Q&A Spring Recap with Head Coach Steve Burns
5/17/2001 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
On making soccer more fun during the spring season ... "Based on the fall season we had, getting the program up and going, a little bit of the fun was taken out of the game for everyone. Guys that weren't playing, guys that didn't know what to expect, just some of the basic things freshmen go through -- being in a new environment, and trying to come to grips with the fact that they no longer had to report to mom and dad. They were beginning to gain their independence. So that fun component, we even scheduled it into our training. There was one session per week, Thursdays, which there was no coaching. Players would show up and we would put three on a team, and the winning team would stay on the field. The players realized that they weren't going to be hearing things from their coaches, and I think they really looked to Thursdays as a time to play hard and have fun. So we really tried to address that and even schedule it into training."
On replacing the leadership of the seniors ... "The team elected two captains for next year -- J.J. Kern, who is going to be a fifth-year senior, and Joe Iding, who will be a junior but sophomore eligibility-wise. J.J and Joe have certainly proven that they're capable of leading this team, and the players elected them at the end of the fall season meeting."
On the injuries to Iding and Zawacki last season and their progress ... "Right now it looks like both J.J and Iding will be two starting outside defenders, we're going to play with a flat back four, which is zonal defending versus what we did last year, man-to-man marking of one sweeper, kind of the zonal guy that cleans up everything. It's the way the game is headed, that's what we did for the first half of the spring, which is work on our zonal defending. What's key about Joe Zawacki is that he's a very vocal goalkeeper, and when you play zonally, everyone's responsible for their zone and there is no longer any dominant player, the sweeper, that's organizing everybody. So it's key that your goalkeeper takes on a lot of that organizational role, and we saw it from Joe all spring. He wasn't able to compete, because he was on a medical red-shirt, but in terms of everything he did in practices, we expect that he's going to step right in and compete for the starting spot within a short period of time."
On the competitions during the spring ... "We had five dates of competition, and they were spaced out. We had one early date of competition against Oakland University, Western Michigan and the Michigan State Boy's team. That was over at Oakland at their bubble. It was more of a reward for the players versus any kind of true test I think for where we were, even though we did play zonal defense. We tied Oakland, we thumped Western, and beat the Boy's team. That was the result we had to get there, just to let everyone know that we are heads-and-tails better than the top players in the state coming together.
"Then from there we had our own event in Oosterbaan, and we played Western Michigan and the University of Detroit. University of Detroit didn't put up much of a game, and we had one good first half against them and the score got out of control and we beat them 7-0. Western Michigan, however, we came in a little over-confident, thinking that Western was a team that we were going to be able to beat whenever we wanted to based on that indoor result. Unfortunately, it was good for us, because it brought us back down to the level where, to a man, we understood that we are not a complete team yet, we still have to learn, we still have to push ourselves. They beat us by a goal. I think the score was 4-3, we were up 2-0, got complacent, and Western battled back. We saw again that young team that we saw in the fall against Western Michigan, a team that didn't know how to hang on to a two-goal lead or a one-goal lead. It was frustrating for everybody, but it was a good source of frustration because what it did for the second half of the spring season is it really got us focused again on trying to become a better team.
"Then from there we had an extremely memorable game against the University of Wisconsin. We played out in Grand Rapids, and we played in 2-3 inches of snow, and it was a game, but it wasn't a soccer game. The nice thing about it was we won 1-0, capitalized on one of their mistakes out of the back. We competed the entire time. Wisconsin was disinterested at times in terms of doing all the things that needed to be done in that game to win -- playing hard, and tackling hard, and not being careless in the back because of the snow. The ball doesn't roll, it skips everywhere, and it was cold. But we won 1-0 so we were pretty happy as we warmed up.
"We finished things off with a game against the University of Akron. Akron is one of the stronger teams in the region, and another good opportunity for our players to see that we can't take anything for granted. We lost 2-1; Akron scored at the very end of the first half, with seconds left before halftime, we just got careless and let it slip away, then we equalized early in the second half. Then they won the game in the very late seconds of the second half. So what it did for us is it showed us that there were two teams out there -- a team that was good and competed well, us, but we didn't compete for 90 minutes. It would have been great if it had been an 80-minute game because we would have won it. But we also saw their team, an older team that is used to winning and is used to pulling out games like this. It was a good lesson for us to go back to the fact that we got the passion back in most everybody, for playing and for enjoying the game. We compete hard, but these are things that we are going to be able to pull out in the preseason next year and say, 'Hey, you think you're a complete team, but look what happened as early as last spring. You're not there, so keep staying focused on what we need to do, and what we are asking of you as coaches.'
"Then we ended up playing the club team ... they had everything to gain, we had everything to lose, and we ended up tying 1-1 in a game that was a recipe for disaster. It was the day with the 40 mile per hour winds, and we were playing on Elbel, which the surface favors them; they kicked the ball and played long-ball, and we tried to play and got a 1-1 game. We wanted to beat them, but again, I like the fact that I'll be able to dangle that in front of their noses all next year."
On Mike White ... "Mike White is the guy that has improved the most in the spring season. He's the guy that I think really established himself as someone who has to be on the field in a central midfield position. He earned a scholarship. He is taking on more of a leadership role in terms of being one of the leaders of the young group, and he represents everything that we want the program to represent in terms of his work ethic, his commitment to becoming better and his commitment to school. He's a funny kid, he's a good leader, and he's really on track to have himself three strong years at Michigan. Three more good years."
On prospects on the U-M club team ... "There's one or two players that we're going to bring in on the first day of camp to give them the opportunity to earn a spot. Right now as it shakes out, we have 24 players of our 25 and we've got four, maybe five guys that are going to compete for that final spot, and two of those guys are the club players. Physically a couple of guys could hang, but in terms of how they think and process information, we need to see them in a higher testing environment."
On the schedule for the fall and playing on several home fields ... "Right now, we're in the final transition year of bringing soccer in, in terms of what's happening with facilities. The players all understand that, we all understand that, so it's obviously not advantageous to be in four different locations for all our home games. But because we're ahead of the curve, and the players all know it, we're mentally preparing them for what they're getting into, and we're familiar with three of the four locations, in essence, two of those are potentially away games -- the two high school games. But it was more important for me and for the program to have two games underneath the lights on Friday nights with potentially big crowds where we put in roots with the soccer community and allow them to see a high-level soccer game. That was more important than playing Friday at 3 or 2 p.m. in a game where we knew very few people would be able to come out and see us.
"It's advantageous recruiting-wise because we will make sure that we market the game with a high level of energy, and with all our recruiting, we're going to make sure that anyone we're recruiting in metro Detroit can come out to that Plymouth-Canton game. It will help, and obviously you get there and it's faster paced, it's an exciting game with a big crowd and they feel that excitement. They'll see the Maize and Blue and hopefully we get the band out there with us and they're going to see another stage, and hopefully that helps them with the whole recruiting process."
On any players joining the program other than freshmen ... "We've got two other players that we've got coming in, not on scholarship. One is a transfer from Furman University, a player that is going to help us a good deal. He plays either up front or out wide in the midfield. His name is Jody Keeling. And then we also picked up a kid that's going to help us. He's a Colorado player that has been playing at the Bradenton Soccer Academy in Florida for the last two years. His name is Dayson Stellberger. Dayson's a lot like Mike White -- a player who has the potential to be a guy that contributes to the team. And we're going to expect that in terms of the depth that he adds to the program. Now when we look down the bench in a tight game we're going to be able to go to a 14, 15, 16 player this year, whereas last year we really went to a 12 and 13 before there was a drop-off."
Contact: Steve Grialou (734) 763-4423
