Preparing the Next Generation 🌟

A Chat with U.S. U-17 WYNT Head Coach Katie Schoepfer + The Latest Soccer Jobs

 

IN THIS ISSUE

  • 🤝 Introduction: The next generation of high-performing athletes

  • 👨‍🎓 Soccer Thought Leader: Katie Schoepfer, U-17 USWYNT Head Coach

  • ⚽️ Soccer Jobs: New opportunities with MLS, Inter Miami, and more

  • đź“° Extra Extra: See 2025’s Top 50 most-valuable clubs from across the globe

INTRODUCTION

Greetings, Pathwayers! đź‘‹

We've written over the last handful of issues about how clubs across the country are battening down the hatches to prepare for the next wave of American soccer fans following this year's FIFA Club World Cup (which starts next month!), the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and beyond.

Friend of the newsletter, Taylor Graham, mentioned in Issue 041, "If there is the same commensurate level of growth within the game from 1994 coming out of 2026, this is going to be a really, really big wave."

But, what happens on the technical side? Sure, new fans are one consequence of these upcoming global events, but what about the next generation of young athletes whom newly-discovered role models will inevitably inspire?

Cue today's Soccer Thought Leader - U.S. U-17 Women’s Youth National Team Head Coach Katie Schoepfer. Leaning on her youth, professional, and national team playing experiences, Katie is helping shape the next generation of high-performing athletes to excel, physically and mentally, in today's U.S. Soccer landscape.

Hit reply and let us know what you think of today’s conversation.

-Nolan Sheldon, Co-Founder & CXO

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SOCCER THOUGHT LEADER: KATIE SCHOEPFER, U.S. U-17 WOMEN’S YOUTH NATIONAL TEAM HEAD COACH

“YOU REALLY APPRECIATE WHEN PEOPLE COME IN AND CAN JUST TAKE A PROJECT OR SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS IN THE CAMP AND OWN IT…”

We’re pleased to introduce our Pathway subscribers to United States Women’s U-17 National Team Head Coach, Katie Schoepfer - or “Shep” as she has been known in our soccer community as a player and now as a coach.

I think our interview with Shep has a lot to offer - I believe she shares a wonderful blueprint for those starting their career in the sport.

You see, Shep has now successfully made the jump from an impressive playing career to a well-established coaching career, but the transition wasn’t as straight forward as she had anticipated.

Throughout her playing days, Shep was a highly-recruited and sought-after talent and, naturally, she had anticipated that she would seamlessly transition into a coaching role after hanging up her boots. As she shares in our conversation, Shep realized quite quickly that she was going to have to build a (new) network and reputation as a coach - that she’d have to advocate for herself and push herself in order to accelerate her development as a coach and leader.

What I love about Shep’s story is that it’s all based in humility and a desire to improve. She volunteered at the collegiate level and signed short-term contracts with U.S. Soccer in order to gain experience and build a network. Despite the hurdles, her mindset was always to own whatever task she was given and crush it.

Within a few years, Shep has established herself as an elite coach and developer of talent, and now guides a thriving U.S. U-17 Women’s National Team program as it prepares for the 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup this November in Morocco.

-Nolan Sheldon, Co-Founder & CXO

Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity (and any emphasis below is ours)

PATHWAY: Tell us your soccer origin story. How did you get started in the sport?

KATIE: I don't have a deep history of playing soccer in my family. I was a young kid growing up in a small town. All my friends played soccer, and I have an older brother who played it, so I played it, and I just happened to be good at it and enjoy it. Obviously, when a kid is good at something, they want to keep pursuing it. It was never a conscious choice to say I'm going to be a soccer player.

I continued to grow through the levels and focused on the next thing. When I was in town soccer, I had to decide to go to a club team, and then I got recruited to another club team, then to play ODP and to play high school. I just kept saying “yes” and going to stuff, and it kept working out. I kept playing well, and people wanted me to play on other teams, and that's when I had to make decisions. I stopped playing softball and had to focus on soccer. It was never a question of whether I would play college soccer; I just always thought I would play college soccer somewhere and figure out where to go.

PATHWAY: Do you see a difference in the mentality of the young women you coach now compared to when you were growing up? 

