural things that needed to change, and part of the reason that he got the job is because he had been at Messiah and they wanted to go a little bit more towards the Messiah culture, which is like super dry, everything's polite, God fearing, you know, four feet on the floor in your dorm kind of thing, than like it had been, which was like the exact opposite of that. Okay. And and Mark lives in like how he feels about this stuff is much more towards the other end of that. You know, he's not he's not a super conservative conservative religious person, even though he went to Messiah. So we knew there were things we had to do, and we knew that there were cultural things that we had to fix. And it's and so again, like all every situation that came up as a head coach was brand new for him, and we were working on that together. So I learned so much like with him and from him, right? Because and his playing his playing background was similar to mine. He played at Messiah. He was he was the he he was on the very first national championship team at Messiah, his senior year, I think. So like you know, and and and Mark's a legend. He's uh he got he just got 200 wins uh two years ago. I mean, he's he's only ever had two seasons in his entire career where he didn't win 10 games at the college level. He's an unbelievably talented coach. Right? And so like but at that time, like no one knew that was gonna happen. Like no one knew how good, no one knew how good anyone was. Yeah. Right? Because that's how these things work, just no one knows about that stuff. Right. Um Yeah, Mark uh it was really great to work with him, and we have, you know, we maintain a really good friendship, but at the beginning of all that, we were just doing it together, and he's a very successful coach because he's incredibly talented, right? And being able to work with a person like that right at the beginning is different than catching it halfway through or towards the end, right? Yeah, it was cool to just learn all that together. Um, and after that, I was like hooked. Nice. I was hooked, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Well, but before we dive too deep into your your coaching career, I wanna I just want to, I guess, sidestep and talk about like the non-coaching side of of Chris, right? Like you've you've done lots of other things and we've kind of like talked about that. Uh I I know that you worked at a company called VIP here in Vermont uh for a short time with a very good friend of mine, and we we both know him. Um so what what's what's Chris outside of soccer?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, from the like from a professional perspective for the last, I don't know, basically since I moved back here after college in 2008, I've always been coaching, but um the key, like I'd say the like the important like other professional stuff I've done was at VIP for four or five years. A while. And that was really VIP is really cool. That's like how what it is and what it does, and what people don't really know, and this may or may not be the same now, but I assume it probably is. What people don't really know is that like almost all of the data about where beer is sold and how much it is sold for runs through VIP. In I don't mean in Vermont, I don't mean in like the Northeast, I mean like in the country. Right. Because of their relationships with different like beer manufacturers and the distributor network that they work with. So they sell different two different kinds of software. And what I did was work with a little history lesson, the during the craft beer bubble, VIP was like they got in there right at the beginning of when that started to happen, working with craft beer brewers. And that's right when I was working with them, was when that bubble was starting to really blow up. So I worked with craft beer brewers to help them understand how to um do impactful things with the sales data that their distributor networks were collecting. So I got to, you know, so I got to work with a lot of really cool breweries like Alagash, and um there's a Brewery in Minnesota called Summit. Like, you know, I get to work with a lot of really cool, like kind of medium what we consider like medium size-ish breweries.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

And VIP works with, you know, little to big. And there are a lot of really cool smaller breweries that I worked with too. But it was really, really I mean, it was really, really rewarding. And and the people that work at VIP are awesome. But it's still an office job.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

You know, like you no matter how you slice it, it's a cool office job, but it's an office job. And when I left there, I left actually to go work for one of my I was an account manager. So one of my customers were uh they're called Mannequin Brussel Imports, but they're a beer importer, um, were a beer importer that invited Shimei, uh, I'm sorry, that um that distributed imported and distributed Shimei nationwide and Schneiderweiss, like basically west of the Mississippi. So like two really classic beer brands. Chime, for people who don't know, it's you know, um when you think of Trappist Ale, that's like what you're thinking of. Belgian beer, like it's kind of like the Belgian beer, even though there's lots more now. And Schneider Weiss is like a really classic Bavarian wheat beer, like, you know, I think it's the oldest brewery in Germany, although oldest continuously operated brewery in Germany, but that could be incorrect. Um but you know, so that was a pretty cool job too. And I was I worked as the um operations director for a little bit, and then um the guy who owned it decided that he needed to make some changes, and then I was running the whole thing, which is pretty wild. So we did that for a little bit, but there's a lot of travel associated with that, like a real lot of travel associated with that, especially as you're getting a sales team up and going and having to travel continent to continent, you know, a few times a year and all that stuff, which is really great, but it does it's not real compatible with the young family. You know, Posey was Posey used to go to the VIP daycare, which is pretty cool. Um, and so we moved to when we moved out of Winooski, we moved to Ferrisburg first. I think she was two when we did that because we were she was three when we bought our house in in Cornwall. And then Luna came around. I was at the beer company when Luna was born, and then shortly thereafter was when I left. She was a couple months old. I think February was when I left. And I kind of and then the next like real significant job I had was coaching at we I got a full-time job coaching at Green Mountain College. That was like my next, that was my like my next real thing. I didn't leave one for the other, it just kind of you know that's how it went. Okay. Yeah. And um, so like I'd say those are the most significant professional things I've done, running a business and then you know, working as a software. Like as as an account manager, you kind of run your own little book of business anyway, but it's not nearly the same as actually running a business.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

