Most young athletes either run too much or not at all. Both are mistakes. Here’s the actual breakdown every soccer/sport athlete should be doing year-round: Sprint work — 2x per week Short, explosive efforts. 10-40m sprints with full recovery between reps. This builds your anaerobic engine — the system you use for everything that wins games. Acceleration. Top speed. Chasing down a through ball. Closing space on a striker. Endurance run — 1x per week 30-45 minutes at conversational pace. Zone 2 effort. This builds your aerobic base — the system that lets you recover BETWEEN sprints during a 90-minute match. Why you need BOTH: Sprint-only athletes gas out by the 60th minute. They have top speed but no recovery capacity. Endurance-only athletes can run for hours but can’t beat anyone to a 50/50 ball. No explosive output. Game speed = (sprint power × aerobic recovery). Both systems multiply each other. Train one without the other and you cap your potential. The two engines feed each other. The endurance run improves your sprint recovery. The sprints make your endurance work feel easier. They’re not competing — they’re stacking. 3x per week. Forever. No exceptions. — Coach Owen

It was a Wednesday night. I’d just finished one of the hardest training sessions of my life. Body wrecked. Mind worse. I sat in the locker room and pulled out my phone like always. Scrolling. Half-numb. Then a WhatsApp notification. It was from a club overseas. They wanted me. A contract. I read it three times before I let myself believe it. Here’s the part that matters: That offer didn’t come because someone discovered me. It came because for MONTHS I had been: • Reaching out to old teammates playing at higher levels • Asking — flat out, no shame — if their club had any spots • Telling every coach, every scout, every connection: “I’m trying to go pro. If you hear of anything, think of me.” • Posting clips, sending highlights, following up on emails that got ignored the first time • Showing up every day, on the field, training like the call was coming The call came because I had been MAKING it come for months. The Wednesday night moment wasn’t luck. It was the result of 100+ small actions that finally landed somewhere. If you’re trying to play in college or go pro, here’s the truth: Nobody is going to discover you sitting on your couch. You have to be in the conversation. Daily. Relentlessly. With zero ego about asking for chances. Text the old teammate who’s playing D1. Email the coach. Slide into the DMs of the player at the level above you. Tell people what you’re chasing. Most kids are too proud to ask. The ones who ask are the ones who get the Wednesday-night WhatsApp. — Coach Owen

If you’re trying to get recruited and your social media is private, empty, or just food pics — you’re losing. Coaches WILL check your profile. It’s part of the recruiting process now. Not because they want to be creepy — because they want to see who you are off the field. Here’s what to post (you don’t have to be an influencer): Game footage Saves, goals, tackles, hustle plays. Doesn’t need to be edited. Phone footage from a parent in the stands works. Training clips Drills. Reps. Lifts. Sprints. Coaches want to see you working when nobody’s watching. Personality Hanging with teammates. Pre-game music. Post-win celebrations. Your dog. Your dinner. The stuff that makes you a HUMAN, not just a player. Wins AND losses The kid who only posts highlights looks fragile. The kid who posts a tough loss + what they learned from it? That kid is dangerous. Coaches notice. What NOT to post: • Drinking, partying, doing dumb stuff (yes, even if you’re 18, yes, even if it’s “just a joke”) • Negative posts about coaches, teammates, refs, losses • Anything you wouldn’t want a college coach to screenshot Your social media is now part of your highlight reel. Treat it like it. Post weekly minimum. Be findable. Be searchable. Make it easy for coaches to learn who you are before they ever talk to you. — Coach Owen

“There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.” — Winston Churchill Every top athlete has one thing in common. It’s not talent. It’s not their coach. It’s not their gym. It’s not their genetics. It’s resilience. The ability to get hit and keep going. The ability to lose and not break. The ability to be told no, told you’re not good enough, told to quit — and respond by working harder the next day. Talent gets you noticed. Resilience gets you signed. I’ve watched athletes with twice my talent quit at 17 because the road got hard. I’ve watched athletes half as gifted as me make it overseas because they refused to stop. Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear: The road to playing at the next level is brutal. You will be cut from teams. Coaches will ignore your emails. You’ll have games where you make zero impact and walk off the field questioning everything. You’ll watch teammates get offers before you. The kid who breaks at that point doesn’t make it. The kid who DARES and ENDURES does. There’s no ease at the top. Every athlete you admire has a chapter of their story where everything was going wrong and they kept going anyway. That chapter is the one you’re writing right now. Don’t quit it. — Coach Owen

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