🪜 B.J. Callaghan's Four Pivotal Moments

A Conversation with Nashville SC's Head Coach + New Soccer Jobs and More

 

IN THIS ISSUE

  • 🤝 Introduction: One foot in front of the other

  • 👨‍🎓 Soccer Thought Leader: B.J. Callaghan, Nashville SC

  • ⚽️ Soccer Jobs: New gigs across the soccer ecosystem

  • 📰 Extra Extra: USWNT friendlies (and more)!

INTRODUCTION

Greetings, Pathwayers! 👋

Stop us if you’ve heard this before: One of the busiest two-year periods in American soccer history is nearly here. With the plethora of domestic and international events packing the 25/26 calendar, more and more folks are looking to get their foot in the door to be a part of the moments to come… but where do you start?

As Columbus Crew General Manager and friend of the newsletter Issa Tall said a few issues back: “Be true to yourself because there is no one pathway… we all come from different backgrounds…”

There is no one direct path to getting involved with the industry, but it’s about taking the steps and accumulating experiences that will set you up for success down the road.

As we’ll hear from today’s Soccer Thought Leader, sometimes those steps don’t necessarily happen in sequential order.

We were thrilled to chat with Nashville SC Head Coach, B.J. Callaghan, to learn how he pivoted from studying economics to building a resume that now includes roles with the U.S. Men’s National Team and within MLS.

Oh, and of course we’ve included links to some of the most interesting job openings in soccer and the latest must-read headlines from around the country.

Without further ado, scroll and enjoy. 📖

-Nolan Sheldon, Co-Founder & CXO

INTRODUCING THE NAME & NUMBER CREATOR COLLECTIVE

🤳⚽️ Meet the Name & Number Creator Collective: Your soccer-specific creator marketing partner in American soccer managed by Name & Number.

With over 9 million total followers and 80+ million (‼️) average monthly views, this group of creators delivers top-tier content production and is a direct line to the American soccer public.

To learn more about this first-of-its-kind initiative in American soccer, click here.

SOCCER THOUGHT LEADER: B.J. CALLAGHAN, NASHVILLE SC

via Nashville SC

“I'm a big believer of this: Are they good people? At the end of the day, a group of good people can accomplish a lot of things.”

B.J. Callaghan is relatable, humble, and someone you’d be happy to share a post-work drink with. For someone that has worked at the highest levels of the sport over the past 10 years, staying true to himself and reaching the height of his profession is a respectable feat in and of itself, but the compliment doesn’t end there.

B.J.’s professional experience impressively spans all levels (youth, college, academy, first team, national team) - he has literally worked his way from the bottom to the very top. To him, every step has been important. Every step has shaped and molded him into the coach he is today.

In speaking with B.J., it is clear that he has developed a special quality to pull from past experiences to recognize and pay attention to the (most) important details that directly contribute to creating a high-performance environment.

In our conversation, B.J. shares how he integrates people, ideas, and processes into a cohesive, dynamic working system. He expresses the value of relationships and culture - and the power of good people working together.

It’s no wonder Nashville is off to the best start in club history.

Enjoy the interview.

-Nolan Sheldon, Co-Founder & CXO

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

PATHWAY: Recognizing that you've made various stops at all levels of the game, from college soccer and MLS academies to being an interim head coach with the U.S. Men’s National Team, can you talk through your career journey and how it brought you to being a head coach in MLS?

B.J.: I believe that there are probably four pivotal moments inside that journey that made me who I am. The first part was I played college soccer at a small Division III school, Ursinus College, outside of Philadelphia. I was an Economics major and I never really had coaching on my radar until probably the middle of my senior year. I started doing internships and job interviews and I quickly realized, man, I don't think this is what I want. I had the opportunity to quickly pivot and join the Ursinus coaching staff right after I graduated. Because my grandfather was a coach and I had that background in my family, it was actually an encouraged profession to pursue. I got involved right away in coaching education – got my licenses, got involved in ODP coaching, coaching summer camps, got very much involved at the youth and collegiate level. 

I had the opportunity to then move on to St. Joseph's University and then Villanova University. That period of time was instrumental for me because when working in the college ecosystem, you're learning how to become part of a bigger organization; You are just a soccer team inside of a much bigger organization. To me, that became very translatable when you moved into the professional ranks and had to interact with the business side of an organization. Then, I worked through Villanova, but I was also doing dual duty. When you're a college coach, it’s almost like coaching a club. 

