Podcast interview iPad 2

Coach Chris Watkins, head coach of Gonzaga Women's Soccer team, talks about his background, how he became a coach, the challenges and rewards of coaching, and the success of the team this year. He mentions that coaching started as a way to make money and grew from there. The most difficult part of the job is dealing with players who aren't fully committed. He tries to motivate them by focusing on the relationships within the team. His favorite part of the job is seeing players develop and improve. He mentions the differences between coaching at BYU and Gonzaga. If he wasn't a coach, he would have pursued a career in marriage and family therapy. His advice for aspiring coaches is to love the game and be prepared for the ups and downs. The success of the team this year is attributed to good players who are on their way to greatness. Welcome to the podcast where we talk about anything and everything. Today I'm here with Coach Chris Watkins, head coach of Gonzaga Women's Soccer team. Thanks for having me Jenna. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Do you have any kids? Where did you go to school? Did you play soccer in college? Where are you from? Oh, but see you know all this. You're listeners. This is a vast audience that does not know. I'm from Kansas City. Kansas City, Kansas. I've got three boys and a wife. All my kids are out of my house now. The youngest is here at Gonzaga, a freshman here. I've got two dogs now that get most of my attention when I need work and yeah, I was a soccer player when I was young. Where did you play soccer at in college? I played at Drake University and then later on at BYU, but mostly during my college time I played semi-professional for the teams that were in Salt Lake. When you were playing in college, did you have any idea of what you wanted to do or did you know that you wanted to be a coach? If so, how? I knew that I wanted to be a professional soccer player. Coaching kind of just happened because I was going to get married and I needed to figure out how to make money. Soccer was growing enough to where that was an option. I was a high school coach. When I was 19, I was a high school coach and I made a little money, like $3,000 or something. That was good. That was my extra money and it kind of snowballed from there. When I came to Utah, Utah wasn't a soccer state like it is now and I was offered lots of coaching opportunities and ways to make money. You kind of just mentioned it right now, but what made you want to be a coach or at what point did you realize that that's what you wanted to do? When I coached at Payson High School, a small farming town just outside of Provo, Utah, we weren't very good. The team had won three games ever, I think, and it was like their third or fourth year of competition. They had only won three games in their three or four years previous. The kids wanted to work so hard and I had such a good time trying to act like I knew what I was talking about that I thought, this is really fun. I really enjoyed it. I still didn't think it would be a job, but I thought it could be something that I did after my job. It just kind of grew and grew. I think when I was still in college, BYU offered me to coach their club, men's club team, and then right after I graduated from college, the women's varsity team offered me a job. So it just kind of grew over the next four or five years. There's a lot of ups and downs with coaching, obviously. What are some of the most difficult parts of the job? It's hard. Probably the most difficult part of the job is for players who aren't bought in, for players who don't want to be their best, who are just there for whatever reason, but not competitive reasons. Sometimes it's just a popular thing to do. It gives them something for their resume or something that they can be known for, but it's not what they want to do when they go out to practice. Those players are hard. Those players are hard to try to develop, and they're hard sometimes to deal with when you want to be so committed, when you feel so committed to look at people. Some days you aren't committed, it's hard, but mostly it's hard to have your mortgage on the line, to feel like it's on the line every Friday night. When you find yourself in a situation where you have players that aren't bought in, like you said, what is something that you do to help with that? I hope that they're still enjoying the relationships that they have on the team, and that can kind of spring some interest in at least competing. You hope those things are motivational, and that makes coming to practice not a chore. Once that happens, you can get to a level that's okay. It's not great for the team, but it's okay, it's not hurting the team. What are some of your favorite parts of the job? Seeing people develop, and then have days that show their development. Players who are in the line-up are getting minutes, those are days that you see that for several people throughout the year. For those who aren't getting minutes, you still see it, but they don't know you see it. So I need to do a better job of making sure those people... On our team, Abby right now, center back, she's doing really well. She hasn't played since the first couple weeks of the season, and she probably won't play the rest of the season, but she's doing a great job in getting better. I actually really enjoy watching her play on Mondays and Tuesdays when we play those reserve matches. I really take a lot of pride in how well she's doing, but I hope that she sees the future and can be patient enough to let it grow and develop over time, because she'll have the same day that a lot of our kids are having, where she's lifting up a trophy someday. You mentioned that you coach at BYU the men's club team, and then the first team for the women's. What are some differences in coaching at BYU in comparison to here at Gonzaga? There's a lot of differences. Great kids at both places. At BYU, you don't have to really recruit, kids just come. And everywhere besides BYU, you have to really recruit. At BYU, if you're doing something really wrong, if the top Mormon kids don't come, you have to be really messing up as a coach. And here at Gonzaga, we're like everywhere else, you've got to grind and you've got to really work to get players to come. So that's the main big difference from a soccer standpoint. If you weren't a coach, what would you be doing right now? As coaching was becoming a full-time job for me way back when, I was looking at going to graduate school and marriage and family therapy. That's some really bottom-tier programs, because my grades weren't that great. Do you have any advice for someone like me that's interested in possibly coaching one day? Yeah. I think you've got to fall in love with the game, you've got to enjoy watching the game, you've got to enjoy being around, enjoy the small steps around people who are working hard and be able to recognize those. But it's a great career, but I think it has more downs than people anticipate. But I would say the ups make it worth it. And lastly, the program has been having a historic run this year. At the time of me writing this question, it reached 75 wins under you as its head coach. I think it's 77 now, maybe? 78? You broke the single season record of goals, assists, and points. And the program, again at the time, was also ranked 6th nationally in goals. What do you think has been the reason for this success this year? I think right now we're kind of still in the forest. I'm not sure I can see it, see what it was. So I don't know. I don't know that I can put my finger on it. I think we didn't have, the expectations weren't too high for too many individuals. So a lot of kind of new starters or at least new centerpiece type players. And so I think that took some of the pressure off at the beginning where we were able to get a nice rhythm. But I don't know. I would say the same thing I say when anybody asks me why. I would say good players. And good players who are on their way to being great makes for a great season. And that's where we're at. Okay. Thank you for joining me today. It's nice having you. Thanks for having me, Gianna. Of course.