ISSUE 015: From insurance to the World Cup

IN THIS ISSUE

• 📣 Introduction: A big ol’ career pivot

• 👨‍🎓 Soccer Thought Leaders: From insurance to the World Cup

• 👥 Pathway Mentorship: A new Ask Me Anything opportunity

• ⚽️ Soccer Jobs: New + interesting jobs

• ⭐️ Featured Job: An opportunity at U.S. Soccer

• 🫵 Do This Now: Volunteer for your local club

INTRODUCTION

Hello, Pathwayers! 👋

We’ve got a first-time feature for you today as we share the career story of our Pathway co-founder, John Bello.

John’s story is one that will resonate with many of you - a lifelong player (including at College of Charleston) who started down a non-soccer career path selling insurance, before realizing he had to find a way to work in the sport he loved.

John’s intentional choices over a period of many months helped him find his entry point into the sport in 2013 - and, eventually, led to serving as an analyst for the U.S. Men’s National Team at the FIFA World Cup less than ten years later. Pretty impressive.

It’s rarely easy to make the transition from one industry to another, but John’s path shows with the right ambition, commitment, and work ethic, it can be done.

-Nolan Sheldon, Co-Founder & Chief Experience Officer

We’re excited to announce the launch of the Pathway Newsletter Referral Program. If you have a friend, family member, or colleague that is interested in launching or building a career in soccer, you can use your unique referral link below to invite them to subscribe - as folks sign up via your link, you’ll be eligible for Pathway rewards, including:

• Six (6) verified referrals = One (1) downloadable guide from Pathway 📘

• Ten (10) verified referrals = 30 minute 1-on-1 Mentorship Session 👥

Before you share, be sure to first login at Pathwayhq.com.

PATHWAY FOUNDER: JOHN BELLO’S JOURNEY FROM INSURANCE TO THE WORLD CUP

I’m excited to share the career story of my long-time friend, former (and current!) colleague - and one of three Pathway co-founders, John Bello.

John’s career timeline has it all: He started his post-college career working in insurance (!), pivoted into soccer, started his coaching career as an unpaid volunteer, quickly became one of the top developers of talent in the U.S., and made the unprecedented jump from youth coach to lead Opposition Analyst for the U.S. Men’s National Team.

Among his many qualities, John’s impressive work ethic and self-awareness, along with an impressive capacity to adapt and learn, has allowed him to evolve and succeed throughout every step of his career. We hope you enjoy his perspective, as he offers some valuable tidbits he has picked up throughout his journey.

-Nolan Sheldon, Co-Founder & Chief Experience Officer

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

PATHWAY: John, you are someone who made a career pivot a few years into working in insurance. What led to the decision to pursue a career full-time in soccer?

JOHN: There's a transition period that happens when you finish playing soccer and move into the professional world that isn't really talked about enough. As you mentioned, I started down an initial career path working in insurance. And as I was going down that path, I was continuously having this feeling that something was missing in my life.

I feel that for me to function at a really high level, I thrive on human interaction, connection, and moving towards an objective collectively with other people. Working at an insurance company could do that to some degree, but there was still something that was missing there.

So, I started to volunteer my time to coach at D.C. United, specifically in the camps and training programs. Just being around coaches and seeing them interact with players - I immediately felt this energy and this connection that I was longing for. It was like the missing piece to the puzzle.

And, over time after I kept going out to coach, I figured out this is it - this is what I want to do - I want to coach and I want to be a coach. Once I found out you could actually do it as a full time job, then it was pretty much sold for me that that’s what I wanted to do with my career.

PATHWAY: Tell us about the career pivot transition period - how long did you volunteer before a full-time opportunity came along?

JOHN: Oh, the volunteer portion was long. It was six months or so - it was a really long time before I actually got my first paid gig working as a camp coach through the summer. From December up until June, I was working mostly for free, paid a little here and there. I committed a lot of time, and it wasn't easy. The place where I was going to most often was over an hour commute in each direction and it was taking up six hours of my Saturday. So, I just gave up my day completely, fully committed to exploring and making sure it was the path I wanted to go down.

