Change. It’s the theme of the moment not only for Drexel soccer, but for U.S. soccer as well.
Doug Hess, now entering his second season in charge of the Dragons, is working to remake the image and on-the-field style of a program that, for 17 years, was capably led by Lew Meehl. Meehl enjoyed good deal of success in West Philadelphia, but Hess has his own ideas on how the game should be played; the trick, of course, is selling those ideas both to his current players and the nation’s top young recruits.
The good news?
The latter task has been made somewhat easier by the fact that Philadelphia (and the United States as a whole) is experiencing something of a soccer renaissance. If Drexel can tap into that energy—and Hess is hopeful he can help the program do precisely that—there’s no telling how high the Dragons can climb.
To start with, what’s your take on the state of Drexel soccer today?
We’re going through a bit of a transition phase. I’m trying to create my own culture here, and that’s a process. Like anything else, culture isn’t created overnight. We’re going to have keep working on it.
What are the current strengths of the program?
I’m looking at our roster and I see we’re returning 27 guys from last year, out of 28 roster spots. So we have the very basic makings of our team on campus right now, and that’s definitely a strength. It’s just a question of trying to forge our identity and figuring out what kind of team culture we’re going to have come fall.
Beyond that, I think we have strength in the fact that we have a long-standing program with a lot of tradition. We’ve just finished our 65th year. It’s a long soccer tradition and in that long history we’ve had a lot of success. We’ve had All-Americans, we’ve had guys go on to play professionally after college, we’ve won conference championships. We also have a big base of alumni. We’re trying to pull some of those guys back in here and get them excited about Drexel soccer, because we’re going to need the financial help of those alums if we want to be able to recruit the way we want to be able to recruit and play the games we want to play.
What are some of the big changes you’ve brought in to the program?
First, I’ve changed the way we schedule. We used to have a very regional schedule. This year, though, we went out to Nebraska and played Creighton. There were 5,500 people in the stadium. Our guys had never seen anything like that in their lives. Next year, we’re going to take the team out and play Denver. We’re going to play Virginia, which is one of the three biggest programs in the country along with UCLA and Indiana. Those are the kind of programs we’re going to out there and play.
In college sports, winning starts with recruiting. Is this is a good recruiting area to be in? Where do you find your talent? And what’s your sales pitch?
Yes, there’s a lot of good soccer in this region and all throughout the Mid-Atlantic—New York, Philly, Baltimore, New Jersey. It’s a huge pocket for soccer talent, but we’re looking across the board—California, Texas, North Carolina. There’s good soccer to be found in big cities everywhere, too—Detroit, Chicago. We’ve got to cast our net pretty wide, but the good news is that we’re in a top conference. This is a very attractive thing about the program. We’re in a top 5 league, and we’re in a very rich soccer culture here in Philadelphia. We’re trying to take advantage of that.
Speaking of the soccer culture here, the Philadelphia Union of the MLS are enjoying tremendous support. Is that something you can sell recruits on?
Definitely. The reality is, there are only a handful of MLS cities in this country, and so that’s a massive thing for us. You better believe that I’m telling kids, ‘Hey, within a two-hour radius, you’ve got three MLS teams.’ Not a lot of other college coaches can say that. There’s a strong culture here for the sport, and that’s why you’re seeing 19,000 fans down there for Union matches.
It’s been said for years that soccer is nearing a breakthrough here in the U.S. But with the MLS doing so well and TV ratings for the English Premier League on the rise, it does seem that we’ve reached a tipping point. What do you think?
It all goes back to the ’94 World Cup. That’s when it really picked up. But the MLS has now sustained itself for 16 years, and that really says something. It says that the sport is gaining significance, and grabbing more of an audience. You are seeing more of those European clubs coming here to the States to train and start their preseason with U.S. tours, and you can see what a huge following some of those clubs have—Real Madrid and Barcelona and Celtic. These teams are selling out football stadiums here. So obviously we’re gaining more significance.
I know there’s been some discussion about how to both restructure college soccer and also give the championship weekend more of a national profile—something more on par with the College World Series in Omaha or the lacrosse final four. Is this possible?
It would make sense to have the championship the same weekend as National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s Convention. We already have 8,000 to 10,000 people attending that event, and if you had something like that, you could really gain some significance. But the real issue is that we don’t have that kind of national relevance yet. We’re gaining but we’re not there yet. Lacrosse is a great model, I think, because they’re able to draw between 60,000 and 80,000 for a weekend event. Now, there are 14 million registered youth soccer players in this country, and we’d need only a fraction of that to make this a great event. The College World Series is a great example, too. We’ve just got to find our Omaha. We’re still trying to figure out where our Omaha is going to be. – Mike Unger
Photo by Tommy Leonardi