I would say the next pivotal moment was when I decided to leave the collegiate game and move into the Philadelphia Union Academy. It was a pivotal moment because it was a radical idea at the time. In 2012, the Philadelphia Union Academy didn't exist, it was an idea by Richie Graham, and I was moving from a very secure position where I had a clear career pathway. It was definitely a career change going to work with 10, 11, and 12-year-old kids again, but it was something that I thought I needed because I actually started to have this feeling that I was inadequate. I felt I wasn't growing as a person or a coach and going to the academy now allowed me to solely focus on the pure development of learning how to coach. I ran a lot of sessions, had a mentor, and had feedback and guidance. I also had the “safety” to mess up and take risks. It's okay to mess up in a 12-year-old session on a Tuesday, whereas college you feel a little bit more pressure. It was a huge element of my growth. 

I was fortunate enough to move through the academy into the first team at Philadelphia. In terms of coaching development, that was great because I was moving inside the same ecosystem. I felt that was a really good opportunity, not only personally from a career side, but I was set up for success because I was in an environment that I already felt comfortable in.

That led to my next pivot where I had the opportunity to join Gregg Berhalter with the U.S. Men's National Team after almost six years at Philadelphia, but the role wasn't immediate. I was an assistant coach on [Philadelphia’s] first team moving into a strategy analyst role with the National Team, so I lost a little bit of the coaching title. But, I felt like it was an area that I needed to grow. I felt like it was a great opportunity to get exposed to something completely different.

I went through the U.S. Men’s National Team to get to that last pivotal moment, which was the opportunity to be the interim head coach. I equate that to my promotion in Philadelphia - the opportunity for me to continue what we had built with the National Team. Even though it was a major step up from assistant coach to the interim head coach, I was working in the same environment and with the same people. I felt like that culture, the people around me, and the familiarity set me up for success. The role was different, but I felt really supported and I felt like I could be myself and do it.

That then led me to Nashville. That's where I think coming in as the head coach of a brand new environment was not super comfortable and I didn't know anyone, but all of those experiences blended together to help me create the vision for the leadership style and the environment I wanted to create and that we're trying to build here in Nashville.

PATHWAY: Looking back at those four pivotal moments from the seat of a head coach of an MLS team, which of those are the most foundational to your success? If you’re speaking directly to a young coach who has similar aspirations, where should that individual spend their time?

B.J.: No matter what level you're at, find moments to be in leadership roles. I actually had never been a head coach until I was named the interim head coach with the National Team. That opportunity gave me the experience where I was making final decisions and everyone's looking at you to make those choices. 

I would say the two moments that are linked together would be the move from Villanova University to the Philadelphia Union Academy, and then the move to the National Team. Both of those moments were where I believed I needed to find personal growth in different areas. The first time was very much more about what I needed to develop myself through true coaching: Session development, refining who I am as a coach, how and what I thought about the game, and how I wanted to present all of those things.

The next component was actually taking that step back from the club game and moving into an analysis-focused role with the National Team. I was in a supporting role, dipping my toes in the data and video side. I started to learn, through all of these experiences between leadership and walking in the shoes of other departments, how to be a leader and how to lead with empathy because I knew what I was asking of others.

When I talk to young coaches, I tell them that maybe I didn’t follow all of the steps in a perfect order, but the culmination of my experiences over almost 20 years prepared me to become a head coach because I hadn't skipped any steps. I felt like I knew how everyone's role was interlinked into the overall environment of what we were trying to create.

PATHWAY: What if it's a player who's retiring after a 10-year career in MLS and they want to become a coach? Would your advice to them be to jump right in or to start at a lower level where they can get the benefit of working with 10, 11, 12 year olds and making mistakes?

B.J.: I believe that good players can become good coaches, but it's still a skillset that needs to be developed. We know that to learn and develop, you have to do it in a progressive pathway. My recommendation is to start down where it's safe, where you can make mistakes, take risks, and find yourself and make things you believe in and not just copy what you've learned throughout your career in a safe environment. You can continue to grow from there.

PATHWAY: As a head coach, what was the steepest learning curve for you that you didn't expect or was perhaps steeper than you expected? What was it that you really had to work on in the initial months?

