Episode #61: Mark Stauffer

Empowering Excellence: Coach Mark Stauffer 

In this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, we sit down with Mark Stauffer, the head women's soccer coach at Misericordia University, to dive into his 24-year coaching journey and his commitment to building a program focused on player empowerment and accountability. Coach Stauffer shares valuable insights from his successful career, including the unforgettable 2012 season when he led the Cougars to the NCAA Final Four. We also explore his coaching philosophy, how he develops standout student-athletes, and the importance of creating a culture of leadership both on and off the field.

Coach Stauffer’s accomplishments are impressive, with multiple NCAA Tournament appearances, conference titles, and numerous individual accolades for his players. His work has made a lasting impact in NCAA Division III soccer, and this episode is packed with wisdom for coaches, athletes, and anyone interested in building a successful, empowering program.

To learn more about Coach Mark Stauffer and his journey at Misericordia University, check out his full bio here: Coach Mark Stauffer Bio

Don't forget to visit coachmattrogers.com for additional resources on the college recruiting process, including your step-by-step guide, Significant Recruiting, blog, past episodes, and more!

Transcript

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Welcome back to another episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. I'm excited to announce some huge milestones for the podcast. This past month, we surpassed 5, 000 downloads, 5, 000 streams, and now have listeners in 22 countries, all 50 states, and over 1, 000 cities across the U. S. and internationally. I want to thank all of you for supporting our little endeavor. And also a big thanks to all the world class coaches who have come on the podcast and shared their time and wisdom with us. Today, we're diving into the world of Division 3 women's soccer with one of the best in the business and someone I'm proud to call a friend, Mark Stauffer, head women's soccer coach at Misericordia University in Pennsylvania. Coach Stauffer is in his 24th year as the head women's soccer coach, and his achievements are nothing short of remarkable. Under his leadership, the Cougars have reached incredible heights, including a historic run to the NCAA Final Four in 2012. That season, Stauffer guided the team to a 20 3 2 record, securing both the MAC Freedom title and national recognition. It was during that year that he was honored as the NSCAA National Coach of the Year, solidifying his place as one of the top coaches in the game. His focus on player development and creating a culture of player empowerment and accountability has been a cornerstone of the Cougar's success. With a career record of 324 wins to 115 losses, Stauffer ranks among the top coaches in NCAA Division III history. He's mentored numerous All Americans, Conference Players of the Year, and Something he's very proud of. Numerous scholar, all Americans, all while fostering a program centered around hard work, discipline and leadership. Before we jump into today's conversation with Coach, I want to remind you that if you're navigating the college recruiting process, whether you're a family, a coach, or an administrator, you can find my step by step guide to college recruiting, significant recruiting, on my website at CoachMattRogers. com. There you'll also find my weekly coaching and recruiting blog, past podcast episodes, and my comprehensive college recruiting class, the Significant Recruiting Launchpad. And for those looking for more personalized guidance, I offer one on one strategy sessions and would be happy to speak with your community school organization to help them succeed and not only their long term college recruiting journey, but their journey to becoming confident and passionate adults. Now let's dive in. Here's my conversation with coach Mark Stauffer. coach, you just got done telling me you're tightening up your 25 class. You're almost done with your 26 class, which is. Amazing for division three that you're already closing up shop on those juniors that haven't even started their senior year yet. Was that a concerted effort on your part to recruit a couple years out or is it just how the tide has rolled? Yeah, it was twofold for us. we started looking 13, 14 years ago at just trying to increase the timing of when we were committing kids. we weren't really putting offers out the kids at that point until early senior year. But as what we're finding out, we were becoming everybody's fallback school because we weren't putting pressure on them and they were getting their offers early and we never knew what our class was going to look like. so then we started just creeping earlier and earlier, but we realized to do that and still be able to go through the full recruiting process and get to know them as individuals. We just had to start our process so much earlier. so we really started, probably about 10 years ago, building our freshman and sophomore polls as deep as we could so we can get those kids at multiple I. D. Clinics before their junior year. and then the other thing that I think makes us a little unique in this The huge majority of kids I'm recruiting are in our health sciences. We're a huge health science school. We're one of the top schools in the country when it comes to that. So when I'm recruiting kids that are getting Division I scholarship offers, the only way I was able to really convince them that this was the place for them was to get on the same timeline as the ones. And now we just have to convince the kid that the academic piece is just as important as their soccer piece for more important. So that's what we recruit now. I go after health science kids that want physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, speech and language pathology, or physicians. That is probably 90 percent of my roster. And that's why the early commitment isn't hard for those kids because they know they want PT. They got into the DPT program. The division ones that are offered on their scholarship money are telling them you have to go four years of exercise science and then go to a post DPT school. So it just, it works for us. I don't think it's going to be the division three norm to finish classes in junior years. but I think for us, it works based on the academic and athletic criteria. It's an amazing advantage when you have a DPT, when you have a doctorate of physical therapy and a kid knows they're going to be there. They're going to be out seven years, I'm assuming, for you guys? Six and a half. Yeah, six and a half. They do it. They get their undergrad in three and a half years, and they go right into three years of DPT. Because it is so hard now, you look at the independent DPT programs in the country at the bigger schools, they may take Two, three kids that weren't in their primary health science bachelor program. You have that dbt program and you get those kids in house and they know they're leaving and they're going to