Episode #78: Brett Parker

🎧 Rebuilding with Purpose – A Conversation with Coach Brett Parker

What does it take to turn around a college program? How do you stay committed when the results don’t come as quickly as you want?

In this episode of Significant Coaching, Matt Rogers sits down with Coach Brett Parker, Head Men’s Soccer Coach at Saint Leo University, to talk about the long game of leadership. From a Final Four run at Fort Hays State to his steady rebuild at Saint Leo, Parker shares what he's learned about patience, persistence, and personal growth—especially in the face of adversity.

They dive into what it’s really like to lead through tough seasons, how COVID reshaped recruiting and coaching, and why sometimes the most challenging years produce the most valuable lessons.

Whether you’re a coach, parent, or athlete—this one will remind you that significance isn’t built overnight.

🔗 For more coaching tools, recruiting tips, weekly blogs, and updates on Matt’s latest book The Softball Recruit’s Journal (coming June 2025), visit coachmattrogers.com.

Transcript

0:02

you have to. Turn on a different brain when you go and coach the little ones and try to make sure you remember that they should have a blast. They should love it. They should want to come back for more the next day and want to keep learning. And if they're going home and trying to get better, I think that's the best sign. Welcome back to The Significant Coaching Podcast, the show that dives into the heart of leadership, team building, and what it really means to coach with purpose. I'm your host, coach Matt Rogers. Before we dive into today's great guest, please do me a quick favor. Make sure you've subscribed, leave a rating and share this episode with a fellow coach or parent. It may seem small, but it helps make the future of this podcast possible and brings these important conversations to more people who need them. Today's guest is someone who has built and rebuilt programs at every level. Coach Brett Parker, head, men's soccer coach at St. Leo University has led teams to seven straight NCAA tournament appearances and even a Final Four run at Fort Hayes State. What makes Coach Parker's story truly significant is what he's learned through the challenges. Especially in taking over a struggling program and guiding it through a global pandemic. In this episode, Brett shares honest reflections on patients long-term vision and how the toughest years often lead to the most growth as a coach. Whether you're rebuilding a team, mentoring young athletes are simply trying to lead with purpose, there's something here for you. Before we get started, I'm so excited to announce that my new book, the Softball Recruits Journal, is now available@amazon.com. It's the ultimate guide for every high school and club softball player and family to help navigate the college recruiting process, packed with templates, visit prep tools and decision making advice. Learn more and take a look at our coaching and recruiting resources@coachmattrogers.com. Now let's jump into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Brett Parker. I. All right, coach Parker, it's so great to see you and I'm so appreciative of you being on thanks for doing this with me today. No, I'm really happy to joining Matt and looking forward to chatting. Coach, you've had just tremendous success wherever you've gone. Seven straight NCAA tournaments, a final four run at Fort Hayes. You've had a challenging rebuild at St. Leo. You guys are really starting to show who you are. What has this process taught you about patience and growth and long-term vision? Yeah, it's been a tough one. Throughout, I've been fortunate enough to start two programs from scratch, so that was, those were kind of unique situations in themselves where I. You are not trying to change anything, you're just building it from the ground up. And those were great. Certainly challenging. And then when I came to Saint Leo six years ago, it was a kind of the opposite where you're taking something over that had been very successful but had hit rock bottom in a lot of ways. Yeah, it's, I think when I got to Fort Hayes in, I think it was 2011, I had set. Three year plan, five year plan. And a lot of those I accomplished in year two, year three. It was a very fast, we had a lot of success right away, and in some ways I thought maybe that would be re recreated at St. Leo. And it was a lot more challenging and it's taken a lot more time, but slowly but surely you see the positives and you just keep going forward and, yeah, I've had to learn a lot of patience. I've had to learn how to. Deal with losses like I hadn't for a long time, but it's been fun and challenging and I wouldn't change it for anything. The amount of growth I've had as a coach in six years here is, exponentially higher than even the successful years at Fort Hayes. It's amazing what COVID and those years were, we just didn't know what was going on. And what that did to programs, what that did to kids, what that did to the parent thought process and scholarship, so anybody that's come out of that and survived it, a school, a coach. I I'm just impressed because I can't imagine I was coaching at the high school level at that point, and I can't even imagine what it was like. Sure. To recruit through that. It was tough and that did probably change jobs at the wrong time in a lot of ways. Had one season here and. Started to build momentum and then all of a sudden the rugs pulled in from underneath you and not only do you lose a year, but the whole recruiting landscape changed. It went from, building programs and four year players to, having extra years and COVID years and and a lot of one year players and you built teams more than programs. So yeah, it's. It was a tough, it was a tough time to, to start a rebuild. And I always say I've been here six years, but those first two or three are almost wiped outta the process. It's been, yeah, you throw that in the trash can and you start over again. And we've had to do that. Yeah, it was tough. It was a time, it did take tremendous amount of patience and resilience to battle through it. But I think like everybody, everybody had their own challenges in those times, and you're right. Private schools in that time or, higher ed in general. It was a tough time to come out of from funding and scholarships and we're just, I think a lot of places either are now folding and shutting doors or