Michigan Men's Soccer - wTf

Submitted by James Burrill Angell on
So last week the senior laden Men's soccer team manages to earn a road tie against 4th ranked Maryland and tonight the lose to Detroit. For those of you reading John Bacon's book there was a passage about the many coaches Dave Brandon forced out including Steve Burns the Men's soccer coach. He was replaced by Chaka Daley whose win totals have gone down every year he's been here. What is the story with the soccer program.
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Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 10:03 PM ^

I've been in a heated tirade on twitter about this in DMs with MGoJohnStamos.

Look, I'm not anti-Chaka Daley. I want Michigan to win NOW with this coach.

But Steve Burns should still be the head coach. Thank dickbag Dave for that one.

He fired the man that created Michigan Men's Soccer. The man who took the team to the NCAA College Cup (Final Four) in the team's 10th year of existence. 

Ever since he was fired, it's all been a downhill ride. Win totals going down yearly, players transferring in the offseason (one to Ohio State) and one embarrassing loss to at least one mid-major every single year.

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: 31528

Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 10:08 PM ^

I get heated and emotional when talking about this stuff because I care about it and I'm passionate about it.

I watched that whole game tonight and all I could think about that whole time is "we fired Steve Burns for this"

I'm gonna be at the Oakland road game a week from today to cheer this team on. Hopefully we can get that one.

 

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: 31528

Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 10:15 PM ^

Why? Because he's Michigan in every sense of the word.

He grauated from Michigan's Aerospace program in 1989 and became the club soccer coach here in the mid-90s before eventually taking them Varsity in 2000.  

Coaching somewhere else probably doesn't mean anything to him because he built the thing here.

Right now he works as a financial rep for Northwestern Mutual. 

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: 31528

MGJS SuperKick Party

September 16th, 2015 at 10:17 PM ^

Ok, I see where you're coming from, and obviously he has some success that happened right before he "resigned." And I have read endzone too, and it's a shitty story. But is there a chance that you want the loyalty to be there and it's not?

Unfortunately, that's how it is in the real world. If I have a good week this week, it's going to be expected going forward. If I don't live up to my expectations, I would get let go. It's just the way the world works. Loyalty and a dollar buys you a shitty cup of coffee.

Joined: 08/04/2010

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MGoBender

September 16th, 2015 at 10:13 PM ^

I'm with you on that.  I was finishing up undergrad/starting grad during the Saad days (I actually ref'd one of Soony's HS games my junior or senior year when they played at Saline).  I watched the UM-Notre Dame NCAA tourney game on a shitty internet connection 7 or 8 or however many years ago. 

While I didn't get really involved with the Ultras, I went to every game I could make as a student.  It really pains me that such a successful coach and beloved guy on campus suddenly was gone.  

Joined: 03/26/2010

MGoPoints: 15128

Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 10:25 PM ^

The 2010 team gets a bunch of great praise but let's not forget that the fourth (4th!) team here in 2003 made it to the NCAA Quarters and had one probably the next best thing to the Soony-Meram combo: Mychal Turpin and Knox Cameron.

You know what Michigan Lacrosse did in its 4th year? Nothing even close to that.

There have been some great players here in the program's young history. Knox, Mychal, Dzubay, Fuzetti, Peri, the Saad bros, Justin Meram (played HS soccer right down the street from me).

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: 31528

arsenal926

September 16th, 2015 at 10:27 PM ^

Trying to single out mid-major teams as embarassing losses just doesn't work for soccer. 2 of the top 5 teams in the country are Coastal Carolina and Creighton. Oakland beat OSU and MSU last year and would have been in the sweet 16 had State not got a couple bullshit calls in their rematch. I get why the idea of losing to Detroit is bad, but it's not like they're losing to  some extraordinarily shitty team.

Joined: 01/29/2013

MGoPoints: 169

Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 10:57 PM ^

This was our first loss EVER to Detroit (9-0-3 prior today). And it comes days after tying Maryland on the road. 

Just mind boggling stuff.

Shut out by FIU, Columbia, Bowling Green and WMU last year. But beat #6 Notre Dame and #12 MSU.

I don't consider Akron a mid-major since they won a national championship and Creighton doesn't count as one as the Big East is a major conference.

Michigan still has a good record against the Horizon League at 32-6-7. Still gotta play Oakland and Valpo this year.

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: 31528

Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 10:51 PM ^

That's exactly what happened to Bruce Berque in BLL. 

Another awful decision by DB. Fired Berque which caused us to lose a top recruit who was committed to Michigan which ultimately caused the utter disaster that last year's season was.

7-17 and 3-8 in the B1G.

I do like the hire in Andy Steinberg, as he won a national championship at freaking Pepperdine. It's gonna take some time to rebuild as the program had the rug ripped from underneath it.

BTW: That top recruit, Cameron Norrie, made it to the NCAA individual quarterfinals and helped TCU to the NCAA Semifinals--as a FRESHMAN.

Nice one, Dave.