be 25 years old, making great money as a physical therapist or an OT or a nurse. That's fantastic. So I love that. It just works for us. It's our mold. They take athletics serious here at Misericordia. We're not a very big institution, but we have 32 varsity sports, so almost half the kids on our campus are varsity athletes. So with that said, our administration is serious about telling recruits that you can always compete for years, and study any major that we have here. So they will give our kids preferential scheduling when it comes down to clinical sites. during their season. and that's with all those health sciences like the nursing department just said, what juniors and seniors do you have coming up in the fall so we can get them a local clinical site so they can be at everything. So I've never had a player not be able to play all their career out and still be at everything. even with covid because we had some kids that were in covid years and took red shirt injury red shirts during those years. So some of those kids were playing in their fifth, sixth year of DPT school, and they were still able to do it. That's fantastic. And moms and dads that are listening to this, I cannot tell you how rare this is. So to have a school that has that type of program, that convicted in their values, that athletics is important. And they're giving these kids the opportunity to do both and be healthy with it. It's fantastic. I love that coach. I hope you give your president a hug every time you see him or her. So that's fantastic. All right. You're almost done with your juniors. How do you do that? When you don't have a scholarship, your financial aid doesn't come out till February, January at the earliest of their senior year. Is it come down to the major? It does, because it's like you said, you're alluding to all the problems that it creates when it's not a specific major, For me to get a kid to commit junior year to a elementary education degree when they still know they're going to have a lot of offers coming in that are far less than that. That's why we recruit health science kids. it doesn't mean I won't take kids outside of the health science world, but it just has to fit timing wise for that kid. So we're able to give families a pretty good idea. here's about what it's going to cost you at the end of the day. And they do a really good job of letting the families know a realistic number so they know exactly where they're going to be sitting when they come back with a full financial aid package. It's a huge mistake colleges make, especially small colleges, where they give them a 10, 000 range that's huge for a family So do you have a tier system? So a 21 ACT and a 3. 5 gets you this. It's close. it does change each year, but it typically only goes up in amounts. so I'm always safe speaking to, if you were a freshman last year in our class, you would have gotten this amount of academic money. over the last 20 years, that amount has never gone backwards from year to year. So I fully anticipate you being at least there. And then we'll see as much as we can do for you in the process. And, we just help them in that process because division three, I'm not allowed to appeal packages and do all that stuff. So I just educate the kids as to what the process is going to look like, where I think they're going to be financially. And then just help them navigate the system throughout their junior and senior year when they're trying to figure it out. But honesty is everything with me. And I think our recruits and our players will tell you that I'm a straight shooter in the recruiting process. I'm probably way different than a lot of college coaches where I tell a kid when they're on my campus, I'm not trying to convince you to come to school here today, I'm here to give you information. I'm here to tell you what we're all about. And if you get excited about that, you're going to absolutely love it here. when you leave this meeting today, if you're like, this guy's crazy, I'm not going to do all that stuff. Then great. We figured that out before you had to deal with the transfer portal. So it's real when it comes to this stuff. And I think the players that want the same thing and the candidness from a staff and where they're at in our recruiting pool and exactly where we see them. I think at the end of the day, that's what the young women want to hear. And they want to know what the avenue to their future is both in the. In the academic world and on the soccer field. For sure. And I think it's a huge mistake when coaches, especially now with the portal and the NIL and how crazy money's gotten and, and where recruitment is gone, that we're not focusing on those kids and saying, Hey, we want you here for four years. You're going to be an OTPT, you're going to be in our doctor program. We want you here for seven years. So if we're a jumping off point for you think come in here, I'll get bigger and stronger and faster and I'll have a great freshman year and I'm going to transfer. We may not be the right fit for you. You got it. And I always stress this too, you coming in, you're here, you're family. So That doesn't change if you get hurt, that doesn't change if you quit, that doesn't change if you transfer, and it sounds like that philosophy you've taken head on and not only convincing kids to get excited, but probably convincing mom and dad before the kid even knows what they want, right? Yeah, and that's something we spend a lot of time talking with families about. When they're here on our campus, just about who we are as a program, and it has to be something that they truly just fall in love with, and it's what they want to be. And we talk to our players like, we chose you, then you chose us, and we chose this for four years. I'm not looking for somebody to come in and out of our program and mess with our chemistry. So I challenge recruits all the time when they're here. I said, look at all the programs of the schools you're involved with. And find out what their transfer rate is. That's what's going to tell you how honest the program is in their recruiting process. Most coaches will just try to convince you to come there and try to make you happy for a year and then hope it works out. It's not the world I care to live. I want a kid that wants to be here and be in our program. They want to be cared about. They want to be mentored. They want to be challenged. And we're going to do it. And we've only, I'm proud to say, we've only had three kids transfer out of our program in 25 years. That is unheard of. And I tell recruits all the time. That's not because I do anything perfect or my staff does anything perfect. It's because we recruit the right individuals from the start. And if I have an elite player that isn't fully bought into who we are and what we're about as a program, we just bypassed and we move on to the next kid. I made those mistakes young in my career. I took the talent and I had to go through a whole second rebuild after eight years. And the next year I said, I'm going after the best kids I can get. And I just went after the