they're coming out of it on the better end. We've been lucky enough to get through that and with our head above a water and finally able to move forward. I want to really get into your brain a little bit about the fact that you've built two programs from scratch and then you built it to a national Title Com contender at Fort Hayes. If you're talking to someone that's starting coaching at the college level, getting their first head coaching job, are there things that you learned by building a program from scratch that are so much more valuable than taking over a program that's already been there? No doubt. I think and the levels I did it at too maybe helped. The first one was a creative arts institution in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was 24, maybe 25 years old. I had really had no idea what I was doing in a lot of ways, but I had to do everything. I had to cut the grass, I had to line the field, I had to drive the bus. I had to do all those things where I think that does, it can be beneficial to a lot of coaches where you learn on the fly, you learn through experience. Now, that's certainly not the only way to do it. Mean you can. Some people are gonna work better working under somebody who's done all of that and can learn that themselves. But I think yeah the more you do and the more hands-on you have, I think when you have that opportunity to lead a program yourself, I think you're gonna be a lot better off. And I see that, and I try to do that with graduate assistants or young assistant coaches is. Give them the keys to, so their next opportunity, they're gonna be ready for it because Yeah, it's until you sit in the chair where you are responsible for every aspect of the program, it is. You don't truly know exactly what to expect and what the day to day is gonna be like and how to manage your time and how to make sure you have balance in everything you do. Yeah, I think building a program's a great way to do that. You have to one, the recruiting, I think that's from a recruiting standpoint, and that's probably what I enjoyed most as a young coach was, meeting people and being on the road and watching, prospective student athletes. And that was. It's probably the best time to do that, when you're younger and that's all you really want to do. I think as players and you get into coaching, I think. That's what you think coaching is. You recruit and then you coach games. And it's that simple. So I think that was, and that's about 20% of it. Yeah. If that may maybe 10, 20%. So yeah, I think that was, that made that fun because that's when you start a program that's all you do at first right? Is you don't have a team and you're, you're panicking and you need players and so you're, leaving every stone unturned or not, searching everywhere you can for players. I think that's a, that is a great way to, to learn and cut your teeth for sure. It's so funny we're talking about this is purely coincidence, but I just, I've got a small college that's just hired me to consult, to build their athletic programs. They've had a beautiful campus for years and it's a small community and they've never had athletics. But they've decided they've got this great conference around them that needs another school, and we're gonna, and so I'm gonna, I'm gonna help them. What advice would you give to. Because we're probably gonna start with soccer. That's probably gonna be our num, our first sport.'cause we've got the field space. We don't have to build a gym. We can bring in 20, 24 y young men and young women very quickly. Yep. What advice would you give to me to start that program from scratch? What are some of the things that you think we need to focus on? Yeah, I think it's. I think across the board with athletics, it's about people and hiring the right people and hiring somebody that's enthusiastic about the institution. Number one, I think you have to have enthusiasm about where you're working and what you're trying to build, and I think I. When you have that instilled in a, in an athletic department and in the soccer community at large, I think that's really important. So I do really a simple answer is get the right people, get somebody who's willing to do that is gonna recruit the right student athletes that match the university, the college, whatever it is that is gonna build that long-term sustainable success. So I think that's it all starts with that is is getting the right people on board. People that are willing, like anywhere. For a, a brand new athletic department's gonna have financial restrictions and you're not gonna be given the keys to everything and you have to do it the right way. So somebody who is. Who can work within their means that, that has done it in a place where you don't have all of the scholarship, all of the budget that you have to get creative with fundraising and pinching every penny along the way. I think that's some of the things that I learned along the way when I was in those situations where you have to get very creative and make the most of what you have instead of, asking for more. It's what can you do with what you have. That's right. That's right. I love that. What role did athletic directors play when you go back over your career to your success? Or maybe when things weren't going great? How important is that athletic director relationship for you? I. It's massive. And I was lucky that I was raised by an athletic director. So my dad was an athletic director. So I grew up in, in an athletic director's house. So I knew I knew the challenges they had. And he was an athletic director at both a division one institution as an assistant associate ad. And then he was an athletic director at two in AI programs. So I was, I grew up around him my whole life, right? Yeah. And and then as I got into co that's, I think that's for a coach, at least to me, and maybe I'm different because I was raised by one, but I think it's the most important relationship you can have is somebody who you trust, want and you know that they're your coach and someone that's gonna guide you and support you and lead you, but. Yeah it's critical. It's everything. It's, I think, more than anything is having one that, that is gonna be on your side as much as they can and is gonna fight the battles for you and is gonna support you and in, in turn when you feel like you have that as a coach, I. You, it's just extra motivation for you. You wanna be successful for that person