Joined: 06/29/2009

MGoPoints: 31528

tmotts62

September 17th, 2015 at 1:52 AM ^

Steve's a friend and former neighbor of mine. I played cards with him the night before the OSU game that year; while he was disappointed with the just-completed season, he was fired up about his upcoming recruiting trips and it's safe to say "resignation" couldn't have been farther from his mind. 4 days later, his resignation was announced via boilerplate press release. As anyone who's read Endzone knows, it wasn't really a resignation, just like the many other coaches let go by Brandon. In talking with him afterwards, he really had no idea why he was let go. He'd asked for a raise after the Final Four run (he didn't make anywhere close to the current coach's salary), and was rebuffed, and thought that might have been the beginning of the end for him. In retrospect, after reading Endzone, the reason is as obvious as it is stupefying: he was the face of Michigan soccer, and he wasn't one of Brandon's guys, so any success he had would never be attributable to Brandon. As for why he quit coaching, the reason is simple: he loves Michigan, and wanted to raise his kids in Ann Arbor. I don't know enough about soccer to know whether he was a great coach. I do know he combines a Harbaugh-esque love of Michigan with utmost integrity and competitive spirit. He should have been the guy who they named the stadium after following a 20-plus year career. Instead he goes down as just another example of Brandon's utter mismanagement.

Joined: 05/26/2010

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mtzlblk

September 17th, 2015 at 11:39 AM ^

from High School and my time at M, my younger brother played for him at M on a club team. There was nothing else going on....Burns wanted to be the coach and there was nothing preventing him from doing so other than "If it ain't broke, break it!" If you consider that phrase and what DB did to the AD (ehr.... broke it), we can't say we weren't warned.

Joined: 01/20/2009

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South Bend Wolverine

September 16th, 2015 at 10:21 PM ^

Dickbag comments notwithstanding, this sort of thing was one of the biggest points in BLL that jumped off that page.  Sure, there were one or two instances of Brandon making some good/necessary moves - going with Bakich in baseball stands out as one that probably needed to happen.  The list of BS coaching decisions, though, is much, much longer.  The men's tennis situation, the boggling axe to the water polo coach, Burns (although I do recall at the time some people saying that, while he had success, he wasn't a very well-liked guy - not sure if that was valid or not), and so on.  The biggest one, which I don't think got mentioned in BLL, has to be the insane pushing-out of Mel Pearson.  I lay the dip in hockey's fortunes almost 100% on losing the best assistant coach in the country.  He'll prob come back when we call, but man, I'd rather have not sucked for several years in the meantime.

Joined: 09/11/2009

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Wolverine Devotee

September 16th, 2015 at 11:00 PM ^

I'm 99.9% sure one of Hackett's other projects he keeps talking about is Red's replacement as this is the last year on his contract that he said was his last one.

Mel Pearson coming back home--to his REAL home--in addition to bringing Harbaugh home is grounds for naming an arena after Hackett.

Joined: 06/29/2009

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MGoBender

September 16th, 2015 at 10:02 PM ^

The Saad brothers and Justin Meram were certainly the zenith of Michigan soccer.  Obviously, there was a small drop off when they left.  That was expected.  To force out the program's father, Steve Burns, because of a lull after that amazing couple years is one of the things I hate most about the Dave Brandon era.

Joined: 03/26/2010

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MGoBender

September 16th, 2015 at 10:27 PM ^

To expand:  Soccer, like most non-revenue sports, has far less full time scholarships available to it than the number of players needed to fill a roster.  I think Men's Soccer is 10 or 11.  Therefore, few people - if any - get a full scholarship.  Most players get partials.  

Therefore, it's really difficult to recruit.  You can't get everyone you want.  You can offer player X a 50% scholarship.  That's a huge offer for a player that's probably very, very good.  However, for some smaller school that might not attract the top tier of recruits, they might offer that player 75% or 100%.  Obviously, the player is going to go where the money is.

Yeah, Chaka Daly had a great recruiting class.  Question (don't remember):  Was it right after Meram/Saad departures?  If so, that means a lot of scholly money opened up, so it would make sense if he pulled in big players b/c he had the scholarships to offer.

Burns built the program from, literally, nothing to a national contender.  And suddenly he left despite all reports being he didn't want to leave.  

EDIT:

Justin Meram's last year was 2010.

Soony left after his freshman year, 2010.

Hamoody also left after 2010.

Chaka Daly was named head coach after the 2011 season.  I'm not sure how early soccer recruiting gets going, but it could be that Chaka's first class was the first recruiting class that was recruited with those three's scholarships known to be available.

EDIT 2:  This MGoBlue article says the 2013-14 season was the second full recruiting class for Daley's staff.  That'd mean the 2011-12 class was a partial Daley class, so there might not be much of a connection to those scholarships opening up.

http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/021214aaa.html

Joined: 03/26/2010

MGoPoints: 15128

jdizzle

September 17th, 2015 at 2:26 AM ^

As someone who attended Burns camps throughout high school yes, he was a solid foundation. But he also screwed over multiple local athletes by promising them a spot on the team (instead of taking a scholarship at WMU or CMU) and then not even acknowledging them at the "tryout" for walking onto the team. Yes the man founded the soccer team here but, even though I despise him for most things he did, burns was not bringing this team championships. I think John Paul will face the same fate in lax.

Joined: 10/30/2009

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