The end result actually was just being around, being useful, and learning - and at the end of that summer I was just in the right place at the right time when an opportunity came about with an opening for the U-13 Head Coach in the D.C. United Academy. It just made sense for me to move into that position - I knew the coaches and the staff because I had been around and they could see my development over time. They saw my commitment to developing my craft, that I really wanted to make it full-time, that I had good energy, and I brought positivity every time I was in the environment - I think that was important. So the result of that was a job, which was amazing.

PATHWAY: Will you share a bit about your experience as an academy coach at D.C. United and the benefits of wearing a number of different hats?

JOHN: Moving into the D.C. United Academy, my first responsibility was coaching that U-13 age group, but it was was a huge group - 48 players. It was my only responsibility at first. During my time in the Academy, I adopted this philosophy of not saying no - just show up, be useful, and don't say no when opportunities come my way.

So, when I was approached with other things like building the scouting department from the ground up or building the club’s first residential program, I didn’t necessarily know how to do those things, but I just committed to doing it. I said ‘yes’ and set out to figure it out.

All of those things led me to develop different skill sets like hiring scouts, managing their schedules, learning how to systematically scout, talk about, and evaluate players - all tasks that I was not yet doing as a team coach. It forced me to stretch outside of those things - What it forced me to do was to become systematic and develop processes that really helped ensure I was achieving high results at each of the things that I was doing.

Otherwise, I wouldn't have developed and my players wouldn’t have developed. So, that was probably the biggest benefit of that whole time was the development of systems and processes and how important that became in my career.

PATHWAY: Throughout your career, there have been moments where you made a jump forward - a significant step into something new or a substantial change in level where you didn’t yet have experience or expertise. How did you approach filling any skill gaps whenever you made those big jumps?

JOHN: I think there's just a level of self-awareness that you have to have - you have a foundation, you know you have a starting point, but you have to have a lot of self-awareness.

When you actually start doing that task, being in that new environment and taking on that new responsibility, you have to be self-aware enough to recognize that you actually have a skill gap. Once you have that awareness of what that actually is, then you build that into your system and process to prioritize development in that area.

An example was my coaching voice and being the master of my session. Very early in my career that was the thing I struggled with the most - I would almost whisper to players as opposed to being commanding to players. I recognized I had a gap, so I would write down reminders for myself on a sheet of paper, like bring energy to the session, bring energy to the exercise. I would actually ask other coaches to challenge me to stand up and coach during games because that was uncomfortable for me to do.

And those types of things actually really helped me have a lot of focus on developing things that I had gaps in.

PATHWAY: You made an unprecedented jump from working with youth players on a daily basis and essentially the next day working as a lead analyst for the U.S. Men's National Team a part of Gregg Berhalter’s staff. How did that come to be?

JOHN: I think what I did really well during that interview process with U.S. Soccer was I showcased my specific expertise and ability. And it was unique – I wasn't just a coach, I had experience with performance analysis, I had experience doing illustrations with clips, but through the lens of - this is what a coach would actually want to see, not noise, you know what I mean? It wasn't like a million things painted on a field. It was - here's the simple things that you need to know. And that soft skill of really understanding the lens of the coach really helped. Then also I was able to showcase my unique skill set of public speaking, of teaching, things of that nature that probably some people don't have in their portfolio.

So, those were the things that I think caught their attention. And I remember the conversation clearly with Gregg, what he said was, you have a great foundation to start from. That really stuck with me. Because I was like, right, I can build here. And I got into camp, and then I really realized what he meant, because that life was full throttle. And the challenges of learning in that environment and thriving in that environment rely on some different skill sets that don't develop overnight. They take time to really develop. And that's actually what they just kept telling me was, you're in college, and this is your PhD - You need to learn, and you need to grow and adapt and try.

