Episode #76: Adam Galla

 ⚽Building Culture, Shaping Men: Coach Adam Galla ⚽

 In this episode of Significant Coaching, we sit down with Adam Galla, Head Men’s Soccer Coach at Central Methodist University, to explore how he's built winning programs by prioritizing culture, character, and consistency. From back-to-back championships at Westminster to his return to CMU, Coach Galla has a track record of transforming teams—on the field and in the classroom.

We talk about his coaching evolution, what it means to lead with significance, and why he believes in recruiting the right people before the right players. Whether you’re a coach, parent, or athlete, this conversation will challenge how you define success and inspire you to lead with a bigger purpose.

🎧 Stay tuned for Monday’s Significant Recruiting bonus episode with Coach Galla—where we go deeper into how he evaluates talent, what makes a recruit stand out, and how families can approach the recruiting process with clarity and confidence.

💻 Visit coachmattrogers.com to schedule a free recruiting strategy session and access tools to help you stay organized, prepared, and confident throughout the recruiting process.

📘 Don’t forget to check out Significant Recruiting: The Playbook for Prospective College Athletes, and keep an eye out for sport-specific recruiting journals — coming this summer.

Transcript

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as a head coach, my job is pretty simple. My job is to put the players in the best position to succeed or get a result or get the win. So I just have to see this is what I have, this is what I don't have. Let's be honest about what we have and what we don't have, and then let's put our players in the best position to succeed. Welcome back to the Significant Coaching Podcast, the podcast where we dig into the leadership culture and recruiting strategies that are shaping college athletics in powerful ways. I'm coach Matt Rogers. Today's guest is a true program builder, coach Adam Gala, head men's soccer coach at Central Methodist University. And just his first season, Adam led the Eagles to a winning record and coached six NAI scholar athletes, and four all conference players. But that's just the glimpse of what he brings to the table. Before returning to CMU, Adam turned Westminster College into a perennial contender guiding them to back-to-back conference, tournament championships, multiple national tournament appearances, and one of the highest performing academic teams on campus. Whether it's raising the bar on the field or in the classroom, coach Gala knows how to build programs that last. Today we talk about what it takes to turn struggling teams into winners, how to lead with consistency and why belief and structure go hand in hand when building a program. Before we jump in, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. See Never miss episode. And if you enjoy today's conversation, please rate and review the show. It helps us reach more coaches, parents, and athletes just like you. You can also visit coach matt rogers.com to dive deeper into today's topics. Pick up free recruiting tools. Check out my book, significant Recruiting, and even Schedule a one-on-one strategy session to take your journey to the next level. Let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Adam Gala. Coach, thank you so much for being on. I'm so excited to talk to you. We have mutual friendships in the world of coaching, so I'm so glad you got referred to me and I'm excited. To talk soccer with you. No, thanks. Thanks for having me on, and I really appreciate it and I look forward to our conversation here. Me too. You've been a head coach at three different colleges and now you've returned to Central Methodist where you were an assistant. What has coming back home meant to you and how has that shaped your first years at CMU? Obviously it's weird for things to go full circle in a way. Even my previous stop, at Westminster I went right I played at William Woods, which is right down the street. Yeah. When I graduated. I never thought in a million years I would be back in Fulton, Missouri. And I was for seven years and it was a great experience and I had a great time there. And when I got the opportunity to be the head coach here, I thought the same thing when I was an assistant a long time ago, man, I'm chances of me being back in Fayette are probably slim to nuts. It's weird. You know how. Life takes you in different paths. And I've been really fortunate in terms of I've surrounded myself with some really good people and I've been at some really good stops and have really grown a along the ways. I think I'm really excited to, to be back here in particular for a lot of reasons. The first is. This program our whole athletic department and the men's soccer program as well is obviously vastly included in that, for my decision has grown just tremendously over the past 10 years. To see the growth that this athletic department and this university has had in the past 10 years, it's not, it's pretty remarkable. It's very rare to see that in these day and age, 20 years ago. Central Methodist was the bottom of the table, you know of. Programs circled as the automatic win type thing, and now it's gonna be the exact opposite. I absolutely love the challenge that I have here. Follow following in Coach Nichols's footsteps and everything he's done here. Having won two national championships is a massive feat. And I'm trying to do the same thing here, and I really enjoyed that, that challenge of things. But I also really love the fact that the support here is just absolutely fantastic and everybody here. Has a very clear vision in terms of, wanting to be successful and wanting to support