and make them proud of what you do. And I think that's, again, like I said, I was, I'm probably unique in that sense that, that my, my dad was an athletic director. I think that's but that relationship's critical. And I've had some great ones. Some of the. Some really been fortunate to work for some really great athletic directors that along the way, that have helped me as a coach, helped develop me as a person and and I've, it's carried over now. And at St. Leo I've had great athletic directors to work for as well. I. That's fantastic. I, I preach to kids about that are going through the recruiting process. Not only do you wanna find a coach that you wanna be around every day, and you know that's gonna challenge you and help you become the person you wanna be and the athlete you wanna be, but it's so important. For you to build a relationship with that coach that's right for you, and find a coach that wants to have that relationship. You, and I think it goes the same with coaches and athletic directors, don't you think? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. You, yeah you're gonna spend more time with that person, for as a student athlete with your coach that, yeah you're. You're learning to be a college athlete and what it takes to compete at that time. But yeah it's the ones that, you know, down the road, what you're learning and taking the next steps once you graduate. It's. Now that I've been coaching for I don't know how many years, 15, 16, 20 years, somewhere around there. It's really fun to see how those relationships with some of the first players I've ever had how they've developed and watching them start families and go through those things that it's yeah, it's really important that you want to, you want somebody that you can have that, that you can see that relationship building and forming and and it's, you don't have as many four year players in the current climate. But those ones are the special ones where you see them as a, 18-year-old and then you send them on their way when they're 22 and then you start and create a different relationship after that. But it is yeah, I think it's. You want to be able to the closer that relationship is, one, you're gonna be a better player during college, and two it's gonna last much further beyond, the four years you're in college. All those things. I wish somebody would've slapped me in the back of the head about, when I was 17, 8-year-old. This is what's important, yeah. It's not starting, it's not winning a national championship. It's not all those things happen. Once you have good relationships, absolutely. Once theres's a buy-in, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And that's that. You're right. Once. If you can really set aside it's tough when you're, when you're 17, 18 years old, to really put aside those personal needs that you want right away and those immediate needs you have. But if you can, if you're lucky enough to be able to do that, you're it down the road. It's it's gonna be, pay off tenfold. That you know you're gonna, you're gonna look back on that. You're gonna have more connection to the program, more connection to the university, more connection to your teammates that you played with. Yeah, it's those are things that you hope and you try to put forth in the process, but ultimately, a lot of times you have to learn those mistakes yourself. And I've. When you recruit older players at times too to a t they always talk about the wishing they could go back and tell their 18-year-old selves certain things. How, yeah, how to act, how to, work with teammates, how to listen to older teammates, how to listen to coaches and yeah, those are just part of the maturing process. And that's, as coaches, that's. Especially college coaches. That's why I think most of us do coach at this level.'cause we get to, to try to form those, those characteristics long term. So you're able to, when you leave, you've now learned those things and you can take'em to the rest of your life. I. That's the real cool thing about what you're, you get to do every day. And what I did for a long time is we get to see that growth. We get to see, that kid that we, we knew at 16, now we get to see him at 30. And it's wow. What a transformation you've made. It's amazing. It really is. It is. Yeah. And it's amazing how fast it goes. Just, graduation was a couple weeks ago and to, the graduating class, we had to think that. It felt like yesterday that those guys were showing up and that, some of the them had been here for five years with COVID and just, yeah it goes by fast and it's and to see them, at that stage and compare to when they arrived is pretty special. Coach this is gonna be one of those questions you'll probably call me in an hour after we're done and go ba I wish I would've said this.'cause it, this is one of those questions you probably have to think about a little bit. I was, I talked to young coaches about this all the time. I remember my first year at Maryville when I was the head coach there. I remember being done with that year, and I had one folder on my computer and it was just like a thousand things, and then year two, I started creating these, I created a practice folder and a game prep folder and a recruiting folder. I might have had four folders by the end of it, but just all those things that I had to learn as a coach to build routines and systems. Are there certain things that. You've started to take with you wherever you go, where you just there's systems and routines to what you do every year. Yeah, there's quite a few. You always have your basis. I, I don't know where I learned or read it or who, what coach at what level, but I try to almost reset a little bit each year. I don't want to do the same things and keep the same routines because I wanna keep learning. I think. Part of coaching and a big reason why I came to St. Leo and got outta my comfort zone and took on a new challenge is I wanted growth and personal growth and coaching growth and everything. And I think if you keep too many of the same routines, in my opinion, that it can get a little, that growth can be stalled a little bit, so you want to change and develop and move on. A lot of, that couldn't be as simple as practice plans, where. I don't wanna do the same things in preseason. I don't wanna do the same things in certain points of the season. I wanna make sure that my brain is still moving and turning and I'm still