best athletes. I didn't evaluate who they were as people. And within two years, it destroyed the chemistry and the program. And we had to revamp and start over. And 15 years ago, I said, I'm not changing it. I'm doing it for people first, then we're going to develop people and players altogether. I'm really interested in this and how you perceive talent on day one and what that talent looks like on day 1, 200 for you, if you bring up a kid that's a player, maybe they're a really good D3 NAI, small D2 kid day one, what can they expect to look like? And that's what we tell kids. And that's one of the first things we look through in our recruiting I think a lot of players don't realize it is when we first go to a field, we're there early. We want to see the warmups. I want to see how they're interacting with their players. I want to see who's rolling on the field late. I hate to say it, but I can't tell you how many times a kid reaches out for us to see them play. And we're not even interested in seeing them play by the time the game starts. So I'm like, if this kid's trying to get us to like them now, and she's still not bought in enough to be a good teammate on the sideline, train her team hard during warmups, motivate, encourage, solve when she gets frustrated instead of yell. Yeah. If a kid's not willing to give me that, when they're trying to convince us to like them. what are they gonna do for us for four years? I don't want to fight battles. I tell my staff every single day we grind every day in the recruiting process, so we don't have to beat ourselves up for years. Want to get it's here and you don't want and you don't want your seniors in your office gone. Coach, what's the deal with this kid? You got to go to the weight room. You don't want your captains because you've built such a good culture. It's a cancer. And I think that's the hardest piece as a coach, as you start doing this and you may have lived it, once you start developing the culture within your program, you have to find the line of when to give it to your team. That's right. Once you, once I started to feel like, okay, the huge majority is fully bought into what we're trying to accomplish here. I just started giving them more and more of the program. When recruits are on campus, if they leave for the day and my players are like, she's not going I'm done. I move on. I couldn't do that when I was still developing the culture in the program because I wasn't sure the response I was getting back was the real response I should be getting. But now in our program, when a kid comes for a visit, it's either slam dunk on both sides or it's not a fit and it's pretty easy. When we put offers out, we're usually at about an 80 percent success rate on offers. That's not because everybody wants to come here, but we weeded out all the ones that probably won't before we get to offer. It's smart recruiting because you're using your people. You're using your resources. You're being smart in the beginning. I love it. I just absolutely love it. What would, and I'm coming back to the question I asked you a couple of minutes ago. Yeah. Absolutely. What would your girls tell me the young women in your program? What would they tell me has changed the most in their character, their values, their game in the 3 4 years they've been with you and been in your program? Yeah, I think from a playing standpoint, they would tell you that they've learned how to solve the match. And they're completely different, we get players out there that they just try to play the game and they get frustrated when they start getting frustrated. They don't learn how to solve. And we really train our players. As soon as you feel frustration, get your mind turned to solve. There's a reason why something's not working. It may be tactical. It may be a shape thing. It may be a first touch thing. It may be you're putting an extra prep touch on it, but let's find out what it is instead of letting our frustration set into who we are. But let's find a solution and let's start figuring it out. And I think when we do that and we start teaching our players to read the game and make decisions. I think that's what my players will tell you. The seniors always come in here and they're like, I don't know how I played the game. It's because they've learned a different level of thought. And they're like, it was just such a hard game. from a person standpoint, I think they'll tell you that they've learned that honesty is always the best thing they can possibly do, whether it's with somebody they love, whether it was somebody they're arguing with, it's just how they deliver it and they need to be upfront and honest. We have a saying in our program all the time. It's big girl up. If you have a difficult situation and you're upset with somebody on the team, you have two options. You can drop it if it's not that big of a deal. Or you can big girl up and go have that conversation with that person. And that person only, they're your two options. The third option is not go talk to my teammates about another person behind their back. And I think our players grow real fast to learn that, even though it seems hard, it makes life so much easier in the long run. And they just learn how to deal with people in the community, people in the workforce, people on their team. And we have little things that pop up on our program like every college program does. But our players solve it from within before it ever becomes something that comes to me. and that's the difference. So when you have a program that runs from within and I don't have to be standing there at a training session to know what the work rate is, or I don't have to be there during technical functional reps in a small group setting the program leads itself. and once I think that's why you see at the division three level. When you find those 1012 programs that are always in the top 15. That's what they have. They have a program that the players run it and the players know it's their program. There's value in that. I think the programs that struggle to win, the players feel like it's the coach's program and they play for the coach. Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. When and if getting kids motivated for a 6 a. m. practice, good luck winning anything. I would imagine if I'm in your locker room when the coaches aren't around, I'm hearing the women on your team use that phrase. Hey, stop whining. Big girl up. Stop complaining. Big girl up. I would imagine that's prevalent. Yeah, and I've only thrown two kids off our roster for team chemistry issues but both times it was just upperclassmen in my office multiple times and they're like, we're giving her chances, we're giving her chances. She won't buy into what we're doing. After the second or third conversation I'm like, I just cut her. I'm not going to allow one or two people to change and add problems onto what my team wants to do. I knew I was onto something as a college coach when my best player one year had fallen in love. and decided to skip a game to go to his girlfriend's sister's wedding. Quality choice. So I'm, I'm so old school. I was just, I, it's one of the rare occasions I didn't know what to say. So I bring in my captains and I go, here's the situation. Take the night. Come back to me tomorrow. Let me know what you would like to do with this. This is your team. We're in first place. We're leading the league. We're nationally ranked. This guy leaves that's, I was a basketball coach. That's 20 points and eight rebounds going out the door in a first place team. Thought I had that off. Whether we, suspend them for a couple of games, whatever it is, you come back and I want to talk about it and we'll make a decision. They were back in my office two hours later and I go, you guys made a decision already. They go, no, we've already talked to him. We told him he's done. We tell him he's no longer part of the program. You know what was important to them, right? there wasn't any maybes with them. this is who we are. We've built this room from scratch. This is what we want to do. So I love that. The statement that not only you're making, but your team is making, and that's why you consistently are naturally right. And we keep it simple. there's a lot of structure of what we do in our program, but I think the thing I found the most is. The more bought in the team becomes, they have so much freedom within the program, even though there's structure in it. And I think the people from the outside of our campus look at my program as, Oh my gosh, they are so structured. So driven. He's telling them what to do all the time in reality. I don't even know what workouts my kids are doing most days in the off season, but they go down there and there's 20 of them working out in our dome or whatever, every single day. And they think I'm forcing them to go down there and structure these workouts. I'm like, I didn't even know they were down there today, but they set their standards higher than my standards. So my standards don't mean anything. And that's empowering for a player to control you. And I think our players buy into that real fast. And they're like, listen, this guy's fitness test doesn't mean anything to me if I set my standard higher. So then they take all the stress off their plate and they really just grow with it. if I'm a business owner or I run a clinic or a hospital, I want to hire every one of those girls. I want to hire every single one of them when they graduate. The work ethic, the discipline, knowing how to fail, knowing how to pick yourself up, how to collaborate. They have every piece that an employer would want. And that's what it takes. You need that person that has good core values. And if they do, and they know their field, they're going to be good at what they do. I've been here 25 years and I've never had a player graduate without a job. That's not a statement. A lot of college coaches can make. So it's one of the reasons why I stay here. I can do things the right way. I can be up front. I can be honest and we can compete for a national championship and not many places in the country where you can do all those things. It's coming. Maybe a couple of them. I want to shift gears a little bit. Yeah. As a D three coach. There's a lot of misconceptions out there. I mean if I talked to 10 families, eight of them. Yeah. Eight of them think if the school of the Division three cost 60, 000 a year, they're probably gonna pay 60, 55, 000. What are some of the misconceptions that you hear that student athletes and parents have about the Division three recruiting process that we D we just all need to do a better job of educating? Yeah, I think there's a lot of different things in that question, obviously. From an academic standpoint, your main value of division three is that you're going to have smaller class sizes, you're going to know your professors, you can have a conversation. Every one of my players knows their professor by name, my player, or my professors will call all my players by name, and there's value in that division three school. When it comes to finances, I think people just look at that first dollar amount and say we can't afford that school, realistically, it's typically at least half off for most division three schools of whatever that sticker price is. And then some of them will even financial aid and process things even a little lower than half of the original cost. I think one of the biggest misconceptions, not about D3, but about D2 world, it's kids talk about getting a Division II scholarship. But the reality that a Division II scholarship is an average of 1, 500 per kid. Not that big of a deal. We just have to educate people on, Probably 90 percent of the kids I'm recruiting have Division I scholarship money offered to them. So they have to decide what's the important thing here. Do I want to tell people I got a scholarship and then hope I have a good experience in college, or am I okay going to vision three, focusing on family first, academic second, and our women's soccer program third, and then a positive social life on the backend, but I'm going to get my degree and I can compete for national championships. I can be an all American. I can do those things. And that's really the biggest thing that it takes for kids to want to come the division three world. And then the other biggest misconception is that division three soccer is poor. sure you can find some very poor division three soccer. There's 440 teams in the country. If you go to the bottom 200 teams, you're going to get some pretty poor teams. but then you look at the top 10, top 20 teams in division three, they would beat a huge majority of the division ones. and I think families don't realize that the epitome top levels of D3 can beat a lot of the division ones. They're not going to be, we're not going to be to division ones that are the top fifties that have, 13 foals and stuff like that. But when people hear D1, they think Penn State, Maryland, that world, and they forget about the other 80 percent of division one schools that are out there. it's frustrating sometimes that families get sent in 50 directions the wrong way till they finally get the real education. And I've been preaching this for. 30 years about how the value of your academics in high school kids don't understand. I don't think parents understand the difference between a 3 2 and a 3 7 might be eight, ten, twelve thousand dollars a year. It might be forty, fifty thousand in what you don't have to pay or take loan to go to college. Taking that extra hour every night and getting your homework done and getting it in your backpack and asking questions in class and asking for help. It may seem insignificant, but 40, is a lot of money. And notice all the things you're naming right now, they're all choices. Am I going to be prepared? Am I going to be organized? Am I going to talk in class? Am I going to communicate? Am I going to show up? And that's why we, they're the things we push with our players. If they learn how to do those things, every facet of their life is going to get easier. You're right. it's hard to get high school kids to buy into doing those things. They