PATHWAY: So, tying it back to the skill gap, what was the most significant one? How did you approach bridging that skill gap?

JOHN: There were several. But one was language, almost immediately. The staff had a well-established vocabulary on how they described the game and actions within it - it was the way in which the staff interacted and talked to each other, both on the training field and in the office. Immediately for me, the only way to overcome that was to study. So, I got the tactical slides, and there were a lot of slides and an entire dictionary of words and concepts that I had to learn, that I had to practice over and over again, getting reps at speaking their language.

And that was one thing that they mentioned was how quickly they felt that I picked it up. But, I did it intentionally and it was a ton of work to learn how to do that. I just realized early on that I thought I could get it done in like a month, but it took me almost a full year to actually nail the language. And that was with intense periods of working in-between that, too.

PATHWAY: How did you handle feeling moments of hesitation or intimidation, as you moved from working with youth players to full national team players?

JOHN: I definitely did feel intimidated at times. I wasn't really sure what to expect because I had never worked at the level before. There was also the unknown of how these players would respond or interact with me, but it was on me - I needed to go actually interact with players and ask them questions about their experiences, the other teams they played for, the players they knew or what they experienced playing in different stadiums before.

It was all intentional on my part to convey a better message when I would build presentations so it would resonate with the players more because I could speak from emotional experience. But it also just gave me opportunity to speak to them.

I probably didn't do it enough, to be honest. And I think that's probably one thing I look back on I could have done a lot better job at that. Once you get out of those conversations, you realize quickly that that the players see that you care, they see that you're being really thoughtful of how you do your work, and they see you work hard. And for them, it's just the professional relationship that's how it works, and we appreciate each other.

PATHWAY: We hear often from individuals that are trying to balance life and career - especially in pro sports. How do you think about trying to find the right balance?

JOHN: Yeah, I think one thing that probably I underestimated when I came into the industry was the demand on your time and attention to become good in the sport as a coach. Then over time, as you get better, more demands come on you and your time because people just want you around more things or want your opinion on more things. It's really easy to prioritize career development over your personal development.

And I think of personal development for me as a partner, as a husband, a father, whatever that might be. And I think it's important because what you fail to recognize when you're so hyper focused on your career is the toll that it takes on the people that are closest to you. They don't see you; they don't really hear from you. Sometimes you bring negative energy home from a game or a session because things didn't go well. Your schedules don't align.

So, I’ve intentionally slowed things down at different times so I can focus on building parallel lives - one my career, and then also my personal life. This has helped me tremendously over the past six years and I think it’s a topic that’s not talked about enough with young coaches.

PATHWAY: Okay, last question. Your favorite part about working in soccer?

JOHN: The long term relationships are real - I have friends that I took my D license and C license course with that I still talk to a couple times a year or meet up with and have dinner. That, for me, will always be the best part of it.

And now I have former academy players that are 21, 22, 23 years old that I first started working with when I was coaching at D.C. United almost ten years ago, who are now either playing professionally or are transitioning to careers in the real world and just being able to speak with them, see where they are, and what they’re doing is the best.

Ed. note: You can connect with or follow John on LinkedIn, X [Twitter!], or Instagram.

MENTORSHIP OPPORTUNITY: “ASK ME ANYTHING” WITH JOHN BELLO

John has agreed to be our guest for a “Pathway Ask Me Anything” (and he kind of had to as a founder, let’s be honest) session next week. We will select up to eight (8) participants to join us for an exclusive 45-minute session with John on Zoom.

If you apply to participate, be sure to include a creative question in your application - we will select what we believe to be the top questions and those individuals will receive an invitation to join us for what is sure to be an enjoyable conversation.

• PATHWAY ASK ME ANYTHING APPLICATION: John Bello [click to apply!]