trying to develop new ideas and different things and but there's certain things yeah. That there's certain routines you take from year to year, whether it's, a lot of it I think is. Travel and logistics and things like that. I think that's part of especially postseason when you go into the postseason the first time you're there, what do you do? How do you set up, how do you organize, how do you travel, when do you train, what all of those logistics. And then once you do it a couple times, it starts to get a little more routine and you can try to set your teams up for the most success and the best position they can be in. But yeah, as far as especially. On the field and and the development there. I try to, as much as possible, not go back and find things and pick things that we've done at certain times and, whether it's a practice session or different things. But I do I like to continue to grow and to continue to have to, not just go through the motions and, do things year after year. I try to change things as much, things I as possible. That's, that's the rewarding thing about coaching. You get, especially at the college level, you get new kids every year. You get right. You get new ideas every year. You steal something that you saw on, a professional match, or Absolutely. And that's what makes it so much fun. I'm such a soccer novice. I didn't grow up with soccer. I've probably helped two 300 kids get recruited for soccer in the last 10, 12 years. But I always tell families, you, you need to go to Brett Parker if you want to get better at becoming a better player. I'm, I could I could teach you how to get recruited, but you need to go to Coach Parker when you think about your game in the United States.'cause oftentimes soccer is the fourth or fifth sport that people think about. What are the good things of that and what are some of the challenges that kind of being a soccer coach in our country? Yeah. The, obviously we're we worldwide we're looked down upon a little bit in a lot of ways, whether it's our opinions, our players, our history, our traditions. I think the biggest challenge is it is not. It's not ingrained in our culture, I think that's probably number one. You don't grow up with a professional soccer team. Two, Yeah. 200 yards away from your house like you do in most parts of the world, where you have, where you're day in, day out, everything. It's around you. You're exposed to it. I think that's probably the biggest challenge. There's lots of, the, I think the. The geography of America makes that difficult. It's such a, big country that it's in, it's so spread out and whether it's the club, your club situation or where you're at, it's geographically can be challenging in a lot of places. But yeah, I don't, I don't think, and I don't. It's not an issue to me to become the number one sport or whatever it is. I just think we just have to be good at what we do and have an identity and have something that that we believe in and that we're pushing towards. And, but yeah, it is, and we're around as college soccer coach or co or soccer coaches in general. You're around. Coaches from all over the world, right? There's a lot of coaches from all over the world in our country. We hear their, we hear their concerns with it, we see it. But it's grown tremendously as you pro, especially for people who were never around it or exposed to it. Now you are on a more regular basis. Yeah. I was in the same boat. I grew up in Montana, which was not, is not, and never will be a soccer hotbed. So it's that, that was, the same thing as you're geographically in a certain spot where it's not, it's not part other than, you're rec soccer when you're five years old and you're running around chasing butterflies. But yeah, I think there's a lot of challenges. It's always gonna face and I. A lot of people, a lot smarter than me are facing those challenges and trying to make it better. But we make the most of what we have. Yeah, and I enjoy it. I think it's I enjoy coaching the American soccer player as well. I think they bring, I. A lot of unique characteristics that somebody from South America or Europe or wherever might not bring. So I think there's uniqueness and and pluses and minuses to both sides of it. What are some of those traits you feel like the American soccer player? I. Maybe does a little bit better than the European in the South America or at least it's a unique skillset that playing here. And a lot of these kids grew up playing basketball and football. And baseball and soccer was something that they fell in love with maybe a little bit later. So they already had some instincts before they got on the soccer pitch. Yeah, and that was me. Certainly was, yeah. Where it wasn't my number one sport until. It's a lot later in life than a lot, than most people over the world. Yeah. I think some of the mindset and just the, and it depends on where and what American player you're talking about, but I think, I think the sports psychology side, I think a lot of that stuff is we're more pretty advanced in America. I think the strength and conditioning at times can be really good. I think that's a priority here. I think. The only thing that we don't really have is the pathways for the players that we're recruiting to, to be closer to the professional level and exposed to that a little bit more. So when you come in, the traditional American, soccer recruit is gonna be typically a played club soccer with their peers for most of their, most of their. Childhood, whereas if we're recruiting somebody from depending on the country, they're gonna have been training with professionals, coming up in a professional academy where it's huge advantage. It is, it's a big advantage. I think. There, there is, there are certain characteristics, but just in general, I think they're, they're hungry. They understand the system, they understand the college system. They understand that process. I think that certainly helps them quite a bit. And then, from the, some of the soccer standpoint things, they are, we are catching up in a lot of areas. There's way, there's areas that we're far behind but we're making progress. That's great. And you can see it too, you see it at our highest level, sure. Our teams are just, the women have been dominant. The men have, are really starting to show their true colors. Watching the Olympics, watching the men in this last World Cup in Olympics, man, it's just, there's so much