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From the Pitch - The Game Plan

By GREG COCHRANE, San Antonio FC, 08/01/18, 6:20PM EDT

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Three years ago, I lost my job. It might have been the best thing that ever happened to me

To help you understand my decision to return to school and pursue my MBA while playing, I first need to tell you my story.

Soccer was in my blood. My dad grew up playing soccer and played collegiately at NC State. When my older brother was born, he put a ball at his foot and introduced him to the beautiful game. A year later, when I was born, he did the same for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but soccer would eventually become my life. It was all I wanted to do. If I wasn’t at practice, I was either in my backyard trying to improve or watching soccer on TV.

Growing up, teachers would always ask us what we wanted to be when we were older. My answer never wavered, “I’m going to be a professional soccer player.” They would often smile and say okay, but what if that doesn’t work out? And I would reiterate my answer…I was that determined.

The path to professional soccer in the United States was a bit different when I was growing up than what it is today. There was no U.S. Development Academy until my senior year of high school and the MLS Homegrown rule wasn’t established until then as well. The latter didn’t apply to me anyway because where I grew up in Philadelphia, there was no MLS franchise yet.


Picture my mom sent me from one of my second grade projects. Still working on kicking the ball really far…

"Growing up, teachers would always ask us what we wanted to be when we were older. My answer never wavered, 'I’m going to be a professional soccer player.'"

To make my dream become a reality, the path to professional soccer was through college. My parents always instilled that education was important and a college degree lasts forever. I always tried hard in school to get the best possible grades I could. I was completive, after all. But school for me was always a means to an end. 

After a college career that started at Virginia Tech and ended at Louisville, my dream was realized in 2013 when I was drafted in the second round of the MLS SuperDraft to the LA Galaxy.

I had a solid rookie year making a handful of starts, but nothing spectacular. I came to preseason the next year determined to make my mark. Three days before the 2014 season started, I was notified that I had been traded to the Chicago Fire (Welcome to professional sports Greg!) The next two years in Chicago was much of the same, spot starts here and there but nothing consistent. At the end of the 2015 season, I was released.

The next four months were some of the hardest times of my life. I’m used to rejection. Growing up I was cut from the State ODP team and basically sat on the bench for my club team until I was 16 because I was “too small”.

I’ve always faced adversity and prided myself on working through it. But these four months, all I kept hearing was no. No MLS, NASL or USL team wanted me. I went to Sweden for a few weeks and it didn’t work out, so I came home. Was my career about to be over before it really got started? What will I do with my life? I was at a complete loss. Luckily, San Antonio was starting a new team and gave me a chance.

In the back of my mind I always knew soccer wasn’t forever, I just didn’t want to believe it. But those four months made me realize how fragile one’s career really is. Want to give a player anxiety? Ask him/her what they want to do after they hang up the boots. Although I already had a degree to fall back on, I didn’t feel prepared nor know what to do. That was the moment when I realized I needed to start seriously considering my future after the game.

As professional players, we have a lot of free time on our hands. There were days where I was bored after practice since I didn’t have anything to do. I decided to use this time to further my education by going back to school to get my MBA with a finance concentration. While a brick-and-mortar school was out of the equation due to the circumstances of being a professional athlete and the uncertainty from year-to-year, I opted to take advantage of MLS partnership with Southern New Hampshire University and go to school online.

I’ve always been intrigued with business and I thought this was a great step to piggyback off my Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Why a finance concentration? Not only do I like investing (and saw this as an investment in myself), but the decisions you make will impact the financial well-being of your organization (and your own finances) and understanding how this works will allow you to contribute and make better informed decisions. Regardless of what you do, you will always use finance.

Plus, I thought an MBA would be valuable and versatile enough that you can use it in a lot of different fields.

Was playing professional soccer and going to school difficult? It was way more manageable than I thought it would be. As soccer players, we have a pretty good understanding of what our schedule for the week looks like. This made it a lot easier to find time after practice, while traveling, etc. to knock out some work.

Don’t get me wrong, there were certainly days where I just wanted to go home and watch Netflix all day after a tough session. But the school work also became a welcomed distraction.

I know some people will probably say that they just want to focus on soccer and their career. I get that. I was in that camp before. But my first few years playing I would sit at home overanalyzing everything, especially during the times I couldn’t seem to get on the field. At those times, I was looking for an escape. School became that, and I think it was the best decision that I could have made. Not only was I preparing for life after the game, but it made every minute playing on the field that much more enjoyable because you realize you won’t be able to do this forever. In fact, 2017 turned out to be my best year as a pro. Not only did I start 34 games across all competitions, but our team also had the most shutouts and lowest goals against in the entire league.

Every player is eventually told they can no longer play the game, and too many players aren’t prepared for life after the lights turn out on their career. I was given a warning a few years ago, and it scared me beyond belief. Ex-players have told me how difficult and scary the transition can be without preparation. The one thing every player has right now is time. If I could give any advice, it would be for players to go out and explore what they are interested in. Call someone in the field you are interested in and see what their life is like. It’s better to find out what you like/don’t like now while you are still playing, than going into a job when your career is over just to realize you hate it.

As players, we have a unique story to tell. From my networking experiences, people are very willing to talk with you now as a professional player…you might not have that same luxury when you are an ex-professional. So be proactive and not reactive!

While it’s important to look ahead, it’s crucial to not lose sight of your soccer career. You’ve worked your whole life to become a pro and you should squeeze every ounce out of it that you possibly can. It’s the best job in the world, after all. But father time is undefeated... While I’m still trying to figure out which business field I want to eventually go into, I feel way more prepared now than I did 3 years ago for the inevitable day of soccer ending. For now, I’m just enjoying every moment playing the beautiful game.


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