KATIE: I think we see players who actually take it seriously and make that conscious decision of wanting to lead a high-performance life and have goals to make the women's team – those players are the ones who set themselves apart. The way I approached it all those years ago, I don't think would cut it anymore.

Now, we have such a better structure in our youth national team system in terms of even just full-time head coaches, full programming, feedback loops, keeping track of players with talent ID, being able to support players in and out of our environment, that all stuff I didn't have when I was going through our youth system. When I went through the youth system, they would ask a random coach to run that camp, and they would pick people they knew of or pick some names that were around that were just good at what they did; there was not a real rhyme or reason to it.

There was no structured feedback loop, structured monitor, or tracking if you brought kids in and out of the environment. Now, we provide a structure for players to take it more seriously earlier on while still getting the opportunities to be kids, but helping them find balance in what that means and what that looks like for them.

I do think that they [the players] probably have to make those decisions a little bit earlier and figure out how other activities fit into what they want to do as a high-performing soccer player as opposed to playing really well and jumping from camp to camp. We see kids do more with less than kids who have all the talent in the world but don't push themselves to find the resources that'll help them to be better.

PATHWAY: If you had grown up with the current resources and structure, do you believe you would've been a better player?

KATIE: I think I would've had a different mindset to it. It forces you into it. It forces you to think about the future. It helps you learn how to take critical feedback earlier and handle disappointment or pressures earlier. I think I would've been more prepared, but it was just the time we were growing up in; you showed up when your name got called and did the best with what you had. I did all that stuff, and now these are things that we see players stepping away from because they want the bigger challenge of improving themselves.

PATHWAY: Tell us about your transition into coaching after your playing days. How did you navigate it? 

KATIE:  My mom was a teacher at some point in her career, and my dad was a college basketball coach for a really long time, so I always knew growing up that teaching and coaching were career options. I always said yes to going to camps, coaching, and doing appearances to be a role model for players. That naturally evolved into coaching and mentoring as I finished my playing days in Boston [with the Boston Breakers of the NWSL].

I was a volunteer assistant at Boston University during my last few years playing there. I always had these grand visions of being a college coach and staying with the program forever, finding one spot and just being there and being the head coach. It just didn't work out like that when I stopped playing. I tried to get interviews, and I think it was interesting because it taught me that it's not about what you know; it's about who you know. I didn't really get that until that moment when I had this resume where I played for seven or eight years, I have all these contacts, I've coached all these camps, I was a volunteer assistant at Boston University, and I was a second assistant at Holy Cross. To me, with my natural progression, I thought I was going to step right into a program.

Everyone will have to want me just like they did when I was a player; everyone always wanted me to play for their team. But you get into the coaching world and realize that 20, 21, 22-year-olds are stepping into this space, and they already have two or three years of experience. There, I was 28 years old, and I didn't have the coaching experience that people who were five or six years younger than me had. It was a weird middle ground of not really knowing where to go because no one wanted to give me an opportunity. And it was kind of the first time I had to advocate and fight for myself and figure it out on my own.

PATHWAY: How did you get involved with the USWNT? 

KATIE: That transition was tough. I ended up starting my coaching career at South Shore Select and helped them transition into what was the Girls Development Academy at the time. I was their director, and when that folded, I turned into the GM of the girls' academy, but working with that club while getting an opportunity to work on my licenses. I got my B license and my talent scout license, and that's kind of where everything with U.S. Soccer jumped off for me. It was just kind of a weird full circle moment where during my B license, I ran into Kacey White, who was the head coach of the U-16 national team at the time, and I was a teammate with her at Sky Blue [FC] during my rookie season. And she saw me and was like, “oh, do you want to come into a camp at some point?” And I said, “sure.” And then it just kind of started to snowball from there.

So then Mark Carr called me in, and then Tracey [Kevins] called me in, and so then I just kept getting asked back as an assistant because I was available and working a club job that let me go whenever I was asked. I started to get all this experience and kind of became that unicorn for everybody when I was available – I'm a former player, female, I know what I'm doing, I'm confident and comfortable in the environment, so call me in as often as you can and as often as you'd like.

PATHWAY: Let's pull a bit more out of that. You're showing your humility by saying it was because you "were available," but of course, it was much more than that. When you think about being a young coach just starting, what was it that you did in those initial camps that made you a valued member of the staff? 