the university as a whole. And I think so that, that's definitely one massive part of it. And I think the second is, I have a young family now I have a wife and two young kids. And obviously I wouldn't have made the decision to come back here if I didn't feel it was right for my family. My family always comes first. Just having known know, knowing a lot of the people that are still here from when I was here a long time ago, and just knowing the community and the environment, that was a place that I know. My, my kids could grow up in and be in just an overall, just a great environment where people just genuinely care about them was really important. So those two factors were massive in, in, in coming back here and it's just, yeah, it's just unique how it all fell into place. That's great. I'm happy for you and your young family, but also being able to go to a place that you appreciate and respect and having that ability to go back to a place you used to be is pretty powerful. I asked this question to all the NAI coaches'cause I think it's really important'cause I don't think people really understand it. When people ask you about that level, what do you say? I. What do you, how do you define it? How do you describe the difference between Yeah. AI and ncaa? It's really hard. In particular I think there's an additional caveat to that. For me personally, on the men's soccer side the level of play is absolutely fantastic and our conference. Here in the heart of America is absolutely fantastic. We are without a doubt, a, very high end division two, a low to mid table division one in terms of just the overall quality that's here. So sometimes people just hear NEI and they don't recognize it as ncaa and they just push it aside. That's part of the recruiting process in particular is making sure that we walk people through that. Understanding, understanding the overall level of play, that is here in terms of the standard is important for people to know. But yeah, it's definitely a process in terms of how you describe it. Some days are a little bit easier. Some people grasp it a little bit quicker than others. But the biggest thing I think the biggest thing I try to. Communicate to people. It's very much a sliding scale and this idea that there are clear steps. It's not really that anymore. There, there are good teams at every division, at every level, and there are bad teams at every division and every level. Getting caught up in, in one thing or the other becomes difficult. The second thing, and again, this kind of goes back to my sport in particular, we're not base or we're not, basketball, football where you have this large amount of scholarship money. So players really filter down the funnel. There's not as much money in our sport. So with that, it, it provides so some. Interesting dynamics in regards to recruiting. Do I go to this school who's maybe a division one school, but the offer's not very great and maybe I come off the bench my first year, or do I go to this high school and start right away and I get more money? Yeah. And that scholarship side of things is something that I think, may maybe recruits in particular don't always take into account. Yeah. But I think if you go out and watch, legitimately watch the games you'll see it's a pretty good level, man. But to answer your question, and it's a difficult question too. It is. And it is a process and sometimes you just have to walk people through it and everybody grasps it at a different rate type thing. I always tell parents this. I go, if I put you on a field against a really good NAI team against a really good D two team, you wouldn't be able to tell me which one is which. Yeah, no I completely, yeah. And I say, really the only difference is because they can play each other and it, you could schedule a D two team, you could schedule a D three team. You could schedule a D one. The difference really is an n AI coach can start recruiting earlier. You can make contact earlier. You have a little bit more diversity in your and how you scholarship and financial aid, right? Yeah. You don't have some of those hard rules. Flat rules. You can get creative with how you ate a kid, but at the end of the day. It's really good soccer. It's a really good education. Yeah. And you're gonna leave there with a very, if not a better experience, and a very similar experience, you would've gotten into a D two or a D three. For sure. I think just the standard of play is high and I think the quality of the overall experience is something that, that's really nice, as well. Yeah, most in particular most, I not all but most are, smaller school environments that plays a big part of it too. But, but yeah as a whole the standard and level of play I think it is a lot higher than what most people have a tendency to think. But it just takes time to, to get people to, to see that. So I love it. All right. Across your years, you're at Westminster, you're at Lakeland, you're now at CMU. What stayed the same about your co coaching philosophy? Is there some things that you've just, it's been who you are, your authentic self as a coach, and are there things that have evolved and you've adapted? Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think what's unique about being at division three in particular, so my time at Lakeland and my time, at Westminster was, is, it's difficult in terms of recruiting, right? I don't have any control in regards to financial, right? So trying to get as many good players as possible and then figure it out afterwards in a, obviously I'm exaggerating a little bit but. Your, maybe your shape in terms of your formation or maybe certain things that you could do with one group you can't do with another because you just don't have it. Where at the scholarship level it's a little bit more easier to have this clearly defined aspect of your program. I would say, there are definitely staples that have, I think very hold very true throughout my time, both at Lakeland and Westminster and now here at CMU, I think from a, all I guess we'll start off the field. I really want just good student athletes. People who are good people, who are good students, who I know are gonna go to class, who I know are gonna be good teammates. That character side of things is something we talk about a lot in our program. Yeah. And that, that is hold true from day one. And that will hold true to, I, I'm done coaching whenever that time may be. The total person side of things, the holistic side of things, the character side of things is just really important and making sure that we find those student athletes who are the right fit for our community. It's, the community is academics. It's off the field, it's on the field, it's in it's all of those things. So what I don't want is I might find somebody who's maybe a great player and somebody who could do, some really good things for me on the field, but if they don't wanna be here. It never works out, so no, it doesn't. So that's one side of it. In terms of, making sure, we talk a lot about character. We're finding the, finding student athletes who are the right fit for our program is really important. I think on the field I. I've been, I'm really big in, in training and practices in particular. That's our time to implement the thoughts, the concepts and ideas of what we wanna execute in our next match. All of our training sessions are very, I make sure that they are designed. The best I possibly can to prepare us for that next match. So they're very well organized. I try to make sure that the coaching points kind of flow throughout the session that players get as much information as possible so that they can perform at their best, whenever that next match, may be. So I think the. The importance of training has always been there. So you, you train like it's a game. You play every game, like it's your last, then when you hit post-season, you know you'll be ready to go. It's always been, my, my mentality in terms of, a head coach. I think another thing that's been really important as well, that's how true is. And I don't think we're unique in this aspect. I think a lot of sports have evolved where you have to be a two-way player Now the days of being a one dimensional player, I think you can make an argument that they're gone. For us I've always been big on the ability to play both ways. You gotta defend an attack as an 11. And players that are comfortable on the ball. We're trying to grow and develop players throughout their time and that we just try to get guys as organized as humanly possible. Is there, so those aspects have stayed true I think throughout my four years. Some years we've been a little more defensive than others'cause maybe I didn't quite have those pieces. Some years you may be a little bit more tacky. I think in the scholarship game it's a little bit easier to be, maybe a little bit more strict or maybe a little more demanding in terms of your style of play. A little bit easier to maybe to find those players that fit your style. Yeah. But yeah, it's been a unique process for sure. It's a great transition because you've had teams that were dominant defensively, and you've had some high scoring teams. How do you balance that in terms of your tactical approach, depending on that roster? Ooh. I, I think, the way in which I've always tried to view it is as a head coach, my job is pretty simple. My job is to put the players in the best position to succeed or get a result with whatever you wanna call that or get the win. So I just have to see this is what I have, this is what I don't have. Let's be honest about what we have and what we don't have, and then let's put our players in the best position to succeed. So if we're really great defensively, okay, let's make some minor adjustments here or let's, and figure out how we can get that result. With the group of players that, that we have. You just take what comes to you. I really enjoy it. I'm a firm believer that there's no, I sometimes I get frustrated when I hear, coaches or managers say, we play the game the right way and. There's a hint of that is very true in terms of, character and work ethic and being a good teammate and those, like that side of things is very true. But the tactical side of things, I think that's very false. You can win the game in any number of ways. There's no right or wrong way, you play to win the game, right? Is the old the old quote. I think I've enjoyed that aspect in terms of. Really deep diving into the tactical side of things and evaluating what we have and how can we match what we have to the tactic side of things and just put our team in a best position to get a result. And some years, yeah you're really, you're great defensively and some years you're pumping bull and both are equally fun. They're just different. So it is, and I think it's, I wanted to ask you that question'cause I knew where you'd lead me here. It's such it's such great advice for a young coach.'cause I see so many young high school coaches and they're like, this is how I coach. This is my system. This is how we're gonna play. And I'm like, you don't have the talent to play that way. Yeah. Your talent just telling you this and you're looking this way. So I think that mindset for young coaches is really smart. And it's something that all coaches need to embrace. You have to coach your kids. You have, right? Yeah. Yep. Oh, a hundred percent. No, it's you can't and to be fair too that's not fair to them either. You're