SOCCER JOBS: THE MOST INTERESTING NEW JOBS IN SOCCER

Here are a few of the newest jobs in soccer that caught our eye this week:

• Manager, Brand - FIFA World Cup 2026

• Designer, Motion Graphics - FC Cincinnati

• Manager, Social Media - Tampa Bay Sun FC

• Head Coach, MLS Next Pro - Portland Timbers

• Coordinator, Video & Multimedia - Union Omaha FC

• Men’s Assistant Coach - University of North Carolina

• Director, Women’s Soccer Operations - University of Miami

Want more? Sign up for our weekly “Pathway Jobs Newsletter” where we aggregate as many as 100 new soccer jobs all in one place - and drop it into your inbox every Friday.

DO THIS NOW: VOLUNTEER PART-TIME AT YOUR LOCAL CLUB

Many of my friends, like me, began their careers in soccer as volunteers.

Having worked in the sport at multiple levels, I know firsthand that sometimes an extra hand can go a long way, and experienced folks are often eager to pass down knowledge to the next generation or a person attempting to make a career pivot. 

Volunteering is a fantastic way to support your local professional club, while also gaining hands-on experience to understand the inner workings of a club.

It can also help grow your network and you’ll gain valuable industry experience in an area you’re passionate about. Most importantly, it will allow you to align your interests, expertise, and passion and better understand how they may best fit inside the club structure. 

In my own career journey, volunteering also helped me with something I didn’t anticipate – recognizing skill gaps I needed to fill to become a full-time coach. It provided me a safe space to practice, improve, and get feedback from other coaches. Eventually, it led to paid opportunities, and the rest is history.  

As we shared in Issue 002 – success in any industry is about the relationships you build, but you have to start somewhere.  

• DO THIS NOW: Volunteer at your local soccer club

Here’s a simple outline you can implement today to help you land a match day volunteer role:

• Start by looking up your local club(s) on LinkedIn and researching department heads

• Look for folks who work in your area of interest but consider those who may be adjacent to your specific area (Ex: If you work in social media, maybe connect with someone in marketing)

• Identify individuals for whom have a specific, personal connection:

  • From the same city/state

  • Went to the same college

  • Have a mutual connection

  • Have common areas of interests

  • Etc.

• Identify where the barrier of entry may be lower - and extra hands are needed!

  • Interested in Operations?

    • Offer to volunteer with the match day experience team

  • Interested in Comms/PR?

    • Offer to volunteer in the press box or at post-game press conferences

  • Interested in Ticket Sales?

    • Offer to volunteer at in-stadium sales booths, greeting fans on game day, etc.

  • Interested in Academy Coaching?

    • Offer to volunteer at Camps and Clinics

• Finally, fire off a short note via email or LinkedIn to the appropriate department head expressing both your interest in volunteering and the 2-3 things you’d bring to the table in a role

Match day is a great, and relatively easy, way to get involved – most departments need at least a volunteer or two, and some need dozens. This could be the exposure you’re looking for to build relationships, learn, and position yourself for future opportunities.  

Good Luck!

-John Bello, Co-Founder and COO

WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE ARE A FEW WAYS WE CAN HELP:

1. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up here to ensure you get every issue (sent on Wednesdays!) directly in your inbox.

2. You can subscribe to our Pathway Jobs Newsletter, which hits inboxes every Friday and lists as many new soccer jobs in North America as we can find (usually 80+ per issue!).

3. And, if you’re a club or brand looking to hire the most ambitious talent in soccer, drop us a line and we can tell you about our process, our growing talent pool, and the services we offer.

TELL A FRIEND?

⏩ Finally, if you’re willing to help spread the word, please forward this issue along to a friend or two who love the beautiful game. It’s the top way people find us and we’re grateful for the assist.

And if you really want to plug in to all things Pathway, you can also follow us on social media:

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FYI - The 2026 FIFA World Cup is only 848 days away. It will be here before you know it!

See you next week, soccer friends.

• John Bello

• Kyle Sheldon

• Nolan Sheldon