speed and so much touch that I hadn't seen before. You're right. We've come a long way. We've come a long way in that regard. The talent, technical ability, the athleticism. Yeah. I think when we had success, when soccer first started. Be gaining popularity in the country. Maybe mid nineties, early two thousands we were, we played with a chip on our shoulder and it was us against the world and nobody thought we could do it. So the team had a little more fight and spirit. I think ultimately we need to marry those two where we have better, more skillful players that are playing at higher levels with that, that kind of, that that. Grittiness that we used to have. I think that would be, I think that you see it now with the teams we have now, that's the missing ingredient. Hopefully at some point we can get that back. The one thing that I. There's many things that we probably look at European soccer and really look and how to translate that to other sports here in the States. But youth training and youth development in Europe is just how they grow the kids and how they train the kids. How much have you seen. Us in the States start to acclimate that because I coached in St. Louis and ran the biggest soccer camp in St. Louis for eight, nine years. So I worked with a lot of pros and. They were already doing those things as athletes and as coaches. What are some of those things you've seen that we could maybe translate to basketball and football and baseball. Yeah, that's it. It all starts with your professional system and you're seeing it in basketball a lot, right? The last 20 years where with. The rise of the international basketball player with the skillset they have and the kind of the fundamentals they've started to develop that we don't in the states anymore. I think that all goes back to being in a professional environment when you're young and you're learning those things, and I. You know those when they come over here, when they're 18, 19, 20 years old, and they've been playing profe, against professionals for six years, right? If you look at, Luca and Kovich and all those, those guys that are now at the highest level that's what they came up in. And that's the same in soccer where those players are, whether it's from as sometimes as young as six years old, they're in a professional environment and they're, when they get into 15, 16 years old, if they're good enough they're practicing with the, with the professional. I think that's, to me, across the board mean there's certain sports where that's not possible. Whether it's logistics or the type of sport it is. But I think. I think, yeah, I think, basketball and soccer probably have the most similarities in that regard worldwide. Where it's, where there are professional leagues and there's professional clubs and they do that from, from as, as little as possible. I think it, I've seen that start to develop more in the US with, with the MLS teams in the academies, but it's still challenging and a lot of it is, again, just the, the continuity across the country the geo geography and the. Geographical challenges that we face, but yeah, I think. As, as early as you can play against better players, I think that's typically gonna lead to development. Yeah. I think we, I think hockey's probably the thing that comes to my mind, we have hockey kids that they're leaving home at 18 and they're basically. Doing two years of hockey where they're living with a family in a city, yep. Where they're, that's all they're basically doing is playing hockey for two years before they go to college. And, the fact that we have that model is pretty amazing in one sport. Yep. And I think that would be cool to get to that point with soccer and basketball where we have that it would, we have that true academy style growth would be it'd be fun to try and implement that. Yeah, it would be great as, yeah, and as many as you could do that in as, that's, you're certainly gonna see the benefits and yeah, it's a big commitment and it takes, large organizations to, to put that together and to fund it. I think funding is obviously always a big part of it, but yeah. The sports that do it, you certainly see the rewards coach. Let's say I have a 6-year-old who wants to start playing soccer and I give'em to you for an hour. What are some of the things you want. A young man or a young woman that's starting in the game, what are some of the things they need to be doing to really grow their technique and their ability. Yeah. One they need to enjoy it. I think the, at the younger levels, it's gotta be fun. I think with any sport, especially, the only true growth you're gonna have is if you love to do it. You love to do it and you're gonna be self-motivated, I think. I would never tell anybody to try to do it or try to, set their son or daughter up in a certain situation. If they have the passion and a lot of young boys and girls do then give them the, give them the resources and the, I guess the roadmap to do it. But the ball is your friend, right? I think the ball. Number one, you have to have, you have to master the ball. And that can be any sport you have to be comfortable with the ball at your feet. And, soccer's unique'cause it's, we don't use our feet for much more than walking and running. But spending as much time with it, ball mastery, I think is the first step. And I think the next step is. Putting'em in where they can advance their creativity. I think creativity is really important. And that doesn't come from practice. That comes from playing with no rules, no restrictions, playing with friends, playing in the park creativity and ball mastery. You have that as you get into, and then right, at a certain point, a certain age, you need to, you need to learn tactics and structure and learn the game. But the first things are, spend time with the ball and whether it's kicking it against the wall, juggling, dribbling, whatever it is, and then, learn to be creative, learn to do things, try things. And and then from there, if you can do that before you get into an organized structure and you get into 12, 13, 14, 15 years old, if you have those tools you're gonna be very successful. I I, it's, I'm so glad you said all those things'cause that's exactly I'm a former college basketball coach, so that's exactly how I teach at a camp with youth. I teach'em how to dribble with their fingers and their elbows and how to sit down and dribble and lay down and dribble, and