B.J.: I think the thing that I needed to work on the most was how to articulate my ideas, as well as my vision and the mission of what we wanted to do across a wide range of peoples’ backgrounds. I think a lot of us know what we want to do, but we need to be able to articulate and present those ideas and align people behind them. It's something I spent a lot of time on in trying to learn how to develop and solicit feedback and refine it so people could truly align and believe that they're working for something bigger than themselves.

PATHWAY: The answer to my next question may be very similar to that, and that's okay, but if you could rewind to day one on the job with what you know now, what would you have started to do back then that maybe you didn't do right away?

B.J.: To be honest, I think I would've spent more time individually connecting with people to find out their past experiences. I believe I came in with ideas and a mandate of how I wanted things to go, but I think I should have spent a little bit more time learning peoples’ past experiences and using the wisdom that was already there a bit more. It would've helped me navigate things a little bit smoother.

PATHWAY: You inherited a portion of your technical staff when you were named head coach in the summer of 2024. What factors go into a decision to either retain, move on from, or add someone to the staff?  

B.J.: I look at it through two lenses. The first is through a lot of your own self-reflection - what are your strengths and weaknesses? You have to be brutally honest about the things that you're good at and not-so-good at because you need the staff to help. You can't do everything, so you're going to have to delegate certain things to certain people. You need to determine what you are willing to delegate and who you need in your environment because of your strengths and weaknesses.

Then, it’s building the same way we would build player profiles, but for staff profiles. What are the skillsets that each individual brings? What's the profile? Just like you would ask for a player, what are you going to look for in a high performance director, an athletic trainer, or an assistant coach?

Then, there's an element of soft skills. Do they align? Do the staff members align with your values as a person? We spend a lot of time with each other. And lastly, I'm a big believer of this: Are they good people? At the end of the day, a group of good people can accomplish a lot of things.

PATHWAY: Think about the current ecosystem that exists within a technical staff. What position is undervalued or maybe doesn't exist yet that's going to play a prominent role in the success of an MLS team over the next 10 years?

B.J.: I think you're already starting to see it, but I do think there's this element of an individual development coach, I don’t know if you want to call it almost like a game insights coach. It's not necessarily like a technical coach that's running individual sessions, but I think it's more about someone who's really connecting with individual players in areas where they can help them improve their game insights. What’s the situation you're reading? What options do you have? Someone who can help players through that.

I look at that because schedule congestion is only increasing, right? We're only going to play more and more games. I don't see us getting more time back for training in the next 10 years. We still need to find ways to develop players, so we're going to have to do that with off-field methods.

I think it also allows for somebody who can facilitate discussion, ask really good questions, be inquisitive, and take player feedback. Maybe I'm getting overly philosophical, but the world is going where people want instant feedback. They have the ability to consume a lot of information, but they also have the ability to go find it anywhere they want. If I look at that more short-term period, it's like how can someone who can be really good with working with small groups of players, but in a technology-heavy way, at which point AI becomes involved. Whoever's going to be on the front foot of cutting-edge technology will make themselves very valuable to an organization.

PATHWAY: What's a resource that you have used in your career that has really served you well?

B.J.: I mean, I know this sounds kind of crazy, but I've gotten so much value out of having a Wyscout account. I think you potentially get it when you're a professional coach, but as I look back, if I was an academy coach or something I would want Wyscout because the ability to just study and do your own thing has been unbelievably valuable to me. It's like a soccer encyclopedia and you can find anything there.

PATHWAY: Alright, last question. If you had one simple piece of advice for somebody who’s not in the sport that wants to break into the sport, technical or sporting, what would it be?

B.J.: I would say recognize the value that you're going to bring and advocate as hard as you can for yourself and to say why you're needed.

PATHWAY: What a wonderful place to conclude. Thank you, B.J.

Thanks to B.J. for taking the time to chat with us. Be sure to follow Nashville SC’s 2025 MLS campaign with MLS Season Pass on Apple TV (subscription required).

via Nashville SC

NEW SOCCER JOBS

As always, we’ve posted a handful of new soccer jobs for your consideration. We’ve highlighted a few trends worth noting.

🎨 Calling all creatives! Check out these recent design openings:

💼 Here are four mid-senior-to-senior front office opportunities at club, league, and federation levels:

👉 There are a number of sporting positions currently open within US Soccer, MLS, USL and NWSL:

ICYMI: MUST-READ ARTICLES

📰 Have you heard the news?! 

Take a peek at some of the latest headlines around the American soccer scene (just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock or your phone was in the other room):

ALSO…

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SEE YOU SOON, SOCCER FRIENDS