Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Emmert.
Hi Matt, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I’m originally from the Philadelphia area and grew up playing soccer. I played NCAA Division III soccer at Ursinus College and Gettysburg College. As a youth player, I was driven to make myself a better player and to ‘make sense’ of all that was happening on the field. I grew up in the Upper Perkiomen Valley and soccer wasn’t very popular there, so from this early age I had to seek out knowledge and opportunities on my own. By the time I was in college I had completed two coaching licenses and owned tons of coaching books and DVDs. All of this to try and teach myself as much as I could and by extension, make myself a better player.
Two ACL injuries prevented me from seriously playing soccer after my sophomore year and after recovery, I knew I still wanted to be involved. I had long planned to be a youth coach sometime after my playing days would end. But I assumed it would be a side hobby to stay in contact with the sport. My junior year I volunteered at the local high school, becoming an assistant with the girls’ JV team. This led to an opportunity to be the 9th-grade boys coach during my senior year. The experience was great, and it really made clear to me that I wanted to pursue coaching as a profession.
After graduation, I was hired as assistant men’s coach at Ursinus. It was a really important experience and one that gave me the confidence to do this as my only job. To that end, I got involved with some local clubs and started coaching at every opportunity I could. I ran private sessions, worked as a trainer with various clubs/training companies, was a high school girls’ varsity coach for a time, but eventually settled on the elite youth club level.
At the same time, I was reading and watching everything I could, cold emailing coaches in my area to observe training, and completing coaching courses. I earned the highest coaching qualification in the United States (USSF A license) at age 25 and was the youngest person in all of the courses I took.
My dream has always been to be head coach at the professional level, so after a decade of coaching in Pennsylvania, my wife and I moved to San Diego for a change of scenery and new experiences. I landed with Xolos Academy, a Chula Vista-based affiliate of Xolos, the Liga MX club in Tijuana. Although opportunities to get involved with the club in Mexico didn’t pan out, I ended up at Rebels SC in Chula Vista. With my friend and colleague, Jesse Acevedo, we started a semipro team at Rebels that plays in the So Cal South division of the UPSL (a nationwide semipro league with 300+ teams).
We started the team in 2019 and have made division playoffs every season, winning the So Cal South division title in Fall 2021 against our rivals Escondido FC, for which we were honored by the City of Chula Vista. Winning the division granted us entry to the UPSL national playoffs where we lost in the Round of 32 to a team from Arizona. In Fall 2022 we will again compete in the division playoffs with hopes of bringing home a second division title in as many years.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think life is full of challenges no matter who you are or what path you take. One of the biggest challenges that has conditioned my entire life in soccer is where I grew up. I’m from a small community about an hour north of Philadelphia, the Upper Perkiomen Valley. Traditionally soccer has not been that popular compared to other sports. When I grew up, there was one team for my age and the team was really bad. But I didn’t even make the team when I tried out at 11 years old. I wasn’t good enough for the worst team within an hour’s drive! Eventually, things worked out that I was given an opportunity to play a few months after tryouts, but I had to improve myself to get more than 10 minutes of playing time.
When I was in 8th grade and playing junior high soccer, I was put on the bench in favor of players with less experience and I rarely played. The summer leading into my 8th-grade year I was invited to train with the high school team during their preseason as the coach saw my potential. So, to go from the high of competing with players 1-4 years older than me to then being benched for kids who had never played soccer before was hard to swallow. It hurt my pride and made me realize nothing is given or guaranteed. My dad always made it clear to me that a coach wants to win and if you clearly make the team win, they won’t keep you off the field. That advice has stuck with me in life, and I think it’s a reason why I always look at how I can make myself better when things aren’t going how I want.
Eventually, I played NCAA division III soccer at two schools, but in both cases, the coach who recruited me left before I could play for him, and the new coach didn’t like my style as much. I transferred schools after my freshman year and then stopped playing after my sophomore year. In that second year, at Gettysburg College, my role changed from starter in the first two games of the season to only a training player who didn’t travel with the team by the end. In fact, the last week or two of the season the coach didn’t even let me play in the scrimmage at the end of training. I was the only player isolated and marginalized in this way.
I quit playing because I didn’t see a situation where my effort or improvement would make any difference. It felt like my time with soccer had maybe come to an end. My whole identity to that point had been wrapped around being a soccer player, so I had some difficulties with depression after that. Combined with an ACL injury that I sustained playing rugby a few months later – an attempt to channel the competitive energy into another sport – I had a really hard junior year in college.
Thankfully at that time I really got involved with coaching. I had enough experience to volunteer at the local high school and the coaches were extremely welcoming. Assisting with the girls’ JV and the next season being hired to actually get paid to coach the 9th-grade boys was the catalyst that made me realize this was the direction I wanted my life to take.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in knowledge of the game and being able to communicate complex concepts in an understandable way. As a player, I was always wanting more information than my coaches could provide. I wanted to truly understand the game. As a result, I’ve spent my career putting in the effort to find unique learning opportunities. Finishing all of the USSF licenses by the time I was 25 is one example. But I also earned a master’s in high-performance football from MBP School in Barcelona and the C license from the Welsh federation last year.
I’m currently learning Hungarian to communicate with a brilliant coach from that country. He’s written 20 books with details I’ve never heard discussed anywhere before. It was only through persistence and looking for knowledge in hard-to-find places that I became aware of him and his work.
The other part of this quest for knowledge is to share it in a way that is actionable for others in the coaching community. In the future, I’d like to expand on this, but in my current job I’ve created learning resources, mentored coaches 1:1, and am leading a club-wide education initiative. I love being able to own the information that I find and teach it to players and other coaches in a way that makes them say ‘aha!’.
We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Probably that I’m a big fan of the video game Overwatch and the professional league around the game! I started playing it a few years ago with some friends from high school and fell in love with it. There’s a lot of complexity beyond just aiming and shooting, which is probably why I enjoy it as much as I do. I was ranked in the top 10% in North America on PlayStation when I was playing consistently. And I haven’t missed a game that my beloved San Francisco Shock play since the league started something like five years ago. It surely helps that they have the best coach in the league. I’d love to chat coaching and leadership with him one day. In case you see this Park Dae-hee!
Contact Info:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattemmert85
Image Credits
Juan Tello