that's great. Dribble between their legs, different ways and their eyes get big because then they want to try it. They, I wanna try it, and do it at home and, yeah. And show their friends. Absolutely. Without a doubt. So I love that mindset, and I think that's such a great message to parents and youth coaches. I. That mindset that you said, make it fun first. Make it, give them, give'em examples of creativity and let'em go. Let you know. Absolutely. Let'em build on it. So I love that. Do you guys, yeah, we've, are you doing camps at that age? We don't, I, we haven't done any at same. Okay. I do'em all the time. It's so hard to do it at the college level at that age. Yeah, it is. But I do, I'm involved in it all the time and I I coach my son's club team now. He's, oh, I started when he was 11 or 10. So I've been coaching a little bit of it. Okay, cool. So it's yeah. And you do, I that's it is you have to. Turn on a different brain when you go and coach the little ones and try to make sure you remember that they should have a blast. They should love it. They should want to come back for more the next day and want to keep learning. And if they're going home and trying to get better, I think that's the best sign. If they're just showing up to practice because they're supposed to and they have to, you're gonna, you can enjoy that to a certain extent, but you're never gonna really fall in love with the game and really progress and develop like you could. I love it. I love it. I haven't brought this up to any soccer coach and I don't know why, because I it's one of, it's my favorite show right now. What has Ted Lasso done for the game or the image of the game or for coaching? Is because it just seems like it's been a phenomenon. It's brought me close to the game. It's one Sure. Made me wanna watch it more. Is has it done anything for you? Have you seen a difference? I. It's, the humor's great, right? Yeah. And it kinda lightens the mood a little bit, right? And thinking about the profession and at the highest levels is that it's. It really and the more you research coaches and things, it's at that level it is really not that much different than it is for, from the bottom up. It's still supposed, it's still a game. It's ultimately, it's still a game and it's still, those principles, whether that show, obviously they take that to another another level, but it's, yeah, I think certainly any visibility for soccer in America, that's. Mainstream media, mainstream pop culture, whatever it is a positive, right? If it can bring, somebody to be a little bit curious about, what is, how does this work? And you do learn when you watch the show, you learn things about. English soccer and European soccer and the structure and how exciting it is. And so maybe, so obviously, the team's fictitious and it's not a real team, but it, it could bring you to, to, to become a fan and continue to grow the game. It's just stuff like that I think is really cool. For me, some of the best movies are soccer, movies, some great ones. Yeah. There's just some great ones that I used to put on the bus when I was coaching at the college level for basketball. We put some of those soccer movies on. It was just like, it's just, there's something about the physicality and the grace of the game and the passing of the game and how space is used. It's just it's really the. It's called a beautiful game for a reason. Yeah. It's, and there are a lot of, depending on what sport, you can compare it and you, and there's advantages, learning, soccer, growing up, playing it, it can help you in other games. And I, I grew up playing basketball and soccer mostly. Yeah. And there is a lot of, attributes between the two that, that can really help you. And it's, yeah, it is a. I see it mostly as an art, soccer, there's a lot of art involved. There is some science in it, but, it's very artistic. It's very free flowing and it's, it does, you do have to understand it a little bit, I think, to appreciate it on some level, and when you do, it's, yeah, it's it's pretty fun to watch. If you can get over the, if you can get over the lack of goals sometimes, which a lot of people can't, if you can get past that barrier you certainly can appreciate it. I'm trying, I don't want your wife and other people that love you to think I'm abusing you here, but I, you brought it up, so I'm gonna go there. You had a zero zero draw in a final four. Did. Yeah. How hard, how do you handle that? It was tough. It's Your kids did everything right. And we had some very close calls late in the game. I try not to remember that. I try not to remember that day. It was a bittersweet. I'm sorry, coach. I don't wanna keep putting bad things in your thought, but I'm just, I'm so impressed with what you did there. You built a program from nothing and took it to the championship game. Yeah, it was fun. It was. We got very lucky in a lot of ways, just with some special student athletes more than anything. I've got some, yeah, some really good players early in the process when we, that believed in it and bought into it. Had great support from administration, a good facility, a a cool community that's pretty unique in division two. Being in a true college town and division two that, really supported the athletic department, but. Yeah, it was fun and it was it was, I learned a lot and I grew a lot and winning is winning's fun. And the more you do it the more you enjoy it. And we were really close that year to winning an ASH championship now. Yes, you were. We scored zero goals in that game. We also. We're missing the nation's leading score who was injured, which might have helped us a little bit, not to make excuses, but changed. Might have changed that outcome of that Zero. Could I but it was a special group of guys. It was a special team. That that you really can't, you can't plan, you can't, you can't draw it up. There's no formula that says, I need this, and this. It was just a special group of guys that came together that all bought into everything and every player cared about every single person involved in the program. And that's, when you have that. Selflessness, within a team that not just says it but really means it and believes in it, then you know, that's, those are the times that you can really accomplish something special. And I don't wanna keep taking you backwards. I wanna focus our energy on the great work you're doing at St. Leo, but I think it's really important