just can't imagine a decision they're making at 16 or 17 is affecting the next 30, 40 years of their life. But it is. It's where you get to go to school, where you get to play, how much debt you have when you leave and then trying to figure out a life with all that debt is overwhelming for a lot of kids. they never get to where they deserve to be. I find, and I love that you said choices because there's a phrase I use with all the kids I work with in recruiting. if they're struggling with something or they're complaining about something or pointing fingers, I'll just shoot him a text and we'll say, I just decided to dot. And they know that, I got to look in the mirror. I have to make some decisions, stop pointing fingers, stop blaming everybody. What am I going to decide to do? We talked to our players all the time about the three choices that they have on a daily basis. one is their work rate when they put their feet on the floor every single morning, they pick their work rate and whatever it is they're doing, whether it's on the field, work rate, going to class, work rate, getting their workout in, being a friend, work rate, all those things are important. You choose how to treat people on a daily basis. You don't have to carry a bad day into other people's days to make their days bad. It's okay to talk to them about it and let them know that you're struggling a little bit, but don't bring your bad into somebody else and have them leave feeling bad about their day because of what you run into the conversation. And then the third one is their attitude. Just pick a positive attitude every day. If our kids do those three things on a daily basis and I'm good at my job, We're going to stay in the top 10 in the country. And it's, with COVID, I think so many kids lost a sense of ownership, a sense of responsibility, a sense of, I don't have control over anything anymore. So that was the time when we started putting these three controllables in their world every single day. You have control over those three things. Pick, choose, pick and choose good ones every day. And this program's gonna be perfect. Give me a politician that'll run on that as a platform and I'll vote for'em every time I hear you. I hear you. People want real, people. Just want real honest. Here's who we are. Be the best person you can be and go out and do it. Just choose it every single day to make an impact in people's lives around you and make it a positive one. All right, let's transition to your freshman. What's the biggest adjustment they have to make? Oh boy, that's a big one. Maybe there's two or three that come to mind. Biggest one soccer wise is they're not able to play at the pace of play and still read off the ball. Some of them are good enough technically to play at the pace, but they're not able to get their head off the ball and read weak side shape and still be able to do it. That's the hardest adjustment, and it's the hardest because the only way to develop it is to being in an extremely high level training session and to have your coach hold you accountable with checking your shoulders weak side. But all those have to happen for players to develop that reading ability of the game. So from the soccer standpoint, that's the biggest one. I think from a personal standpoint, it's everything we've just spoke about where it's hard for them to get to a point where they can go to bed every night and look in the mirror and say, what could I have done today to change any of my negatives in my world? And then question two, did I, and if you're getting the right answers there, you're going to build in our program. But to get freshmen to get to that level, It's coaching. It takes time. I'll sit them down. I'll have a conversation by the end of the conversation, instead of them saying, why is this happening to me? Whose fault is this? They're leaving with an idea of what can I change in my life? And we would just really try to empower our kids through life and how to manage things. And I learned if I teach them the right way to go through a thought process, they maintain themselves throughout the rest of their lives. If I fix it for them or discipline them or just yell at them, I took care of it for the minute, but they're going to be back in here in three months with the same, it's not that hard. And so many coaches don't take the time to say this is what commitment means at this university. This is what commitment means to be a part of this program. And once you're committed, then we can really start talking about your value. once we know where your commitment is. Now we can start talking about your growth, your value growth to our program and value growth typically ends up meaning more playing time, more opportunities to see the field, right? Yeah, I tell my upperclassmen all the time. I want what you want. I want to start 10 seniors on the field. If I could, I would. That makes everybody happy. It's easy for me to tell a freshman, the all Americans playing in front of you. She's a senior. That's not hard. I don't want freshmen coming in and starting. If they're my best, I will play them 100%. We tell our players in the off season all the time. Now we get six months to compete against each other. You get to train so hard that I can't recruit somebody better than you. And it's my job to go out there and find somebody that's better than you. We're going to see who wins come next fall. But I control me, you guys control you and we'll see who's ahead in the fall game. and that's, good that we can talk about it like that and really challenge each other on a daily basis. I'll come back from recruiting trip. I'm like, I just saw a really smooth center mini 27 this weekend. And all my kids in that class, they'll be like, she can't come close to me. I'm training way too hard for them. My phrase was always Put me in a position where I don't have a choice. I have to play you. If I don't have any options, I'm either the dumbest guy here in the room there's something I'm not seeing. I always talk to kids that were struggling when shooting the ball. they didn't have the rhythm that day, a game and they weren't feeling it. Okay. get the ball out of your hands. There's other things you can do till you get that flow. Go get us a rebound, play great defense, move your feet, be in great position, be a great communicator. Are there similar thoughts to your freshman and your sophomore that are growing, trying to learn how to play the game and own the game? Is there that same thought process? Get the ball off your feet. There is. And I think it's the, All the off the ball stuff that we already referred to. we tell our players all the time that all Americans are made off the ball. it's not everybody at our level within our program is clean. get a ball, they can move it. they can do what they need to do technically with the ball. The difference is what you're doing reading when the ball isn't anywhere near. Are you stealing an extra five yards of defensive shape? Are you tucking back into a pocket? If you're on the front side, are you looking for the inversion in the back