And then, you know, what else do I do? I I like to ride a bike I like to ride my bicycle, and I am like intermittently doing that every day or not doing it at all, which is you know how I'm about everything right now. I'm on the bike almost every day, so it feels really good. Um I don't know what else I can't think of. I mean, I do a lot of other stuff. I just yeah, you know, those I think those are professionally significant things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Now how about um let's talk about Monarch a little bit. So that's that's a soccer club that you started in Middlebury, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah, I started in Middlebury. Um I'd been working for like right before COVID and through COVID. I was the um I was the shoot, what do you call it, director of coaching, I think, at Addison United. And then when I w I got the job at Middlebury High School and then wasn't doing the Addison United thing anymore. And there was a real need for there was like no girls teams. Like there's no girls team in Middlebury. And so like so we started basically, it wasn't strictly a girls-only program, but we wanted it to be focused on girls, especially younger girls, so that they would play and they would get into it and whatever. So in Middlebury, there was no there were no real girls' teams. There's another club here called Atletico Middlebury, but they were either if you were a little girl, you had to play co-ed or just not play. And the rec department is co-ed. Fine. There's nothing wrong with co-ed, but there's a lot of little girls that want to play with just other little girls. Sure. So we started Monarch. It's never been really big, and now it's kind of I I don't know if it'll be like done done forever, but the group the youngest of the groups that kind of went all the way up through has now kind of graduated out of it. This was their last season, and there's not really the the need that it was created to fill was to create girls' spaces for little girls. Like it it it doesn't need to fill it anymore because I thought it goes doing some girls' teams and things like that. So like it doesn't need to exist, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

It was really cool, and it it's it was just really cool to run. Now we did have some older boys' teams because my my high school boys like I used a tenor of my high school boys, and like they were doing that sort of things too. So we had some older boys' teams, but mostly it was just focused on girls and mostly younger, and you know, kind of get them up through into middle school soccer and then you know, move them on. And there's you know, there's a bunch of those players that uh mostly play at Queen City, but they play other places too. There's some that play at Farpost. Like there's yeah, it it who's Monarch is a really cool rewarding experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

I don't believe this has come up, um, but uh is anybody from Clover involved with Monarch? Like, do you do you know anybody did that one?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

No, not really. Okay, all right. The other person that the early on, there's a guy named Santi Fernandez who was when I got hired at Middlebury, we hired him as the JB coach initially. He's a really talented goalkeeper coach, uh, and he's a talented ski coach. His main his main hustle is doing he he's one of the now one of the assistant ski coaches at Middlebury. He duh he coaches at Norwich now. So there are there are some connections to other programs that kind of were started with Monarch. So he worked for me at the high school and then we brought him on to do monarch for a couple years. And now he he coaches some Queen City stuff. He I think he did a little bit of ODP stuff, he does a bunch of stuff, and he goalkeeper coach, ski coach, whatever. And he he does stuff with Vermont Green too, as they're I don't know exactly what he does now, but he used to be like they're he used to like take the book and run the clock and that sort of thing. Okay. Kind of what I do on the sideline is like what he's doing for them or was anyway. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

All right. Um, let's see here. Well, you have coached like a wide range of ages. What's what's the different and what's the same, you know, kind of across all of that, if you had to summarize it.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Um I think that it's it's all the same, but it's all different depending on what age. Like we we talk a lot in in just like human development of ages and stages. And I think that what's really important is to be mindful of is like what is gonna be really engaging for a child this age?