when you're building a program and building it, rising, raising a program up. That your kids and families understand that you've done this and it comes back to patience and buy-in and trust. And so I want to get into that a little bit with you. When you think about the culture you're building at St. Leo what are some of those foundational pieces that you want your staff and your guys to really buy into? I think nu number one and I maybe say it too much or I take too much from the, I guess you probably should take the best qualities from your best teams, right? Yeah. And to be, and I said it just in a few minutes ago, but selflessness to me is number one, is you have to really really care about the group more than yourself. And that's easy to say, but it's very difficult to do and to buy into. I. I try to as the coach, as the top of the food chain is to do that myself is really put everything personal aside and really make every decision. And everything we do is for the whole team, for the group. So I think, finding a group that can do that and that ingredient is tough. I think accountability is really important. And that has to come. To me, mostly from your teammates, right? Is, being a good teammate and one being able to hold your teammates accountable, and two, being willing as a teammate to be held accountable. I think that's, that, that's really important. And it's hard, again, really hard to do. And some of those things have, we've probably, or I've probably tried to do here. At Saint Leo, as much as possible and sometimes probably failed to really get that, that as part of the group and as a part of the culture. And I think it does, building that, culture is such a. As a buzz word. And it, but it really is everything. And you have to get to the point where I think my last couple of years at, for Hayes, I didn't have to coach a lot as other than, as, worry about the tactics and make sure the team was trained right. But I didn't have to, I had all of those things were ingrained within the program at, from, player, after player. And it was really self-led and self-run in a lot of ways. And then I. Turn around the next, a couple months later after that game you mentioned where we lost and had to start from scratch and had to coach and teach and develop more than I had in, in five, six years. But it's, yeah, it's a long process. It's not a, it's a rewarding one. It's challenging, but I think you're always tinkering and trying to correct and to learn and to grow and to. Not make the same mistakes twice. And and you hope you get the formula right? And then once you do, once that happens and it clicks and it's there, it's it tends to last. And that with programs at every level in every sport where once that's there it's become the expectation. And so you're al always climbing that hill trying to build that and put it in place. And then once it is, once it's there, it's it's typically there for quite a while. I love that. And I can tell it's important for you to get the right culture at St. Louis. And it's probably gonna be greatly different than it was at Fort Hayes.'cause it's a different program. A different school. A different conference. Yeah. And you're dealing with incoming high school kids, you're dealing with transfers, you're dealing with international kids. What role. Does your staff play your seniors play in building that culture when there's so much diversity in your soccer family? Yeah, it's pretty cool. I think every good team, again, is gonna have excellent leadership. I. Within the program. Staff's included in that but player leadership, player, led player, I think that's that's critical. And you have to, one, you have to have that with your older players, with your more experienced players, but you also have to develop that, right? You have to develop that with young players. You have to identify players early in the process that have that potential, have those characteristics that I. They can be developed and fine tuned and eventually when it's their turn to, to be the main leaders in the team. But yeah, it's it, you're always dealing one you're, you nailed it. It's the roster is the diversity in soccer is probably unlike any mini sports. I know it's. It's not the only sport, but it is it's a sport that's, you're gonna have players from different backgrounds and different ages and different countries and different cultures, and that across the roster. That's the fun part. It's part of the fun part about soccer is you get to learn about so many different cultures, learn about so many different people. But it's challenging at times to mold that and to put that together into one team. Yeah, like I said, if the more you have quality leadership within the team and the more you're continuing to foster that from younger players the better you're gonna be. Short term, long term, and everything. Are there things that you're doing every day in practice or are there things that you're being proactive with to build some of that with your players and your staff? Or do I know that's so hard to throw at you in, in thinking that way, but are there things that you're just like, I'm, we're gonna have a staff meeting every Monday and we're gonna, we're gonna talk about this, we're gonna have a captain's meeting every Tuesday, we're gonna talk about these things. Sure. Are there things that you're doing to help that along and help all those guys. Yeah. But the, the staff we work really well together, so we're, that's constant, consistent, we're, I think this level, I. Maybe more and obviously they have friends at every level that, where it's much different. But we don't sit down and have a formal staff meeting. Yeah. We want it to be it's more constant, consistent. And, we're as friend, as much friends as anything with players. Absolutely. We have, we set up a leadership group every year. Where you try to, it's a little bit of an inexact science, whether it's, you want. Diversity and your age groups, right? You want some younger players, you want older players, captains, those things you want players from maybe different backgrounds and cultures that can spread their, the message and spread that around. But you're doing more than just get the pulse of the team, you. Always try to do some sort of leadership e exercises. Give them a, a something that, you can find somewhere that's gonna turn the leadership brain on a little bit. And try to get them to critically think