asking them to be something that they're not. I wouldn't want anybody to, I can only be the best version of Adam Gallo that I can be. I, I can't be Alex Nichols, the previous coach. I can't be anybody else. I can only be the best version of me. So for me to expect my players to be, I just want'em to be the best version of themselves, whatever that may be. And I don't think that's fair to them either. So I think that, yeah, I. When you're a young coach, it can be easy to fall into that trap of, yeah, this is, very rigid. But I think when you take a step back I think you're realizing that you're doing yourself a disservice and you're doing, your athlete a disservice as well. I agree. I agree. All right, so let's talk about your first year. At CMU. Yep. Were there challenges that surprised you? Were there moments that kind of confirmed to you that you're in the right place? Can you look at both sides of that? Yeah. It was interesting coming in. So I got hired in May actually like right around now. So probably pretty close your mind. So they gave you tons of time to recruit, right? Yeah. Yeah. So basically I inherited the group, of guys that, that I had. I knew that it was going to be a process, a for two reasons. One it always is this idea that you can just walk into a program and everything's instantly great. It just doesn't work that way. There's so many aspects to the program and I think that's something as well for young coaches to really think about. When you go from that player to coach. As a player, you always say why don't we do this and why don't we do that and we could do this instead of that. And then you become a coach and you realize, yeah, there's a reason why we can't do all those things. Like whether it's, budget or you name it. I, I think, the, I walked into it knowing that it's a process. The second thing that I knew I know Coach Nichols, and I know his style play well, and I know that I'm just different and it's not good, right or bad. This kind of goes back to the idea there's no right or wrong way to win the game. But I just knew my vision in terms of, how I wanted us to play and what I feel most comfortable coaching wasn't quite that. I knew that would be a big adjustment in that. That would have to come in phases. If I put it all out there at once, I would lose everybody. And it wouldn't work. So I had to it was a bit of a yin and a yang, a bit of a, yo-yo, there were some matches that, that first year where we played absolutely fantastic. And there were some matches that year where it was tough. I. The, the biggest thing that I took out of that year was two things. The first is, and I already knew this, but I just felt like we didn't have it. Quality depth is so important. At this level in particular. Isn't that crazy? How important your depth is massively important. I think in high school and club, you can you can hide that a little bit, right? Yeah. But the, when you get to the higher levels, those little details get, we get exposed. And in particular, I think in our sport and the calendar that we have we play so many matches in a short period of time. Yeah. And so if you don't have that quality death, it really shows. So I felt like our quality death wasn't quite there. And I thought the second thing, I thought we had some really, I thought we had a bunch of really good players, but I would say. There was a handful of players that just didn't fit our style. Yeah. It doesn't mean they weren't bad players because they were good players. They just didn't quite fit what we were trying to do. So I knew that it was just gonna take time to implement our style. I knew it was gonna take time to improve our quality depth. I knew it was gonna take time to make sure we're bringing in players that fit the, that had the skillset that fit our style of play here now. Yeah. I mean it was an interesting first year for sure. But, it was a good it was a good chance for me to really have a very strong eye. Basis of where we're at, because even little, I had zero spring when I came, when I got the job, I literally met guys and then they were out. Finals were done. Yeah. It was finals week. So I never saw them play outside of, a couple, live streams here and there. And so to get to see them face to face in person and see the character and the skill sets and all that, w was really great to have. Wish we could gotten a couple more results that year, but it's how it. To go nine and seven into your, in your first year is always, you won more and you lost, and, you gave kids a great experience. That's awesome. Yeah. Sure. Talk a little bit about you. You're going into year three, right? At CMU? Yep. Yep. This will be my third season coming up here now. And you've been real consistent, your kids are really competitive, your team's been really competitive in your league. What does it mean to you to build a sustainable program? What does that look like to be able to say, I know we're gonna step on the field and we're gonna be able to compete every year. What does that look like for you? Yeah, I think I think it just goes off the continuation of basically what just said before, making. We're finding the right, people and the right players for our program is really important. We're very diligent in terms of the recruiting process. We have 20, 20 plus check boxes that, that we're looking for. And it can become easy to maybe panic and, oh man, I really need this spot. And maybe you reach out a little too far and it becomes really easy to maybe get sidetracked, maybe, hey, this guy's a great player, but maybe he doesn't quite fit what we're doing. Or maybe this guy's a great player, but man, when I had bad conversation with him, I don't know, something felt off. So I think, making