KATIE: I think I realized early on that I don't know very much. I was very comfortable with knowing when to ask questions and get clarity, but I also knew I wanted to figure stuff out on my own and try things. So, now I'm able to get into the environment, and I think they continue to see growth. Every coach that I was with saw me get better every time I came into camp in terms of being more comfortable, confident, and competent. 

I think there is an element of, and you don't realize that when you're an assistant coach, but when you're a head coach, decision fatigue is a real thing. You really appreciate when people come in and can just take a project or something that happens in the camp and own it, but at the same time, do not be afraid to ask for feedback or check with the head coach to make sure that's the direction they want it to go. I think being able to have that was massive because I could take things off people's plates and be independent while still being a really good member of the staff and relied upon. It sounds cliche, but it was just working hard and just getting it done.

PATHWAY: Your word choice is great, Katie. "Own it."  Just go and own it. And maybe you're owning this little bit of it, but own that little bit of it and just crush it. Then they start to rely on you, and then they start to depend on you. It is such a unique thread that we have seen through all of our soccer thought leaders early in their careers; they want to find ways to lead. How can I make an impact? I'm going to do it every single time. There's a consistency in that.

KATIE: I think if you approach your coaching similarly to what you do to a playing career, you can find so many parallels in it. As a coach, you tell players to push themselves outside their comfort zone and be in a place where you're not the smartest person in the room and find a place where you can learn something. Go through your licensing programs and some of the stuff you might look at and be like, "I do this, or I couldn't do this. I don't have the resources for this." At the end of the day, those licensing programs make great connections, and they force you to confront some things. 

I think I did it in a backward way. I just jumped straight into my B license, and I didn't do the steps to get there. I just went in full go and I had to listen to myself coach for the first time on the big screen and microphone. It's a little room with a lot of really experienced people, but it makes you grow, and it's the same thing they'd say to a player or tell them to continue to practice the basics. It's not a downgrade if you're coaching young players; I've coached every single age group, from little three and four-year-olds just learning how to do toe taps all the way up to being in camp with our women's national team and every single opportunity has afforded me something to learn and something to ask questions about. 

I'm never the one who has all the answers when I'm in any environment because there are experts around me, and I want to ask a ton of questions. I think it's that level of humility of finding the learning moment wherever you are. It might not be where you want to end up, maybe you don't want to coach a U-15 team for the rest of your life, but for the season you have them, what can you learn, what can you implement, and how can you push yourself? How can you challenge yourself? Do you set up individual meetings with players? Do you try and teach a certain style of play that you really want to try?

I think there are a million different things you can try regardless of the level that you're coaching and you can learn something from all of it. It's that element of being outside your comfort zone, but also where you are finding ways you can push yourself while enjoying the challenge that's in front of you and having your eyes on what's next. You can either take the escalator and get there slowly and be prepared for it, or you can fast-track to the top in the elevator and not be well-equipped to handle everything that's happening.

PATHWAY: Let's talk about it In your current environment with the U.S. U-17 WYNT. You have a big player pool, and only so many players can be selected for each competition. Then you have the World Cup. How do you, from a leadership perspective, manage the culture knowing that some players are going to be in and out? How would you define your team's culture?

KATIE: For me, it's this idea of trying to look at all these players as if they're one of one, not one of a hundred or so that are in the pool. We talk about it all the time with them that they're on this unique journey, that they might get called into every camp and make a World Cup squad and still never make our women's team, or they could make no camps until they're in the U-20s and make our women's team. They have to keep their eye on that ultimate goal of wanting to play for our women one day, and our job is to prepare them as best we can to do that.

The culture I try to create in the U-17s is a safe place to fail. It's a safe place to try things. If it doesn't work out and if you don't make a roster, it doesn't mean you'll never come back into camp. 

I try to be up front and honest with them as much as is appropriate to talk to them about the odds that the same collection of 21 players are in the same room camp-to-camp are virtually zero. There are always going to be people coming in and out, and I think we set that standard pretty early on. We're always looking to give more players opportunities because the wider we can throw that net, the more experiences and opportunities we can provide. Hopefully, in the next five to 10 years, when you look at our women's national team, you can say we saw something in them at a youth level for every single one of them. Maybe they weren't ready yet, but that doesn't mean they're never going to be ready.