third? How quick can I get into that space? The good players will try to run into that space when the ball is played in foot. The All Americans already have their run timed and they're striding into goal on it. And that's the difference. So when we get our kids to understand that, you're not going to become a consistent starter here because of your technical level. You're going to become a consistent starter here because of everything you do when the ball's not on your, and I think when they hear that come out of my mouth, they start realizing the value in it I'm such a soccer novice. I love watching it, but what you just described, I feel. That's what I see the difference between our us women's team and our us men's team. I feel like our us women's team does those things so well. And the men are still struggling with that. There's still that ego. I still see that ego that they can't let go of that. The women have just, it's evaporated. It's not that. And it's one of the reasons why I've stayed in the women's game. I honestly took this job 25 years ago with the idea of how fast can I get to the men's side, right? That was honestly my idea. And within three years, I absolutely fell in love with coaching young women. It's a different world. They want to know why they want to be coached. They want to be encouraged. They don't mind being disciplined because they discipline themselves harder. And it's just a, it's a fun experience for me. I enjoy training sessions. I never have to beat them down. I never have to tell them they're not good enough it's a conversation all the time. I love it when I tell a kid, Hey, I want you slid back five yards. And they're like, why? Yeah, there we go. Now you're thinking why? Socrates. I love it. Now I'm going to explain to you why. And now you're going to know, and you're going to be able to explain to our freshmen next year. It's just such a fun environment to be in when it finally gets that way and everybody thinks the same way. this could be a tough question for you. cause you win so much. You guys don't lose a lot of matches. How do you handle losses now? It's different 25 years. Later than you did when you were a young spry coach coming into the world of coaching. Yeah. Are you handling losses differently? Do the, and I'm not just talking about emotionally, but what you do in practice the next day, you're probably your preparation. Yeah, both. And I think you hit it on the head when you started with emotionally, because I think as a young coach, I certainly failed in carrying my emotion. Into games out of games into training sessions out of training sessions, and I learned over time, I think, which all coaches that Self evaluate themselves on a regular basis do I started to realize that the quicker I could take a motion out of it and just be a leader for my team and let them know that I have a vision. I get them back on track real fast. And so I think before when I would take a loss or a loss, I didn't think we should take, I would beat myself up mentally. I would get down on myself. I'd be like, Oh my gosh, we have so many problems in the team. How are we going to fix all these? When I was emotionally involved, I started to create problems within the team that weren't actually there. I was just trying to find out why we lost the game. And sometimes you just watch the film and you figure out real quick why you lost the game. It wasn't that anything's broken. It was just that we didn't pay enough attention to details in certain phases of our game let's get better at them and let's improve. So I think I've matured from the standpoint of now. I get back into my team with a process of how we're going to solve what just happened. And then their confidence is right back by the time we get into the next match. So they know we've addressed it, we've trained it, we've organized it, and they have a better understanding going into the next match. So something like that can't happen to us again. I went back and coach high school, the first time in 10 years, I hadn't been a head coach in 10 years and I'm reflecting on that season now, and I'm like, I reverted back to my 26 year old self. It's I forgot everything I learned in 20 years as a coach, because I wasn't running the team every day. You do it quick. Yeah. So it's oh my God, I got to put my training wheels back on. I got to remind, all these little things I got to remind myself. I wanted to ask that question because I want to roll into how you plan your practice. If I looked at your practice plans Monday through Friday, week after week, would I see consistencies in terms of is there four or five things that you're stressing every single practice is Mondays from week to week look like every Monday? Are there consistencies in how you're building out your week to get prepared for a season to get prepared for that next game? Yeah, I think it goes in phases with us for sure. we consider pre season from day one all the way through September. As our full implementation period to where we need to have everything in those six weeks that we need to have in for conference play come October, build, just trying to build confidence, get all our systems of play in both sides of the ball, all the transitional phases, it takes a long time and, I think too many coaches race through that stuff to get it all in, in preseason. And they find three, four weeks later that most of their players didn't retain stuff because they didn't train it as regular as it was necessary. where if you look at our records, if I'm going to take a loss, we're going to take it in September. That's right. We're going to play a tough schedule. we're going to play a couple of top 20 teams in that month. We'll find out what we have to adjust come October, but we're okay taking a loss when we need to in September if it means giving us a better opportunity to win a national championship. At the end of the day for D3, you got to win the league, right? Exactly. And then we get to October, and now it's a different mindset of fast, intentional reps. With what we're doing specific fixes that we're trying to accomplish and how we're playing, just little nuances, and then really trying to get to who our best players are that are playing together out of that system that we've now learned for six weeks. when we hit November, it is short and tapered. We get the postseason. It is an hour session in and out, but it's going and their bodies are at a high intensity for an hour straight, but we're out the door then I want my kids so hungry and postseason that every time I end a session, I want them saying, are we going to play it. And I'm like, Nope, We're going to the next session. And I want them ready to get out there and play come post season. I think you'll see that with certain teams and certain programs where they've either learned how to peak their team at the right time, year after year, but you get that team that gets that little run in September and early October, and then they're just phasing it out. And then they deflate. Yeah. That's hard to fix that bleeding when it happens. But once you