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

And let's have soccer. And and how does soccer fit as an engagement point, right? So like when you think about little kids, like they just want to run around and kick at the ball and they want to have it, right? So, like, how can you design around that, right? Older kids, like, especially girls, they want to like really feel like valued members of a team. Like, so how do you like really lean into the team stuff? Um, so everything is like the through line is like the soccer and the teamwork and all that stuff, but like every every age kid is different, and like elementary kids are different than middle school kids, or different than high school kids, or different than college kids. And when they're younger, what I've noticed, when they're younger, there are less differences kind of by gender. Like boys, girls are like slightly less I mean, girls want girl spaces, boys want boys' spaces. Like that's a that's a given. And there are exceptions where like some girls want to play with boys, and you know, I I don't know of an exception where there's like a boy that wants to play with girls. I don't I've never run across that exception, but I'm sure it exists somewhere. Sure. Um, so that's always a thing. And girls are always more comfortable in girls' spaces, and boys are always more comfortable in boys-only spaces, right? So like that's a thing. But as you get older, I think some of the differences in in management is when you start to see that a little bit. Like coaching college women, which you've done as a head coach, and and coaching college men, it's different. How the team environment has to be, how the team how you run the team environment's got to be a little bit different because those athletes have like completely different needs, not not necessarily from a social perspective. They still what's important is for at every age, it's like we've talked about this a little bit before in the past, like the river. Does every player that's playing for me feel relevant, important, valued, empowered, and respected? If the answer is yes, then you're doing good. But how a college-age woman feels the river is a little bit different than how a college-age man feels the river. If it's 95% the same, 5% is where the actual magic happens, right? So if you just and there's a lot of ways to do it and be effective, but you have to the end of the day, if you're like, what does my team need, need and want from me, then you're doing it right. I think every coach has kind of age. I mean, any good coach can coach any age, as long as like recognizing here's what the ages and stages are, right? Like if you're taking a college session to eight-year-olds, that ain't gonna work. Just like if you take an eight-year-old session to college guys, actually, sometimes that does work, but like never once I do a lot of fun stuff. Like one of the one of the things we'll do for both fitness and kind of skill development is like ball tag. Like we'll do that for you know, run around, hit your buddy with the ball, like yeah, kick it, kick it at him, or like throw it at him. We do that kind of stuff because it's it is just fun to play. I mean, you know, you don't work soccer games, you play soccer games. So like keeping the play in it's really, really important. Um, but I think every coach really has certain sweet spots that just work best with their natural personality, their natural coaching style, and all that stuff. And the the the real sweet spots for me are let's say high school, like older high school into college age. So let's just say like 17 to 25 for men, right? Very specifically like 17, or maybe 16 to maybe it's 16 to 25, whatever, but like that kind of age group. So older high school and and college, and also, and it's a different kind of like side of who I am as a coach, but also like the older middle school ages of girls is another really sweet spot for me. Like you 13, 14 girls is another 12, 13, 14 girls is another like kind of real sweet spot for me. And and by sweet spot, I mean those are the like in those ages and also at the college, like those are always where I've had the best results.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Like in a relative sense, like so the teams tend to be better than then I get like look, can I coach a 15-year-old boys' team or girls team? Yeah, absolutely. Sure. But just the nature of how that is, I'm gonna get slightly better results with you know, 13-year-old girls than I am 15-year-old girls, is just the way that it is.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

I gotcha. And I think every coach is like that too. There's certain groups that you just work you're just good with because it's an agent stage thing for how you show up. Really works with those, really works with those. And I think I think coaching, I think coaching middle school kids is actually really fun. Boys and girls because they have real specific things like I maybe this is me like getting out onto maybe it's me out onto a soapbox, but I think one of the things that's missing in kids' lives, particularly middle schoolers and high schoolers, is that like they don't have a lot of adults in their lives who treat them like human beings. Like just straight up with respect, co-equal creators of this shared space. Right. They're just being told what to do by everybody in their lives, often in ways that feel pretty arbitrary. Right? Their parents are telling them to do this or not do that, their teachers are telling them to do this or not do that, and like all those rules exist for a reason, they're not arbitrary, but they can feel pretty arbitrary to a 15-year-old kid or a 14-year-old kid. So I think that showing up in the way that in the way that those kids really need you to do. I'm pretty good at just showing up being comfortable. And this is the other thing, especially with middle cool middle school kids. I I was listening to Zalsk podcast the other day, and he alluded it to a little bit like that distance that he feels like when he's coaching and like, you know, his development work with Brian on that distance, right? Those kids with middle school kids in particular, they don't want any distance at all. Like they really want they really want to feel like you're a part of the thing with them.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I'm pretty and I think I'm pretty good at creating that space for them. While I mean, and that sounds like maybe there's no discipline at all, but I think that they're I think that it is when you're in it with them and you're co-creating it, like, and you ask them to help set what does discipline look like, they're like they're all in on it. Like I just don't have people talk about like having problems with teams and whatever, and I can't think of a team in a really long time that I've had like problems with.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

I just wanna I just want to have a good time and I try to manage around what's gonna be the best time for everybody here.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah. I didn't answer your question at all, but no, no, you you you did.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

You definitely you definitely did. Um all right, so we're you know, a little over a half hour into this thing. Let's kind of transition to uh the the end of the first clover season. So um where for first of all, how you feeling?