A message that we give to the U-17s often is that they're growing so much they may change camps in three months. In six months, they could go from being a top performer to life happening – maybe they become interested in something else, or there's a change in the training environment, or things happen that they're maybe mentally just not a great place so they're not performing well. It's that constant balance in the youth environment of it being a high-performing environment, and you need to have a high performance to be there, but there's also a safety net of it being a resource, and we're there to help if you're not there yet. We're here to help you grow and figure it out because you're still a kid and need to develop the resiliency and skillset to handle disappointment, but also handle how to have repeated high performances because that's really hard, too. You can crush it in one camp, and now the pressure's on you to crush it again in another camp, and you just keep raising that bar.

It's giving them the latitude to kind of do this as they go through it, but also coming at it with compassion and understanding while still demanding high-level expectations of them. That's what a high-performance environment is.

PATHWAY: Can you define what your role is in your position in a sentence or two?

KATIE: I'm a little bit of a CEO in a camp overseeing all departments, but also being a mentor to young players to help them grow and develop.

PATHWAY: Can you expand on the idea that your role as a head coach is similar to that of a CEO?

KATIE: I think the hardest part of being a head coach is probably the decision fatigue and the reliance that everyone's looking at you for approval. Everyone's looking at you for the final say in things and having an idea and an opinion about everything. 

Sometimes, you don't realize it until you have to have an opinion about something. Do we have this meal at noon? Do we have it at 12:30? Do we have chicken or fish? All these little things add up and that's where building trust with my staff and making a conscious effort for me to rely on them. 

I'm not in a world where I could micromanage every department anymore. I have to have people around me that I trust and have a really good working relationship with. Otherwise, I would be lost, absolutely lost. The staff does so much, and the departments come to me with solutions. It's my job to empower them to make those decisions. I think making sure everyone feels seen and heard is probably the hardest part of this job.

It probably would be easier to come in and just say this is how I want it done and this is what it's going to be, here's the template, follow this, don't ask me questions about it. I'm developing players, but it makes me so proud and happy for my staff when the people who have worked with me end up with the women’s national team or end up at an MLS or NWSL club because it meant that they were developing themselves as well. 

PATHWAY: Four quick hitters. First, what's one area of your job that you have to spend time on every day to be well prepared?

KATIE: Myself, I think it's my self-improvement and self-development. Every morning, I read. I read pages from any kind of book I can find that I think makes me reflect on myself as a coach.

PATHWAY: Second, what would be your one piece of advice to somebody who wants to build a career in soccer? 

KATIE: It's a people business, so take care of the people that you work with.  Those people are going to be the ones who help you get there and are going to make you better. It's not really about being able to spew tactics 24/7. It's about the people you take care of.

PATHWAY: What is one resource that you would recommend to somebody, whether they're well into their career or they're starting their career? What's a resource that you always find yourself returning to?

KATIE: The High Performance Podcast has been a good one. They gave an interview with a chef at a Michelin Star restaurant. There are so many parallels between being a head chef at a Michelin Star restaurant and being a soccer coach. Vex King was another one that they had on there that I really enjoyed, just talking about the energies that you put out and how you manage that. A little bit of the stoicism that you can hone in on as a coach and what you want to put out there.

PATHWAY: Last one. Go back to day one, year one of your coaching career. What would you do differently knowing what you now know?

KATIE: I wish I had paid attention more when I was a player to some of the things my coaches were doing. I think, as a player, I went through life pretty much just showing up and doing the job without asking why. I wish on year one, day one, I took the time to write down lessons I learned as a player, or things that I liked or disliked, or preferences so I can remember them better now that I'm six or seven years out of playing. I think knowing what my players are thinking or how they would perceive something would be helpful sometimes.

Thanks to Katie for taking the time to chat with us. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and be sure to follow along with the U.S. U-17 WYNT as they prepare for the 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, kicking off November 8 in Morocco.

Katie Schoepfer (back row, far left) and her 2024 FIFA U-17 World Cup USWYNT squad

NEW SOCCER JOBS

Fresh off the press! Inter Miami CF is hiring for two positions to build out its Production team. Check them out below:

Canada Soccer, our friends north of the border, have two big roles posted:

But that is not all - check out the latest round of job openings at the club, league, and agency levels below:

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