Sept. 8, 2003
CLEVELAND - In the fall of 2004, Cleveland State University will kick off its inaugural women's soccer season. Derrek Falor will head up the women's program, after coming to Cleveland State in February. Falor will be assisted by four-year DePaul letterwinner and Westlake-native, Lauren Geiger.
Falor sat down with CSUVikings.com to discuss the program's progress to date.
Q: How would you describe your first six months at CSU?
A: It has been great, and a lot of the credit goes to (CSU athletic director) Lee Reed. He is so fired up about creating a department that is the pinnacle of what an athletic department should be. He wants to create a place that other athletic departments look to. He's easy to work for, he's excited and he's motivated...it's hard to want to do less than your best when he's around.
Q: When you began at Cleveland State in February, did you have a monthly plan for developing the women's soccer program?
A: It was more of a plan for the first year. In not knowing the area very well, my first couple months were spent finding who were the elite club teams were and getting out to watch them. I knew it would be hard to complete all of the necessary steps in a few months, so my first step was recruiting.
Q: How did you go about finding club teams in this area?
A: The Internet is a wonderful thing! I went through the Ohio State Soccer Association to find out what all the clubs were, and just started weeding out and keeping the appropriate teams. I got a sense of their practice and game schedules. Frankly, not knowing where to start, I watched everybody, and after about a month, I was able to decide who the top four or five teams were, and spent more time there. There were a lot of phone calls, as well. It was probably as much marketing as recruiting, because a lot of coaches and players were not aware we were starting a program here.
Q: How did you go about marketing the program to the area coaches?
A: I directed people to CSUVikings.com, initially targeting the top two or three players on each team, and also sending information to all of the teams; after all, it's better to have eighteen people talking about CSU rather than just one or two. I spent the first couple months just sending out massive amounts of mail, articles, items about myself, just trying to get the word out. The interest level has been very high, and we're starting to get verbal commitments from players. The coaches, parents and athletes seem very happy that we now have a program here, that there will be a hometown team.
Q: What are your expectations for the make-up of the inaugural team?
A: By what we have now, I feel like we'll have 10-12 scholarship kids, with maybe three to five quality walk-ons, maybe a transfer here or there. We're not aiming for some magic number. I don't want players who can't help us; if our roster is competitive through eighteen players, then we'll stop right there. If we have to create numbers, it's not worth it.
Q: How big of a role did scheduling play in your early months here?
A: That was probably one of the first things I did. I looked at the natural geographic rivalries that existed, the schools we'd be recruiting against, like Kent and Bowling Green. I also talked to other coaches and got a sense from them which Ohio teams would be manageable, yet competitive. From there it just broadened out to western New York and so on. Frankly, most coaches will see a game with us as a probable win, it being our first year, so it wasn't difficult to find schools to schedule us. Our natural Ohio rivalries will bring people to watch games, and if we win those games, that will bring us recruits.
Q: What do you consider the potential "big games"?
A: Definitely the games in the Horizon League, especially the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Butler, the two top programs in the league. Those are games that will really show us where we stand. We're playing Toledo, Kent and Bowling Green...those will be significant. All three of those will be marquee games. We're also playing DePaul, and that will fun.
Q: What do you see beyond the inaugural season?
A: The schedule in 2005 will probably be fairly similar. By the third year, we may expand to an out-of-region tournament, or schedule a school like Ohio State or Cincinnati. By then, I hope to be competitive with schools of that caliber. I hope to take the team to other parts of the country, to give the kids a chance to see things they may not otherwise see. I want to be challenging for the Horizon League title four years down the line, and I'm working backwards from that. It's hard to put a number on how many wins you would like to get, but if we can be competitive with the top teams in the conference, I'll be happy for that. I'd love to see seven to nine wins the first year, and build on that the second year. I think the Horizon League is close to having two teams in the NCAA tournament, and I'd like to be one of those two.