get it fixed, don't worry. Let's schedule the heck out of that preseason. I was always like, I don't want to go on 11, but if we go on 11 and that allows us to go 18 and 0 in conference, okay, I'm all in, I want to make sure we are at our best when we start playing against our conference opponents. Yeah. And I need some of those losses to teach our players how to handle the adversity, how to get down in the game and come back from it. the last couple of years, I felt like I haven't been able to quite schedule strong enough. we're going into postseason and we're at like 1901 and I'm looking at my staff and I'm like, I'm not sure I prepared us like I don't like this, I don't want us being down one nothing for the first time in the semis or the quarters. Like I want those experiences. It is what it is. Learn, but you still want to keep winning too. All right, coach, you have dealt with. hundreds of parents over the years, thousands of parents, but hundreds in your program. How can parents best support their student athlete during the recruiting process and then the college transition process? what are some things that you want your parents to understand when they meet you for the first time and then what you expect out of them going into their child's career? Yeah, I think the best thing a parent can do for their child is don't ask them the hard questions. And it sounds backwards. But here's where I'm getting with it. sometimes I think a kid will get done with a club game, and the kids not happy with their playing time and they get in the car. And the first thing the parents starts in on is, you didn't play a whole lot. Are you mad at your coach? And it's we're asking the wrong questions here. It's are you happy with your experience? That's all you have to ask her. She'll tell you if she's happy with it or not, and then start coaching her. She says, no, then why aren't we happy with it? What aren't you getting that you want? If it's more playing time, what are you putting into it? You can be a parent and be supportive and help navigate your kid through this world without putting them in negative spots where they have to give you bad answers. I have a freshman parent meeting every year before preseason begins just for the parents of my incoming freshmen. And that's one of the things I tell them it's going to be so hard for you at the end of preseason to not call your daughter and say, what do you think your playing time is going to be? but that's the worst question you can ask your daughter because A, she doesn't know yet. B, she doesn't want to give you an answer of too much time and then not get it and look like she screwed something up. She doesn't want to tell you none because then you're going to be saying, why are you not going to get any playing time? So I tell him just encourage and be there for your daughter and help her navigate difficult situations. Don't put playing time as the question you're always asking about because as a parent, you're telling them then I'm only going to be happy if you're playing. You're asking them, how's your experience? How's your day? Do you love the coaching staff? Do you love your teammates? Are you doing well in school? If she gives yeses to all those, she's got a chance to be a starter in that program. If she's not giving yeses to all those, you're asking the wrong question. The playing time is never going to come because she's not happy enough to work through it. I've never thought about it from that perspective, but it's so obvious. The questions we ask are really, we're telling our kids what we want, what our expectations are. Why do you think Ashley's playing ahead of you? And she doesn't have an answer. We ask our kids questions that put them in hard spots all the time. We don't intend to do it, but we do it. And then over and over the kid just starts to feel this sense of overwhelming. Is this important anymore? Like people are always wondering why I'm not playing more. Maybe I'm not good enough. And all these negatives start creeping in. Then if they just get the call from mom and dad Hey, how's your day going? You like it today? You're doing well? Are people there for you when you need something? Oh, gosh, that's great. As we all try to get better every day. I find myself having these conversations with college coaches. I love talking to college coaches. I miss it. I must be in and being able to walk across the hall and talk to you about a problem I'm dealing with, and it's part of coaching I miss, but I find myself having these conversations for my kids, the two that live in my house and how can I parent them better? How can I be a better? Lifeline to them and help them with their adulting and being a better learner and their growth mindset. there's two things I ask every coach and I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw these at you. Your time has been fantastic coach. This is, I hope a lot of people listen to this because they're going to grow so much from it. Parents are going to be so much better. High school coaches are going to be so much better from this. What advice do you give a family just on recruiting? What do they need to know if they're 15 years old and they really want to play college soccer? What advice do you give them to get started to do it right? So it's not overwhelming. It's not gonna cost them 20, 000 to get recruited. What advice do you give them? Yeah, the biggest thing I would say at that point is one to protect yourself and know what conversations you're having, even when it gets to juniors and seniors and they start getting an offer. I'm amazed at how many times a kid will come back to me and say, Hey, I just got an offer from school B. And I'm like, okay, what's the offer? And they're like they offered me. I'm like, what did they offer? Is this a spot in pre season? Is this, you're on the team for one year and then they decide, is this you're on for four years, as long as you follow the rules? And they're like, protect yourself. You got to ask these questions. and that's why when I say protect yourself, it sounds like college coaches are these bad demons. that's not what I mean by it, but they want what they want and they need what they need. You as a recruit have to know what you want and know what you need and ask the questions that are necessary. I think too many times, especially as a young recruit, they don't want to offend the college coach. And I tell kids when they come here on the very first vid, the first thing I say to them is, you will not offend me with any question. You need to ask it if it's on your mind today. Yeah. And I think too many times they're like this coach might get upset at me if I ask this. You need to worry about you. So ask the question and get that information. And then the other piece is. I think recruits don't understand the level as to which they need to recruit a school. When we go to showcases, there's thousands of kids out there. The idea of thinking some college coach is going to dry recruit me and start calling me every week and trying to get me to come there. That happens to less than 