One of the ultimate compliments a coach, mother, or father can give to another coach is to endorse that individual to coach their children.
Rob Steinkuehler has known and worked with Tim Gould for a few years, so he has seen a man he calls “a mentor” work with high school and college student-athletes and help teach them the game of soccer.
It is a ways away, but he hopes his son, Jackson, 4, will get a chance to play for Gould.
“I hope 14 years down the road he is still in the business so I can send him to play for him,” Steinkuehler said Friday.
That’s high praise for Gould, who was announced Friday to be the new men’s soccer coach at the Mississippi University for Women. Gould will be the school’s first coach of a men’s intercollegiate sport.
“I have been in the same community about 15 years,” Gould said Saturday. “I went to Blackburn as a student and I ended up teaching at a high school in the community before I went back to the college to coach. I have spent almost half of my life in that community, and I thought it was time to see if I could make an impact at a different location and stretch myself a little more, push myself a little more, and learn in a different environment.”
Steinkuehler believes Gould will relish the challenge of building a program in a new part of the country. He said he worked with Gould as a student teacher at Carlinville High School, where he was able to see Gould’s intelligence, knowledge of the game, humor, and mild-mannered personality. He said Gould’s understanding of the game helped him build a winning tradition at Carlinville High.
“He was very involved,” Steinkuehler said. “He started youth camps and we ran several together. Working with the youth camps and the middle school players, after several years those middle school kids were the core to his success. … He is a great man, and a great role model for the boys and the girls. If you’re around him and his players after a certain amount of time, the majority of his players, if not all of them, like him and have a great respect for them.”
Gould said he learned a lot playing for former Blackburn College men’s soccer coach Gene Baker, who also was a longtime soccer coach at Granite City High (Ill.). He said he learned how to make adjustments from Baker and not to try to fit every player into the same system. He said he will focus on putting players into the right spots so they can be successful. He said that might mean players will play in different spots and in different systems, but he said his players have bought into that style after seeing results.
Gould doesn’t look at starting the program from scratch as a daunting challenge. He said it will be important to get everything at The W going in the right direction quickly so he and the program can move forward from the first day.
At Blackburn, Steinkuehler said they tried to run the women’s and men’s soccer programs together. In that time, he said Gould takes more interest in his student-athletes as people more than as just players. He said he cares about the development of his players and builds trusting relationships with them. Steinkuehler said Gould’s ability to relate to players shouldn’t change whether he is in Illinois or whether he is in Mississippi.
“He is a guy who is not scared to tackle a challenge,” Steinkuehler said. “He is going to a state he is not from, so surely it is going to be a challenge for him, but I know he is ready for it. I think his personality in terms of wanting to try to do something new outside of his comfort zone will prepare him for that.”
The hiring of Gould is the school’s latest step in its process of bringing back a women’s intercollegiate athletic program and creating a men’s program for more than 2,500 undergraduates. The W will compete in baseball, softball, men’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, and women’s volleyball beginning in the 2017-18 school year. It will add more sports for the 2018-19 year as it continues the process to gain NCAA Division III status.
Gould joins Roxanne Hernandez, who was hired last month to lead The W’s volleyball program.
“This is an exciting day for Owls Athletics as we welcome Tim Gould as the university’s first men’s soccer coach,” The W’s Director of Athletics Jason Trufant said. “Tim’s wealth of knowledge and experience as a head coach at the NCAA Division III level will be a tremendous asset not only to the soccer program, but to the athletic department as well.”
Gould, who was driving to Columbus on Saturday, will start Monday at The W. As a high school coach, Gould held a 203-97-11 record and won three South Central Conference Championships and four Illinois High School Association Regional Championships.
In 2013, Gould became women’s soccer coach at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. Gould had multiple players named St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Offensive and Defensive Player of the Week, as well as All-SLIAC and academic All-SLIAC performers.
Gould was a four-year starter on defense at Blackburn College. He received a bachelor’s degree in English with secondary certification from Blackburn in 2006. In 2015, he received his master’s in education from Missouri.
Gould admits it was a difficult decision moving away from a supportive family in the Midwest, but he said he has had players from all over the country play for him at Blackburn, so he is confident he will be able to have success away from home.
“I think we’re going to present a great opportunity for kids to stay in the area,” Gould said. “We’re going to play against different levels of play (Division III, junior colleges, Christian colleges, NAIA). I think is going to be a great learning experience. It is going to be fun and the players are going to learn a lot about the game and themselves and give back a little bit. We’re going to try to build the game in Columbus and in the area. It will be important to get the kids to buy into that because I think it will be rewarding for them as the program at The W develops and soccer in the Columbus area keeps getting better.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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