SPEAKER_00 36:54

I'm pretty disappointed, honestly. And like this is I want to draw a distinction between like in the moment versus overall. Overall, I'm over the moon at how well we did.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

And just how it all came together. But in the moment, I'm still kind of working through that disappointment of like, man, a second final ends we also didn't win that one. Yeah. And it was also a close game. I mean, they were both, both of the finals we played in. No, I mean, technically three, if you count the Shaxbury Cup, and I'll count that in there too. Every single one of those were good games. They were games that like if you show up for a final, you want that to be like that. Both teams have chances, they both play, like, you know, this they're roughly equal, right? I but it it's like as they say in as they say in like the Rexham documentary and other places, it's the hope that kills you. Yeah right. Yeah. So I would I would rat I would almost rather lose one nothing or two nothing and get completely outclassed, right? Than feel like, you know what, if this call had gone our way, or if that call had gone our way, or maybe I'd made this tackle or not, then we would have won. Right. Like I that's the worst part because then what happens is, and now I'm now I'm gonna step into the coaching thing again for a second, is like now you start to go through all these decisions you made, and you're like, okay, should I have brought that guy on earlier? Right? Should I have taken, you know, should I've used this guy instead of that guy? And then if you get completely outplayed, you can really just kind of throw your hands up and be like, you know what, we we did the best we could. They were better than us, you know, chapeau, moving on. Right. But when it's really close, when you feel like maybe you had a little more overall than you gave, that's when that's when you start to ask real hard questions that probably don't even need to be asked, if that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

And and and we've been on both sides of that. When you win two to one, you kind of feel like you got everything right from a and and and I don't mean that you like I don't mean that's a false confidence. I mean you take a look and you're like, yeah, that was the right time to make that sub because it worked out. We're in an we're in an outcomes business, right? And if you had made that change five minutes earlier, five minutes later, would it have still worked out? Yeah, maybe, but you don't know. But you feel like, okay, I got that one right. When you win, you you feel like you got a lot more right. When you lose, you might have actually gotten it perfectly. And it just ended up n through no through no action that of your own. And I think this is like this is the thing about coaching versus playing. As a coach, particularly as a soccer coach, the game is kind of happening, right? And you're and you have not a ton of influence on it. You have very little of all the of all the games I can think of, except for maybe rugby, you uh team games, you have the least amount of influence of anybody. Uh uh from a coach perspective. You can't call timeout, like you're not sending in plays from the sideline, like it's just you have the least amount of influence. So you just gotta trust your guys and or your girls and that they're gonna go out and they're gonna do the thing, and you know, somebody you put somebody in there and they just go completely rogue, you're out of subs. There's nothing you can do about that, right? Like nothing, right? Everybody just gotta sort it out. So I'm kind of working through the I'm really disappointed to that we lost that game, and it's not disappointed in the guys, it's disappointed in the outcome, not in the process. The process has been awesome. Big picture, it's been unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah. Yeah. What what's uh what's been the hardest part of this whole thing? Like when you and Trey got together and said, hey, let's let's do this, and then you start doing it, and now here we are at the end of the season. What what's been like the the hardest thing or the biggest lesson that you learned this year?

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Yeah, I need to do the biggest lesson I've learned is that I need to do uh let me start with this. We really flew by the seat of our pants this year. The analogy that I've used is trying to land a plane at night with no lights and our sunglasses on. We knew where it was supposed to go. We knew what it would look like when it was safely on the ground, but how we executed putting that down was has been you know, maybe through flocks of birds and clouds too, right? Um so I think that the biggest lesson I've learned is that there's from a how much time I have, it is limited. I mean, I've always known this, it is limited. And I think what I need to do in like not like the immediate future, but as we prepare to be as we're more successful next year, what I really need to do is be kind of more proactive in recruiting talented people to do the things that need to be done so that I can physically have to think about and do less so that I can maximize the things that I'm uniquely able to do. If that makes any sense.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Many hands make light work, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Yeah, yeah. You wore a lot of hats this year and uh yeah, trying to juggle all that, you know. But at the same time, like this is the very first year. You you don't know what you don't know until you get there. And so yeah, that valuable, valuable lesson learned.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