1 percent of kids that get recruited at the college level. You have to start developing that relationship with the coach. And I always say to recruits, try to develop a relationship with the coach and the staff by going to ID clinics, emailing. If you don't feel like you're developing a relationship, don't go there. Because if you can't develop that relationship and you're just another email or another blanket, Hey, do you want to come to my ID clinic? That's not the place for you. It, the recruiting process should feel natural. It should feel like the staff is giving you what you need and vice versa. If they're saying I keep reaching out to this coach and they don't get back to me and they're not real good with their correspondence. Go somewhere else. don't stay with the process because if you're frustrated during this process, you're going to hate it for four years. Don't do it. And that's the best advice I can give them is just try to develop relationships with programs. The one you develop the deepest relationship with is probably the one that's right for you. That's right. And forget about division level. Forget about the name of the school. If you're doing all the work, you're not in a good relationship. If there's not both people fighting for this thing, it's definitely not going to be a marriage that's going to last, both parts of the couple are doing their share. Getting kids thinking about how do you want to be treated in a relationship? Do you want to do all the work? Do you want to pay every meal, every movie? are you the one always striving? A lifetime's a long time to always be the giver. That's right. So it's fantastic advice. It needs to be repeated over and over again. Last question, coach, and you've given us so much significance in terms of advice and golden nuggets today, but is there a piece of significant advice that you want to share with our audience about anything? It doesn't have to be about soccer. It doesn't have to be about sports or recruiting, but is there just a piece of advice that you've been given over the years that has been true to your heart? Just the biggest thing to me is and it's how we live our lives every day is that, nobody can take away from who you are as a person. So just be a good person I would just encourage people to be the person, every day. That does everything you can do to make people around you have a better experience and what you're going to get back in return is tenfold. if you do that the right way. it's something that certainly changed my world when I started living to try to be there for other people and you find out that when you need it, there's plenty of people right there at your doorstep, willing to help you out, I try to never be an asker. I always try to be a doer. when I need to ask, it's usually available to me if I know I did my life right in all the other days of the year. it goes around, comes around, and it goes back to your three choices, the work rate you're going to put into your day, how you're going to treat others and the attitude you put out in the world. And so I love it. Coach, thank you so much for the time today. It's just a joy getting to know you. And I'm so impressed with what you've done. And now that I've gotten to know you, it's obvious. Why your teams compete at such a high level. So thank you for all you're doing young women in your program, but just sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us, it's great. I appreciate and I do just want to touch base again on my 26 is just so none of my 26 is get stressed that we will be putting some more offers out throughout the spring So the 26 is that are committed. We're kids that we've been involved with for a while now, but we are still involved with plenty of 26 is and we are putting more offers out this spring I just don't want any of my recruits reading, listening to this and being like he told me he still might make me an offer. It's real. But we still, and that's a big part of division three too. Your rosters have to be a little bit bigger because you've got situations where, you're going to have some kids get hurt or have academic things. And, you have to have bigger rosters because nobody's signing a national letter of intent for you. So you're going to keep recruiting, you're going to keep making your program better. But again, those kids that you're recruiting, listen, he's being honest with you. He's telling you the truth right now. Are you doing the same back? Are you being honest, right? Are you going to get mad if they're looking at three other schools and they got three other visits they got to make? When a kid comes and visits that they don't have any other schools or one other school on their list. I'm like, get some research done. You need to go visit some other schools. It's great. When you commit, I want you to hang that phone up excited. I can't wait to get my mid record year. I don't want you committing, hanging that phone up and being like, what did I just do? Is this the right choice? If you're there, I don't want to commit. Amen. Absolutely. Coach. Thank you again. Good luck. I know, great things are ahead for the fall for your team and for your school. So thanks again for doing this today. I appreciate you. Thanks, Matt. Hey, thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Coach Mark Stauffer, the head women's soccer coach at Misericordia University. His leadership, dedication to building a culture of empowerment and accountability, and remarkable accomplishments, especially that 2012 NCAA Final Four run, are truly inspiring. It was a privilege to hear more about his coaching philosophy and how he's helped shape student athletes for years, both on and off the field. If you want to learn more about Coach Stauffer and the incredible things happening at Mississippi Recording University in Pennsylvania, be sure to check out their women's soccer program and follow Coach's journey as he continues to make an impact in the world of college athletics. Before we wrap up, I want to remind you about the resources available on my website, CoachMattRogers. com. Whether you're a family, a coach, or an administrator, you can find my step by step college recruiting book, Significant Recruiting, along with my weekly blog, past podcast episodes, and more. And the Significant Recruiting Launchpad, a comprehensive class designed to help families navigate the college recruiting process. Also, if you're looking for more personalized coaching, and I love to do one on one coaching, I offer strategy sessions. And I'm happy to speak at your school, community, organization to help guide them through the recruiting journey. You can visit my website at CoachMattRogers. com to learn more, and you can schedule a one on one session with me today. Thanks again for listening, and be sure to join us next week for another episode of the Significant Coaching Podcast, where we continue to bring you insights from the best in college, high school, and professional athletics. Until then, keep empowering your athletes and creating impactful, significant programs. See you next time.