At the end of last season, the Alabama soccer team knew it was time for a change. Alabama was unable to make it to the postseason, and it was also preparing to lose assistant coach Tatum Clowney.
Clowney’s departure left a gap in the program, then assistant coach Jason Lowe announced he would also be leaving shortly before the 2014-2015 season began. Alabama had lost two assistant coaches and it was scrambling to fill the void.
However, it didn’t take long to replace them. Now two months into the season, assistant coaches Erwin van Bennekom and Jerrod Roh are helping reshape the Alabama soccer program.
Bennekom left Sky Blue FC, a professional team in New Jersey, to join the Crimson Tide in February. His focus is on the offensive side of the ball and recruiting. Roh came from Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He joined the team as the new defensive assistant coach five days before practice began.
Both coaches brought in something new this season. Bennekom, a native of the Netherlands, coached for both Sky Blue FC and the New Jersey Institute of Technology teams. Bennekom has also coached Olympic gold medalists Christie Rampone, Kelly O’Hara and Jillian Loyden.
The Dutch coach is accustomed to a professional style of playing and brings that experience to the Crimson Tide. Because of his experience, he expects the team to play harder and strive for more.
Bennekom said his experience transitioned well over to the collegiate level. The team has been able to work better together because the coaches are all on the same mindset of how to succeed.
“I think we have a great relationship between the three coaches, we all bring something different,” Bennekom said. “Obviously Todd’s [is the] main philosophy, and we fit right in there for both Jerrod and myself. That’s what we came here for, to bring in that piece. I think we expect high standards from the players, that’s something I learned from working with the pros. They’re the best players in the world and I brought the same standards from them into this program while understanding that they are allowed to make mistakes. I hope, and I really think that if you talk to our players, that they feel free to make mistakes. Yes, they are getting the criticism of how they could do better but they feel they can make the mistakes because soccer is a mistake game.”
Roh dabbled in multiple aspects of college soccer. He was familiar to the SEC long before he signed with Alabama. He coached at Kentucky from 2004 to 2007, helping the Wildcats win an SEC Championship and compete in the NCAAs.
He also spent time at the University of Minnesota, rebuilding its program. During his time there the Gophers won 48 games, the most in school history. Roh also created and perfected his own set of defensive vocabulary, which Jordan Meier and Abby Lutzenkirchen said has helped the team.
Despite the change ups, things are going well for the soccer program. Alabama 9-4-3 (4-2-2 SEC) has posted more goals and won more games this season than it did all of last season. The Crimson Tide has posted 33 goals so far this season compared to the 24 cumulative goals scored last season. Coach Todd Bramble said the new coaches’ experience is benefiting the team.
“I think we were fortunate,” Bramble said. “A lot of times when you have to search for assistant coaches in our sport, you end up with people who have a little less experience. You have to teach them a lot, they’re relatively new to coaching. With Erwin and Jarrod, we’re getting two professionals. They have a ton of experience. I would say both of these guys would be capable of being a head coach of their own team right now so the fact that I have that type of experience on the staff and the players have that level as a resource is really valuable.”
But there are high expectations for this team, not just to win games but to actually improve. The team is hungry for the post-season although it currently sits in the No. 6 position in the SEC. Alabama needs to stay in the top 10 to make it to the SEC Championship. Bramble said the team would like to be ranked No. 6 or higher before going into the SEC Championship.
With that in mind, the coaches have sharpened practice and worked on multiple facets of the game. During practice Bennekom can be heard encouraging and working with the attacking players. Roh can be found instructing the defense and working on set pieces.
The work Roh and Bennekom put into the team can be seen not only during practice but during the game. The defense has been the backbone of this year’s team, creating opportunities for the offense to exploit and score on. The offense has been able to create key scoring opportunities as well.
Roh said the coaching staff are of one mindset to help the team succeed.
“Well, you know, as a coach in general, I’m a servant,” Roh said. “I believe in serving leadership. As an assistant coach, I’m just trying to do whatever I can for the head coach, coach Todd [Bramble], and help out the rest of the staff and of course do whatever I can for the players. My goals are their goals; their goals, I should say, are my goals. So whatever they want, I try to work and do my best to provide that for them. And so obviously I have some experiences in other programs where we’ve had some success so I’m able to tap into resources and those experiences to help the coaches as well as the players.
“You can’t ever bring one template, you can’t apply one template to the program. Each place is unique, each place is at a different stage or got a different group of players. This program had been through a couple of pretty rough seasons so you always have to assess where they are at and where they are coming from and where can I fill in the gaps there?”
When it was announced that Alabama would get not one, but two new assistant coaches, the team was allowed to be nervous. It was a whole new change up. But as Bramble said, it’s a fresh, new set of eyes that will bring the team to the next level. Bennekom and Roh’s experience and high standards have helped the Crimson Tide excel against opponents like Tennessee and South Carolina.
Despite losing a few conference games, the team is able to compete and hold its own against high-profile opponents thanks to the instruction of the new coaching staff. It hasn’t been easy, but the new style and mindset of the coaching staff has brought the team closer to the postseason than it has in the past three years.