Well, yeah, and I think also like and this is my nature generally to building things, is if I put a person in a spot and I don't get it right, I'm feeling kind of locked in there. I like I'm really loyal to people, so I'm feeling kind of locked in there with that person. And especially when we get up and going with a thing, there needs to be a process of discovery where the talented people will self-identify and the right roles for for them will also become clear. Now, part of that means I gotta do everything for a minute. And not literally everything, but you know what I mean. Um and and we really have identified some incredibly talented people who are emotionally invested in in the thing that are like we've got a really solid foundation for me to be like, okay, I can have this conversation with this particular person, like Annette, for example. And that was incredibly helpful through the course of like all the home games, right? And then she was away towards the end, and it really kind of highlighted how incredibly helpful she was. And and like, not that I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Right, not that I didn't know that, but it's like now we can have a conversation kind of post thing, like what worked great for you, what didn't work great for you, you know, how do we like what is like in your perfect world? What is what you want to be doing, and what does that look like? Okay, great. We know that she's an exceptionally talented person. I don't have to think about that thing, and then whatever's left over, I can figure out how to do that. I can figure out who to do that. Yeah, I can figure out exactly what to do if we're even gonna do that. And and she's not the only one. I just wanted to use her as an example because you know, I she was at the game yesterday and um I was thinking about her a little bit. Um, you know, somebody like um another person like like like Budby, right? Like Elliot Bub's incredibly an exceptional person, exceptional person, like talented in various ways, plays sometimes, doesn't play other times, helps with game day stuff. Like he's and trying to have a conversation with him, like, okay, like when you're not in the lineup, what's the like what do we think is the right job for you? Do you want to do other stuff than just then just play and fill in or not? Right? Having a real conversation with him about like because he's a guy that we would love to have around forever because that's how we feel about him as a human being, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's it's always been about like there's a lot of analogies about how to say this, but it's like get the right people on the bus first and then figure out what seat they belong in.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Right? But you can't just go out and say, Okay, I got this bus who wants on, if nobody has any idea what the seats that exist are, because people are smart. Yeah. You know, and they don't want to be like, yeah, I'd love to be involved. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna have you do this, and they're like, wait a minute, I have no interest in this, and I'm not any good at it. Like, you know. I think that that's the biggest thing is proactively recruit to the holds that we know we have now. Whereas before we didn't know what holes we had, we had every hole.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah. Um you uh and Trey kind of created Clover to provide more opportunities for you know Vermont based players at the end of this season. And I know the answer to this, but let's just talk about it. Like, do you think we're checking the box there?

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah, I'd say without a doubt. I mean, we've created a higher level for guys that would have been playing just in the adult men's league. Yeah. Reg higher regional level. Like yes.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

And I think we're talking about UPSL two premier or UPSL Premier.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yeah, that's the that's the plan for next year. Yeah. Which will that's a higher level, slightly higher level. And I think that the volume of opportunities may go down a little. Okay. But I think the quality of opportunity is going to go up when we make that jump. Gotcha. If that's a sensible thing.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

I mean, I don't think so. Are we stepping up to or are we going to have two different teams? Are we going to do division one and premier, or are we just going from division one to premier?

SPEAKER_00 46:28

There will not be there will be two clover teams next year. One of them will be a men's team and one of them will be a women's team. Gotcha. We're not going to do a clover second team. One of the lessons we learned is that having a like a true second team, I mean it wasn't a true second team, but we had kind of a separate team that was playing in the in the men's league. It didn't really work. Right? We thought we were offering opportunities for guys that were training with us and whatever. And it just didn't really work because it wasn't the the level of that is fine. But it wasn't it wasn't something that guys were like, oh, this is really attractive and I want to do this. Yeah. It was like they kind of a lot of the guys, and not a lot of them, but at least some of them were kind of just like UPSL or bust. So it wasn't a thing that they really were like, look, they weren't getting up and looking forward to it every day, if that makes any sense. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 47:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

And and it was really hard for us to navigate around how do we do the training environment that everybody's going to be able to maximize it. So that's the thing we gotta. I mean, we we Brian and I have talked a whole bunch about exactly how we're gonna do that, and I'm not gonna share details here about exactly how we're gonna do that, but it's a thing that we've put a lot of thought into about like how does this really work next year from a day-to-day kind of thing. But we don't you know, a lesson we learned is that there aren't two clover teams. There's a clover men's team and there's a clover women's team.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Okay. All right. And do do we know yet what like where is the women league women's team going to play? That like the what is it, the W UPSL?

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah, UPSL W. I think probably but there's like there's a couple of conversations we gotta have around that. Yeah. Um the footprint is really important for both of our teams. Yep. Because it playing regionally is great, but we would like to minimize travel distances. Sure. And and we too, and to be fair, like success in lower leagues is everybody's pretty good at home, right? But success in lower leagues, like long term, is really about how good you are, how good you are at traveling. Yeah. Right. And we found like we uh from the teams in UPSL 1 in New England, we were as good or better than everybody else, with maybe one exception, at traveling, right? So like we got we, you know, it wasn't exactly the same people, but we were showing up with the same team at away games as we were at home games. This is not the case with a lot of the other teams, they just don't travel that well for all the reasons. So trying to solve around how we travel a little better is a thing we want to improve on, number one. And number two, the better the footprint, the easier that solution becomes.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Right? If you have you know a bunch of away games that are all two hours away, that's a lot easier than all your away games being three plus hours away.

SPEAKER_02 49:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Just from a logistics perspective. The farther you travel, the bigger you need, the larger roster you need, if that makes any sense. Yep. At least I think that's I think that's the rule of thumb.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Um what kind of feedback have you received from players this year?