about, things they can do and ways they can be a better leader and ways they can, grow as a person. Help their teammates grow and make everybody, ultimately you wanna get the best out of everybody, right? I think that's the point of you want everybody to. To be able to perform the best they can on game day and in practice. And so those, we do a lot of those exercises and we meet probably every other week with that group. Nice. And try to grow and do that. So it's, yeah. You have to be, you have to be proactive. You can't sit back and say, I want this, I want this to happen. I want to have this leadership and this culture, and then just hope that it's magically gonna happen. You have to, it, it's something that has to be grown and fostered and developed. It's such a smart thing with when we're talking about leadership, if it's just you, it's hard. It's hard to get 25 people on the same page when you're the only one doing the talking. You're the only one doing the marketing and presenting. So I love the idea of that leadership group where you're it's a little bit more group think it's a little bit more, let's get everybody's opinion. Now all of a sudden there's seven, eight people walking out of that. That meeting, that are now talking, teaching, leading the same way, with the same mentality. So I love that you're doing that coach, I could talk to you about this stuff all day long. And I go on and on. I want to get into recruiting with you, but I wanna do a little rapid fire with you just to get your thoughts and a couple things, just a couple fun things, if you're okay with that. All right. I'm ready for it. Best soccer venue you've ever coached in. Ooh I'm gonna go with the Final Four game in the, it was Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It's, it was very cold. There was snow on the ground the day before, but it was right on the river with a beautiful view of downtown Pittsburgh. I'm gonna go with Highmark Stadium. I've been abusing you with these winds, even though they were great or with the losses, but there were great losses and you took your team a long way. What's the most memorable win of your career? Ooh, that's a good one. I would say the game before that, right? We had just a little background. We had been, and when I was up Fort Hayes, we had been one game away from the final four, I think, three or four times. And heartbreak lost in penalty kicks, lost games. We should have won, lost one. Bowl games. And so the day it was a monkey on our back from, from about six, for about six years. And when we finally did it, it was never forget that feeling in that day. That's great. What was the score of that one? Two zero. Two zero? It took me a second. Two zero. Yep. Yeah. High scoring game. No, that's great. Is there one non-negotiable in your program? There might be many, but is there one that pops up and you're like we're always gonna do it this way or We're never gonna allow this? Is there something like that with your program? Yeah, I think to me, integrity and respect are non-negotiables. And that's, no matter I think you can win lose with class with respect and integrity all the time. And it. Probably nothing upsets me more as a coach when the team doesn't act like that or doesn't show those characteristics. So yeah, I'd say respect is the number one non-negotiable. And that can be for anything that can be for opponents. Yep. Referees, fans. The game itself, I think respects number one without a doubt. A hundred percent. With you there, who's your coaching mentor or biggest influence? I know you talked about your dad, so you can use your dad again. Sure. Is there a coaching mentor or biggest influence outside of your dad? I. There's a, a ton, right? A ton. I was, I took a strange path where I was a head coach after two years of a part-time assistant, right? So I never, I didn't have that four or five years with a, as a college coach in particular, that I was, this was my path. And I've had a lot of coaches that I've, that I've been friends with or worked with in, in other capacities. Billy McNichols. He was a, he's a, a Scottish legend and has been coaching in America for a long time. He's probably the one that would come to mind. He was former Glasgow Rangers player, coached with the national team in, in, in the States for a bit. So he's one that has probably, I. Other than peer mentor that I would say is somebody who was, who had been at the highest levels that I've had a great relationship for probably 15, 20 years. That has really helped me in a lot of different ways. He'd be the one That's awesome. But yeah, my, I think my, definitely my dad. He's, every, everything and every, every aspect of how I am as a coach or as how I am as a person within an athletic department is definitely my dad. What a great way to grow up. And I'm glad you have that relationship. Was there a favorite soccer player growing up? Yeah, growing up was Arian Ri. He was number one from Arsenal. Not a bad one. Not a bad one. Yeah, that's a great one. Yeah. Yeah. He was my favorite growing up special man. What a special athlete. Yeah. Florida Beach Day or a Montana Hiking Day. Florida Beach Day. There's a reason why, there's a reason I've migrated to. To Florida. Yeah, absolutely. All right, last one, fill in the blank. Great teams.do great teams care more about the team than themselves. I. Love it. Great way to finish, coach. I'm so thankful for you being on. I can't wait to talk recruiting with you. Anybody that's listening to this, please come back on Monday. We're gonna, we're gonna have a segment just on recruiting and get coaches advice on recruiting. So thanks for doing this, coach. Thanks Matt. Really appreciate it. That was Coach Brett Parker, and what a powerful reminder that the best coaching transformations don't always happen in the spotlight, but in the grind through the setbacks and with the long view in mind. If you took something valuable from today's episode, and I know I did, please subscribe, rate the show and share it with another coach or parent. These stories matter and your support helps us keep telling them. You can find all of our past episodes plus my blog. Free resources and updates on my books, including the softball recruits journal@coachmattrogers.com. Hey, thanks for being with us on significant coaching. Keep leading with significance and come back on Monday to hear Coach Parker's college recruiting advice and insights. Have a great one.