sure that, we continue to bring in good people and good players that fit our program. Is vitally important. I think the second thing, and I think I'm really excited for this upcoming year. The first year was nice, but it didn't really feel like my team because I got the job so late. So last year, this past season really felt like the first time where it was my group. But this upcoming year I think pretty much everybody on our roster outside of maybe one guy. Would be somebody that I recruited. So this upcoming year, I'm really excited for the fact that I think we, we have not that we had bad people before, but I think we just have guys that fit what we're looking for character wise. I think we have guys who we, who really fit. The skillset and the style of play. Yeah. And I think that we have quality, depth and competition at every single level within, which is huge. Yeah. Which is massively huge. I'm really excited for this upcoming year and I. From there, it just comes down to maintaining those points. It sounds maybe simple but it's difficult to do, making sure that we keep bringing in kids that have good character and fit our skillset, making sure that we create competition in every spot. And we just do our best as a staff to prepare our guys as much as humanly possible. And I feel like if we do those three things I think we, I think the consistency will always kind of stay there. Year three is such a huge year for head coaches because it, like you said, it's, this is your real, it's the first time really having your roster. Yeah. Yeah. You brought all these kids in, you've developed them, you've got leaders that know how the program works. I think I made a huge mistake when I was at Maryville. I brought in this great recruiting class my first year, and it was a class of six, and those kids were my core for four years, and I was such a young coach. I got my first head coaching job at 26. I kept recruiting to build to build the pieces around them, a bush here, a couch here, creating my home. And I wasn't thinking about long term, what happens if I get a kid hurt? What happens when these guys graduate? And, we went to two national tournaments with that group and then we fell off the cliff.'cause we had a lot of really good parts. Yeah. But we didn't have any studs.'cause I, I couldn't, I was basically knew I had six studs and I didn't wanna recruit another one that couldn't play. And I wasn't thinking long term. Have you gone through that or do you have any advice for me on how to, how do you do that the right way? Yeah, I think, I guess here's how I try to view it. And I think it's easy to get lost in this process sometimes. My job just isn't one through 11. My job is one through 26, 27, 28, right? And so every position. Every position on that roster matters. Yeah. And so how can we create competition? How can we reprove every single level of your roster and making sure that I. You are constantly evaluating and reevaluating, those maybe tiers you could say, and maybe you have your top tier your middle tier, and then maybe your developmental tier. All of it is important because this idea that we know that this guy will always be and this tier, I don't think that's certainly true. Is it tough to jump up? Yeah. Without a doubt. But I, I. This is something I think I really learned at the division three level. There was always one player that just surprised me man, like really? He it felt like a light bulb or a light switch. Like they just got it. Yeah. And I could have easily written that kid off. But they just kept working and they just kept absorbing information and then something just clicked. And so is gonna be stud player. Maybe not, but if. Maybe he's your tier three player, now he becomes a tier two player. Oh, great. Now you got even more guys in that tier two. And maybe one of your tiers can jump up. So I think that's one aspect of it. I think there's another adage in terms of don't have just one plan. I think that's another thing as well. It's plan A, B, C, D, E, and F. And once that kid person graduates or that person goes down or that person doesn't commit, whatever that may be, or maybe they commit and decommit, okay, what's option B? Okay I already know what option B, C, D, E and F are. And that way you're not panicking when things don't. Quite out, or you don't get blindsided. That's the thing you want as coach. If you get blindsided, man, you gotta put yourself in a tough spot. Those are the two things that, that I've always tried to think about is I want development and I want competition from the full roster one to 27 because this idea that number 20 on my roster's gonna stay at number 20, maybe he will. Maybe, but maybe he won't. Maybe he'll jump up or maybe he'll come down or maybe I can bring guys in. And then number two is just always have plan B, C, D, E, and F.'cause plan A and B almost they look awesome on paper and they almost rarely work. You never really get to see guy and Yeah, all through, you see it in your mind. That's about it. That's the only time you're the only person that's gonna see that plan. Essentially. The season rarely finishes how you designed it, the, the summer before. Yeah. I'm with you. I love that mindset and it, it took me five or six years of recruiting to realize. I had to bring in the best talent at every position and let the competition do itself. Yeah. That's massively rich, and it's the only way to sustain is Yep. If you're not bringing in two or three kids that can be studs for you or grow into that stud role, it's, you got a hard path ahead. It's really difficult. And man, so many like injuries too. Yes. There okay, you might, what's happens? We don't have it. Our best attacking player got hurt. And we just the program