SPEAKER_00 49:29

It's been overwhelmingly positive.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yeah, and and we haven't I haven't, and to be fair, the season's still been going on, and one of the things one of my jobs over the next couple of weeks is gonna be to have some conversations with some of the some of the players that have been really involved and kind of get really direct, like, how can we make this a better experience for you? I think overall it was a good experience, but like, you know, the principle of Kaizen is like can you make can you make small but meaningful changes that are gonna improve it? And over time, it's like a maximizing effect, is like let's say we get five percent better every year, okay? Like five percent of one hundred is a hundred and five. Five percent of a hundred and five is not a hundred and five, it's more than that, right? And to just kind of like layer it on. So I have there's a bunch of conversations I gotta have with the women, yeah, maybe, but like that's more of like at the coaching staff level because we didn't do a proper season, right? Sure. And and and those women were just like, yes, it's great to be able to have a chance to play. And we're gonna be able to take a lot of the lessons we've learned with the men's team and a whole season and apply it to the women's team. So I think we're actually probably gonna get be able to get their first proper season more right than we got the men's, if that makes any sense. Yeah. And then with the men, you know, it's it's deciding which maybe three or four players that like that have different scopes of involvement and also experience level, right? So like the the information that you get and the information you're trying to get from a guy that's you know, lives in town, has graduated from college, and like he's doing this without being fully unfettered, like, yeah, he works, whatever, but he's fully unfettered, versus a guy that comes from southern Vermont and just finished his freshman year in college. Like the bits of information that you're gonna get are gonna be completely different, and it just can't be evaluated in the same context because you know, I think part of the big idea was to be able to be for all Vermonters from a player perspective. And I think one of the things that really, as the season wore on, one of the things that was really exposed was how like we weren't really able to deliver on that the way that I wanted to. Okay. Because like the guys from down south or the guys from you know, farther across the lake, like they just they aren't able to engage in the ways that number one they want to, and number one, we would want them to, or number two, we would want them to.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

So is that a thing where, and and I don't know the answer to this yet, because we haven't really thought about it or talked about it, but I'm just gonna kind of do this kind of inner dialogue out loud thing, is is that a thing that we want to say, okay, we have this and you want it, and and you know, and this is what you got to do if you want to be a part of this thing, or do we say, all right, we can't really do that for you? Right? And and and everything that comes in the middle, and that's a scale, right? It's like, could we work with a housing partner to be able to have, you know, I'm gonna call it a flop house, but could we have a flouse with a bunch of beds in it so the guys traveling from far away and a late practice could stay that night and then drive home in the morning?

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

You know, is that a thing? And and I don't know if it is or isn't, it's just a matter of like and okay, and also is that actually a Kaizen kind of improvement? Is it like a is it like a minimal input for maximal gain kind of thing? Yeah. In the way that some of the other stuff might possibly be. So as we make this list of like all the improvements we could possibly made, which ones do we want to spend energy on? Makes sense. I mean, I know it didn't work for the guys from down south, like like Kagan and Elias. Like I know it didn't really work for those guys, and that that hurts my heart a little bit because I wanted it to, but at the same time, like the realities are the realities.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Yeah.

unknown 53:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

And that there was a big roster shift, you know, come May, right? Like a lot of you know, local guys that are going to college here, they go back home, and a lot of guys that are at college come back to Vermont. And and so I think that has to be like a struggle for like even from a team perspective, rather than the first part of the season, you're so used to like practicing with these guys, training with these guys, playing the game with these guys, and then all of a sudden there's this big juggle, and now it's like, oh, okay, who are you? Gotta get to know you and and how you play the game and stuff like that. So that's but I think I think we played well through that. What I've noticed is is that there was a pretty big drop-off in the summertime. We weren't filling the stands quite as much. It's like, where is everybody? I don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Yeah, and that's a thing that I think that's a thing we do have to solve for is like how do we make it more attractive in the summertime? And maybe it's just like maybe it's just there's always going to be in the summer people are away and they're just not they don't want to be engaged or as engaged. Like maybe that's just part of it, like it may or may not be. Or maybe it's like we didn't do the things to to provide that great engagement. Yeah. Right? Because some of the stuff we were doing changed a little bit too. Um, and also like it's harder for all the guys in the summer too, because they have other family commitments, like their jobs kick in in a proper way. And there's always gonna be if the schedule remains the way that it is, which is to say, like, we start in early April, there's always gonna be that like early May churn. Because there's gonna be guys that like there's gonna be guys coming back into town that we just like they're important parts of the setup, and there's gonna be guys that are here that maybe they uh like Sam Martin, right? He's from Massachusetts, he was around all the time at the beginning of the season. He wasn't on every roster, but he was an important part of what we were doing. Yeah, he went back to Massachusetts for the summer, and then it was just like, okay, well, if we're in mass and you need me, I can play, but other than that, it's like I'm out, right? So there is gonna be some of that turn. We knew there was gonna be some of it, and I think it's probably gonna be one of those things that's always an inherent feature of that, like of what we do. Now, there are some there are some alternatives, right? So, like the Western New York division, which isn't all in Western New York, but like the Western New York division, they don't start until a little bit later because they get so much more snow that they can't really be on those fields until a little bit later. So they start a little bit later. And then that and like that, and the footprint is not terrible, also. So, like, you know, there's like a couple teams in Albany area, which is like not so far, that's actually a little closer. But then again, there's like a trip to Buffalo, and that's not a there and back kind of thing. Like you gotta stay, which changes everything, right? So like that's the sort of thing, like, is the schedule is it actually better to start a little bit later or you know, like these are the kind of things that we have to think about in a holistic way. And and then this isn't these are decisions that we all like as a as a group of people have to make. And it's probably some like you know, it's probably some stuff I'll talk to, I'll talk to some of the guys about. Like, what do you think about going from going to Buffalo for a weekend? Right. Yeah. You know, if they're all hot to go on it, then we just gotta figure out how to pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 56:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Right? Or we don't do that at all and we stick in New England and that's the right chance for us and whatever. And you know, think about it more in the women's context, because there wasn't a women there wasn't a UPSL women's New England division this year, but the Western New York one is like well established and really healthy. So it's like how important is it potentially for us to have the exact same kind of experience for both teams, or like do we send one this way and one that way? And what is that like what are the what are the costs? I don't mean fit I don't mean like actual dollar costs, I mean like logistical costs associated with like this and that versus this and this. Gotcha. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Uh let me see here. What what did what did you get out of this season? Uh maybe you learned personally or whatever. Like what what did you what what'd you get out of it that maybe you weren't expecting?

