I had a lot of thoughts come to mind when writing this article to support Caleb Porter. First and foremost, I wanted to tap into the positives of his career and all he has done for the University of Akron and the American game as a whole.
My initial thought was to attack the critical comments made by our colleagues in the soccer media. There were two problems with this. It would bring back a lot of the negativity that surrounded the days following the failure to qualify for the Olympics. And it would also be hard to keep my emotions in check as I try to remain an unbiased source for the story. So I decided to share a few thoughts about Caleb and then hand it over to some people that know him very well: local coaches, former players, student supporters, and even Jurgen Klinsmann. I think this is what Caleb would have wanted.
There are some hard facts that some in the media have chose to forget. First, Caleb Porter is our country’s best homegrown coaching prospect. That is why Akron signed him to an unheard of 10 year contract extension to keep him in town. That is also why his name pops up when it comes to MLS coaching vacancies. He is the best and all of us here in NE Ohio know it.
Second, Porter has put the University of Akron on the map. He made UA a soccer school, building a dynasty with one of the country’s largest student supporter groups. That’s right, Porter has made soccer cool in an area of the country where American football is king.
He has accumulated hardware and awards at a superhuman rate and mentored and groomed his players into future pros. The numbers speak for themselves: a #1 recruiting class for 2012, a national title in 2010, the highest winning percentage among active D-I coaches, a record 7 MLS SuperDraft picks in 2011, 7 regular season MAC championships, 4 MAC tournament titles, 4 consecutive trips to the NCAA’s Round of 16, and the list goes on and on. This doesn’t even include his time as an assistant at Indiana.
Third, Porter spent three years as an assistant with the U.S. U-18 national team. He gained the necessary experience and earned the right to get his own team. That is the way things go, you spend time as an assistant, you learn and grow, and then you get the promotion. It only makes sense.
So you can see why the criticism against Porter is completely unwarranted and unfair. Pundits chose to make comments without thinking them through and make it seem as if the world was coming to end because we were out of the Olympics. In other words, there was a real rush to judgement.
A handful of analysts, including Soccer America’s Paul Gardner, chose to look at the facts and not make any rash decisions. The unfortunate part is that so many more decide to criticize and attack rather than evaluate and investigate. We as members of the media need to realize that we are not on the sidelines or on the pitch and there really is only so much we can say based on what we actually know.
We hope that Klinsmann and Sunil Gulati will give Porter more time and another shot at developing America’s next generation of national team stars. It is the right decision at the right time.
Jurgen Klinsmann, Head Coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team
Overall, the way Caleb developed the program in these just couple of months was outstanding. He’s done an outstanding job. How he put his thoughts and ideas into these guys. There’s a bright future ahead of him in his coaching career. You saw that tonight [3-3 vs. El Salvador], you saw it against Cuba [6-0 win], you saw it against Mexico [2-0 friendly win], and it’s important for us to see that we’re on the right path in terms of style of play.
Dan Zemanski, Boys Director at Everest Soccer Club (Ravenna, OH)
Knowing Caleb, there was no team better prepared to play than the U.S. He, like the great ones, lives, breathes and dies for this game. He is a perfectionist and is very meticulous in his preparation. He both studies and teaches with passion and great attention to detail. I’ve seen firsthand his vision of “the beautiful game” and his effective training methods in bringing this game out on the playing field.
I also know this about Caleb. No one is taking this loss harder and no one is more determined to learn from the experience and grow from it. I remember talking with him after his first year at Akron. Akron did not make the NCAA tournament that year, the first time in a long time a team Caleb was associated was not participating in postseason play. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He was lost without the game. I’m sure he dedicated himself to learning from the experience and the results speak for themselves.
Anyone who follows this game knows how cruel it can be. In a tournament setting, even more so, when one or two bounces here and there can make all the difference in a team’s fate. The U.S. showed in the Mexico game what they are capable of under Caleb Porter. Spain has played great soccer for many years, but it is only until recent times in which they’ve been getting the results that validates their strong play. Now, to be clear. I am not comparing our play to Spain, but what I am suggesting is that often times it takes many years of unwavering commitment before results can be had. There aren’t many coaches out there with the passion, commitment, and hunger to improve the game like Caleb Porter.
Brandon Ferguson, President of the AK-ROWDIES
I thought Coach Porter did a great job getting the team together in a short period of time. Sure there were hangups but you have to believe he did everything he could have done to get the team ready. He can’t play for them. They have to do the job on the field. If Johnson had saved the shot at the end everyone would have been praising Porter for getting his troops back into the game.
Andy Hoggarth, Head Men’s and Women’s Soccer Coach at Thiel College (Greenville, PA)
I was fortunate enough to get to know Caleb this past summer while working the soccer camp at the University of Akron and then taking the opportunity to watch Porter and his staff deliver sessions to the Akron team. I think the negative press Caleb is receiving is out of order and people need to understand that he is one of the upcoming coaches in this country, someone who is trying to play the game the right way.
I think we have seen that the fast, counter-attacking and aggressive style of play has taken the U.S. to a good point in the world game, but now we need coaches who can nurture and develop players into playing the game technically and fluently the way it is meant to be.
In every moment of time I have been fortunate to spend with Coach Porter his thoughts, opinions and ideas about the game and the way it should be coached have been first-class and have helped me immensely even in this short time. Ones of the beauties of soccer is that it is a game where the underdog can win, players make mistakes, and heroes become villains. What we need to remember is at points during this tournament some of the soccer played by the U.S. was first class and that without individual mistakes we were 20 seconds away from seeing Coach Porter being praised for bringing the team back from 2-1 down to winning the game 3-2.
The way in which Coach Porter has successfully gone against the grain in the college soccer game and developed an attractive style of soccer is first class and with the support of those around him can continue to grow into one of our nation’s finest coaches.
Matt Dagilis, former defender for the University of Akron
This was a lucrative job in a cuthroat industry. Caleb did as much as a coach can do. He can’t go out and play for them.
I think Caleb did a great job. Guys were starting to grasp his philosophies and take a liking to them. He is on to something, how the game of soccer should be played. His system is not something that happens overnight. If it wasn’t hard, other teams would be doing it. Caleb can do tremendous things for U.S. soccer.