just wasn't quite where it needed to be yet. And that's what makes me excited for this upcoming season is the fact that I feel like our depth and competition is so much stronger and so there's gonna be players. As a coach, you have to be comfortable with some level of conflict, right? You might have a player who did fantastic for you last year, but if they come in outta shape they start worrying about their individual stats, if they start to veer a little bit. Yeah. One of two things happens. Either that person behind them jumps'em, or b you have to sit down and have that conversation with them and get back on track. So yeah, there's, that goes. I wanna ask you about this.'cause I'm, as much as I love soccer, I'm just soccer, dumb,'cause as a basketball coach, if I had five kids on the floor that weren't playing well, I could put a new five in. If five kids got tired, I had another five I could put in, and I had five behind that. You are so limited on your substitution and how many times you can put a kid on the field. How do you manage that in terms of health and conditioning and physicality and, yeah, it's a lot. I think man, there's a lot of aspects to it. The first is you have to accept the fact that it is what it's. It's not great for our game to play so many matches in such a condensed period of time. Yeah. And I can sit here and complain about that all day long, but it's irrelevant. This is what we have, so we have to deal with it. That, that's definitely a part of it. I think the things that become really important, the first is just managing minutes, I think is. Really important. It's something that after every I'd say every week or so, I just reflect on the previous week, okay how many guys played in this game? What minutes are they at? And it's something we look at as a staff. And and just watching just general body language and, how they're in training sessions, and I've been there too, where man. The hardest thing I ever did as a player. I, we played back to back games Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday. So sometimes you can just see, and I think that's where a, the athletic training staff becomes really important. We have an absolutely fantastic staff here. Awesome. Dan is our trainer, and he does an awesome job of working with our guys. So guys making sure that they take care of their bodies and they're, preventing knocks or working on, on, on little injuries or whatever that may be. But then also on our end, making sure that we're in constant communication in particular with the guys who are getting a lot of time, pulling them aside and, Hey man, you gotta be honest with me here. Like, how are you doing? Do you need it? Hey, we have an extra day off this week. I can give it to you, but I can only give it to you today because tomorrow we get ready for the next match. What do you need? And then on the flip side is working with those guys who maybe didn't get. Quite the minutes. You got either, okay, let's do some extra work with them to make sure that they stay sharp as humanly possible. So a lot of it is just managing minutes and really reflecting, looking at body language, working with the athletic trainer, constantly telling our guys to take care of their bodies. That's something that is an adjustment in particular for a lot of players. Coming into the college level. A lot of high schools have one athletic trainer. And since we're a fall sport, it typically goes towards football, which is understandable. But they come here and they're like, oh, we have our own trainer. I dunno, what do it's like here's what you have to do. You have to see him like twice a week. All right, you had an ankle injury, nine months ago. You still need to go see him for that. Check in, make sure everything's where it's at. I'm just trying to keep tabs of everything and some weeks is easier than others for sure. That's great. Coach, your teams have consistently excelled academically from the highest men's GPA at Westminster to you had six scholar athletes last year, which is fantastic. What's your strategy in terms of building a team culture that values. The full picture classroom as much as on the field. Yeah. So I'm probably gonna sound like a broken record, but it does start with the recruiting process. Yeah, of course, course it always starts with that, right? Making sure you find the right student athletes that fit, your community and your program are really important. You can go out there and find'em the best players, but they're not even eligible for your program and it's gonna be tough. And I think you're just gonna run up against the wall and you're just gonna end up, frustrating yourself even more. So trying to find, student athletes who are the right fit for you academically is really important. You don't wanna get caught up on, on guys who don't fit your program. So if I can find this fantastic player. But he wants to major in I know architecture or whatever it may be, but we don't Marine biology. Yeah. We like, we don't have that program here. I might reach out to him and tell them, Hey you're a great player. If you're not 100% set on that, let me know, but if you are we're probably not the best, university for you. And all that does is on my end is it's just time management, right? There's a thousand student athletes out there. I just gotta go find the next guy.'Cause there, there's another player that's just as good as that player. Yes. But I just have to go work to go find him. And he's, that person's gonna have a better chance of success here because they're a better fit. So that's definitely number one. Number two is I think just taking an active interest in their academic success is important. I. I'm constantly just asking my, hey, like, how