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Um I think a lot of things.

unknown 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

If I'm honest, yeah, I think I got a real lot. I think I learned I think what I got I I think I just became more mature as a human being. Yeah. Yeah, there's a certain amount of when I am managing my college season, right? There's a certain amount of that that's that's that. There's a certain amount of lessons you come from that. And you're managing things full scope, right? But then to go off on your own and to do something that is at baseline seems really similar. Yeah. But isn't I mean it's it and it's similar, but it is not the same from a managing that perspective. And also to step back so that's part one. I learned a lot about that. And I have another thing that I got from it is like like I moved up a chair, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Like one chair, I and by I shouldn't say up a chair, I should say I moved one chair further away from the field. Right. So I think what I learned maybe or maybe what I got from it is that I really the part I really love about all this is coaching. And it and then being with the team and doing that on the everyday thing. I always knew that, but it was actually kind of really reinforced. So I'm so kind of on the flip side because I've spent, you know, the last however many months it's been since April. What's that, four months, five months, or however many that is, I don't know, I'm doing the math real quick here. Uh the last 22 weekends, let's say, because that's how I measure things now. You know, doing all the logistical stuff, being in the college world, I would like effectively the athletics director, right? Like that or associate athletics director versus being on the field. I'm reinvigorated and I'm so excited to just like get back on the field with my guys and like really, really do that, you know, and in in a focused way, rather than like doing my spring season while I'm doing this other thing too. It's really just reminded me of how much I love to be on the field, and I think that the beneficiaries of that of that are gonna be my guys this fall because I've got so I've got so much energy to be on the field doing the thing, probably more than I more than I'm at in probably a decade. Not that I don't not that I don't have a lot of energy to be on the field anyway, but I mean just seeing the just seeing the other side of that where like I wasn't really on the field and I felt a little detached from the team that was also by design. Yep. But to now just be able to know actually like I'm in there rolling up the sleeves doing the thing. I I'm that's gonna feel really awesome. And it's like a it's like a big mindset, it's like a s like a literal switch in my main. It's like okay, put this away into there. There you go. It's a good thing. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Um we're coming up on our hour. Is there anything that you know we haven't talked about that you know you wanted to include in this episode?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

Um I don't know. I the truth is that we're very comfortable with each other now, and we could probably just like turn this thing on and have several hours of our random part thoughts, right? So to try to stay focused on the thing, I would say from the the couple things that I want to do is one of my my my genuine hope is that the players, all the players, but particularly the core guys that have been around for this entire project from you know December to now really felt like they got a lot of value out of it. And I don't mean, am I a better player? I mean, am I like was that a great experience? Did I make some new relationships that I find value in? Maybe did I get better as a player, but like, did I get a little bit better as a human being? Is my human experience enhanced from being involved with Vermont Clover? And I really hope that the answer is yes. For the guys that were, you know, kind of in and out or like only had like a little bit with us, I hope the same thing, but it's going to be a little bit different. Sure. Like in how they how they interact with it. I kind of hope the same thing for everybody associated with it. It's a fans or whatever, is just like have the things that we've done enhanced your human experience by one tiny little sliver. And if the answer is yes, then like that is a smashing and overwhelming success to be able to be able to put that out into the world is like it wasn't what I had thought that I was hoping for at the end of it. Right. You know, more opportunities, like have a great time, whatever. Like I wouldn't have thought like, okay, this is a human enhancement, this is a human experience enhancement project. But I mean, I could have thought of it like that, but I didn't. I'd also like to, you know, the the other thing I want to think about is as we go through the fall season for every this is for everybody, because almost all of us are gonna have fall seasons. Basically everybody, right? Like you're gonna have fall seasons with Tim, you know, um Michael and Dima, and those guys are gonna have a fall season playing Aviate indoors, you know, or whatever. Um, a whole bunch of the guys, you know, like the list is almost endless, are gonna have a fall season playing with their college team. The coaching staff, one, two, three of the coaching staff, and Gabe too, I guess is a fourth one, is gonna have a college college-related season, right? So like I'm at Paul Smith's and Brian is is doing some work at um at uh St. Mike's and Lou is also at St. Mike's and Gabe's with the UVM club guys still, I think. You know, Al's gonna go do the high school thing, and Oscar just got that job at Middlebury, so he's gonna go do the high school thing. So we've all got fall seasons. I hope we're able to all bring that same kind of energy to like enhance the human experience into those fall seasons. That's what I hope that like translates from place one to place two. Can you like the excellence that our guys showed, excellence of attitude, right? That our guys showed pretty universally all season, like can they carry it out into their next thing, whatever that is, whether it's you know, still at prep school and still in or high school still finishing up the recruiting process or whether that's to their college team or whatever. Um I think that's what I think that's a thing that I'm that's my wish for everyone. My hope is that we're able to get even more people out to games, and like I'm really proud of what we've done. I'm really proud of what we've done. And and and and and that's a we like capital W, capital E.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