are classes going? Are you doing all right? Think you're doing good? And it sounds like a small thing but I think it goes a really long ways. The guys feel you, you can gauge pretty quickly by their response. It's going back like the body language side of things. In terms of how it's going for them. If you hear the hesitation and their response and, something's probably may maybe starting to go south or maybe not in the direction that they wanna go. Doing great checks is important. We're really fortunate here at CMU we have a great academic resource center we have an early warning type system that does a really good job of preparing. With our students, but also our staff. And it's just opportunity for us to, have those conversations with players in regards to a specific class. Maybe they just studied the wrong chapters for the test. I've had that happen a couple times. Or maybe it's, hey it's just chance for us to go out and get a tutor and things like that. And I think the third thing that. Is maybe a little bit different on my end than some others, but I'm a firm believer if it's not broke, don't fix it. So if you come in here and you do really well, I'm gonna stay outta your way. You don't need me if you're a 3.5 GPA if you need help, you can always come to my office and I'll always make sure you get the help that you need. But if you're doing something right. I'm just gonna stay outta your why. So with that, that allowed, this kinda goes back to the time management side of things. On my end, it allows me to put more focus on maybe the guys, maybe the three or four guys who are struggling.'Cause those are the guys that maybe just need a little bit more attention. And in particular, it's usually freshman, sophomores. Usually freshmen in all reality it's just an adjustment going from high school to college and it's a different experience. And I think for the most part, my juniors and seniors are they pretty much got the routine down by that point in time. And but those factors are really important. Just making sure that you find the right student athlete that fits your. Your academic community within your campus. Making sure that you're constant, that you take an active interest in their academic success. And then three, just using that time management side of things is important. So I always tell kids if you get recruited and one of the first questions out of the coach's mouth isn't, tell me about your grades. That is a red flag. Yeah. I've seen some young coaches get really frustrated that they couldn't get a student accepted. Yeah. And I understand the frustration. I get it. Yeah. But it's also, man, it's like you, you spent a lot of time on that guy knowing he wasn't gonna get accepted. What did you think was going to happen? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's those things that, I'm constantly teaching young coaches. I go let's first talk about where do you work?'cause if you don't understand where you're working, you're digging a hole for yourself. You gotta understand what your admission staff, how your financial aid works, what your president expects from you, what your athletic Yeah. If you don't understand those things, you are gonna be an unhappy coach. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And I think on top of that in particular, now, I feel. Be ready to adapt and on, on the fly here because That's right. Higher education right now is all over the board. And recognize, what may have worked for that institution two years ago might not work now. And so yeah this, but it goes back to just making sure you're just gonna use your time more efficiently if you just. W work within the confines of your university. And if you have frustrations, either a, you have to learn to deal with them or b you have to learn to communicate them in a proper way. All those things I wish somebody would've taught me when I was a 26-year-old head coach. It's just, it's I'm gonna, I'm gonna write a book just for young coaches at some point. Yeah. For all the stupid things I did and all the stupid things I, I wish I would've understood better because it's really. As a young coach, it's almost like you shoot yourself in the foot so you understand how to walk, yeah. It's I, so I love that you see that. Now, talk about adapting. You and I have both coached men and women. Yeah. I am not a glutton for punishment as much as I talk about it. I've never tried to coach both at the same time like you have. Am I wrong in that? Yeah. Yep. Okay. Now you're obviously a much better human being, a much better coach than I'm,'cause I have enough problems coaching one team at a time. What did you learn from leading two different teams at once and how did it shape your coaching? Man, that's a great question. First off, it was incredibly difficult. It di I don't care how big or small the roster is, it is incredibly difficult to do so if you're doing hey, hat's off to you. Absolutely. I think what I learned about it was the first is, except that every team is going to look a little bit different. Yes. Recognizing year to year team to. You can always draw parallels to a point. And it's good to draw references, but to think that it, what works for one is always gonna work for the other is false. Yes. You can draw inferences and maybe tweak and do things like that, but to think that it's, Hey, what worked for this will automatically work for that that, that is definitely not the case. I think. The other thing that I think is really important in terms of, the recruiting side is very different. In terms of what they're looking for, what they want out of their experience, on, on, on the women's side, man, those are just so much more organized. They communicate so much better. There's