I did a little bit. Like, and I'm not trying to diminish that I was maybe the one that really like kicked it off in the real way, or that I played a r a large role in it. I one of my failings is that sometimes I, you know, when people thank me for a thing, I you know, try to just fluff it off to something else. So I'm trying to really like own my part in it, right, in a good way. And just because I'm not comfortable like having people think it's all about me because it's not. But like so, when I say we, I really mean we. I understand that I had a big part in that, but we did this. Like, like your contribution was different, but no less than mine, right? Like Brian's contribution was different, but no less than mine. Right. So the th I'm incredibly proud of what we've done, and all the players too, I'm incredibly proud of what they've accomplished. It's not easy to win stuff, and it's not easy to get up for it and to win stuff over and over and over again. I mean, how many losses have we had? We so we played like let's just do this whole thing, like math-wise. We played from start to finish, I think the number is twenty two games, including the exhibition games. I think. Yep. And now I'd have to I have to sit down and write that all down, right? Okay. We have lost we lost one, two, three, four of those. And we and we and we kind of tied two, right? Um we we tied two, or m you know, maybe one, because you like we won on the PKs, but but like that's incredible. Yeah. If someone had said, oh, you're gonna go you're gonna go 16, four, and two in your first season, holy smokes. Yeah. And and winning, people think it's just about the guys on the field, and they're the ones that have to go execute it, but winning and creating a great environment really requires everybody associated to show up in that same way. Right. And we all did that. And maybe that's what I want to end on.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

I love it. I love it. I was gonna throw one more question at you, but no, do it. I won't. Okay, all right. I I think it's an appropriate to end on uh question. So and I mean you kinda already did it, but we're gonna do we're gonna do it anyway. What what do you want to say to everyone who helped turn Vermont Clover from an idea into a real club? Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

That's it. Just just thank you. Yeah. It's been so much fun. And it fills my heart with so much joy to be able to say thank you and to be able to walk out of this thing and say our first season was an absolute smashing success.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

It would have been more successful if we'd had a couple more trophies, but gives us something to be hungry for.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Right, exactly. Exactly. You can't you can't do it all in the first year. And I I think just establishing the presence and you know what, why, why we're here, what we're doing. Uh, and people turned up for it. It was great. It was absolutely great.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:42

Yeah, it was.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

I I'm I'm it's like bittersweet. Like I'm I'm sad that the season's over. I'm I'm really bummed that I didn't make it to the game last night. Or uh, you know, I've been missing a lot of games uh this this summer, but that's that's what it is. Um so I am really looking forward, you know, to try to keep the conversation going uh and and keep awareness going about Vermont Clover, you know, in the offseason. Um, you know, I want to continue to engage with the coaches and the players and and the fans throughout uh you know while we're not actually playing games and stuff uh and keep telling that clover story. Uh and I'm really I'm already excited to get back to it again next next season, and I know you are too.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:19

Yeah, me too. We've got some plans for we've got some plans. We're working on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, I think I think our time is up here. Thank you so much for joining us, Chris. It was so nice to dig into to you a little bit more. And uh I don't think there's anything else left to say other than we'll see you next time on the Pink and Green Podcast. You sure will.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

Thanks again.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:42

That's gonna do it for today's episode of the Pink and Green Podcast. A huge thank you to our guests for joining us and sharing their story. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast and leave us a review. It helps more people discover the growing soccer community here in Vermont. You can follow Vermont Clover FC and the Pink and Green Podcast on social media for updates, match coverage, and behind-the-scenes content throughout the season. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Until then, keep supporting local soccer and keep the game growing.