so many more aspects of their, but working with guys, I sometimes I tell my wifes like, pulling teeth. There's always the one guy I tell'em five times, what time the bus leaves tomorrow. And then after I'm done saying it, there's always one person that raises their hands says, what time does the bus leave tomorrow? And recognizing that there, there are differences in terms of, what everyone is looking for. Those were probably the two biggest things I learned either a lot more. But those are the two things that really stick out is, what works for one team? Does that always work for the other? And the recruiting cycles and what they're looking for are just so different. So I think with that, I have a huge amount of respect for every sport. We can sit there and easily compare men to women's soccer, but when you take a step back, man, there's a lot of differences. And for me, it's given me an appreciation. I enjoy watching other coaches coach, regardless of the sport because I think every sport takes something a little bit different. Yeah. That's great. Coach, this has been a blast, man. I love your perspective and I could see why you're doing so well. And CM u's lucky to have you. Are you up for a little rapid fire? Some fun questions? Yeah. Yeah. Bring it on. All right. You'll like these. All right. If your coaching style were a famous soccer player, who would it be? Oh boy. A famous soccer player. I. I don't know. Let's see. I'm an American, so maybe stick with the I'm gonna go Landon Donovan. Yeah. Good. Two-way player. Who ended up being a good two-way player throughout his career. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I was trying to think who's the American two-way player? Landon Don is perfect. Yeah. So maybe that's the one. All right. The one I haven't heard that one. I love that. Who's your favorite non soccer, what's your favorite non soccer sport to watch or play? So unfortunately I just watched my blues get knocked off in game seven the other day. Yeah, I really love hockey. It's a great sport, man. The pace of the play is great. There's a lot of similarities. Yeah. Between being good two A players and tactics in regards to soccer and hockey. Yeah. I never played it outside of, just roller hockey. Yeah. But I really enjoy watching hockey for sure. I live in the Denver area and everybody's crying and crying now about the avalanche. And that was a tough series for them too. Yep. Is there a coaching book or podcast or something like that's had a big impact on you or something that you really like or would recommend? Yeah, I actually have it on my desk right now. The Team Captain's manual, our leadership manual. It is a fantastic book. I actually went through it as a player. What I like about it is I'm not nearly as smart as most of my players are. So my reading, if I see thick books, I start to run. It's 10 chapters. It's really simple. Each is maybe 12 pages. It just ask really good questions. Love it, and it forces you to think about leadership. In a slightly different way. And that's been a big book for me both as a player and I've continued to use it from time to time as a coach. And I've used it in leadership groups and with my captains from time to time and it's been really beneficial for me. Love it. Who's a coach? Any level or any sport you'd love to grab coffee with? That's a great question. For me, I don't know I think it, maybe I view this a little bit differently but I would love to have a coffee with Jose Marino more for the fact that he is such a big personality and some of the things that he says are just incredibly funny to me. And from what I gather. He just looks like someone who legitimately cares about his players. So I, I would be interested to hear what he has to say. He's obviously been around for a really long time. Yeah. And so that's probably seen the game evolve a lot. The coaching world evolve a lot. So I think he'd be a lot of fun and I think he would give me obviously quite a bit of knowledge. So I love that. Coach. Thank you so much for doing this and talking coaching with me. Yeah. Appreciate it. It always makes me feel good when there's a, when I get to spend time with a coach that I know really loves it, loves their kids, is doing this for all the right reasons, and you're, you have a family that you love and you're doing all this, it's a sacrifice, but everybody's getting good out of it. So thank you for doing what you're doing. Yeah. No, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. That's a wrap on today's episode with Coach Adam Gala of Central Methodist University. From building programs at multiple institutions to returning to CMU with a renewed vision. Coach Gala reminds us that great coaching isn't just about tactics, it's about culture, consistency and helping young men grow in all areas of life. Whether he's leading teams to national tournaments or raising academic standards, his commitment to significance over success is clear. One of my favorite takeaways from our conversation, his belief that sustainable programs are built when you recruit the right people first, not just the right players. If today's episode resonated with you, please remember to subscribe, rate the show, and share it with a fellow coach, athlete, or parent. And don't forget. To visit coach matt rogers.com for more tools, blog posts, and recruiting resources that can help your journey. And come back this Monday for our significant recruiting bonus segment with Coach Gala, where we will dive deeper into how he evaluates talent, how recruits can stand out, and why academics play such a big role in his recruiting process. Until next time, keep leading with purpose. And remember, success is temporary. Significance lasts forever.