The seasons have changed
David Vranicar
Issue date: 9/18/07 Section: Sports
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But somehow, after suffering through a miserable 4-12-2 season in 2006, Regis has melded into an unlikely but legitimate candidate to win the RMAC.
So much about this team is different from last season. Over half of the roster is new. The coach is new. The attitude is new. And the results are new, too. They had four wins this season after just six games.
The team has athletic director Barb Schroeder more excited about men's soccer than she has been in years.
"I see the returning guys busting their tails more than I've see them do in the last two or three years. And then that combined with the new talent, the new freshmen and transfers, and they don't know any different. They're in to win....I see that energy level. I know coach Tiemeyer's doing the right thing and got expectations for those guys that possibly they haven't had before as a college player."
To appreciate how good things have been this season, you have to consider how inept Regis was during last season's campaign. The team was outscored 29-10. They were outshot 232-160. They were shut out ten different times. Students weren't going to the games, and even the players seemed to not care about soccer.
"Honestly, I hated soccer last year," said Ryan Brennan, a two-year starter at center back. "I dreaded going to practice. Games weren't fun."
Senior defender Aaron Mejia felt the same way. "It was a negative attitude at practice. No one wanted to be there."
Players would often leave practice "doubting why you're playing soccer."
But things began to change as soon as the season ended. Head coach Matt McDowell resigned after six seasons, and Tiemeyer, who was a first-year assistant in '06, was appointed the interim head coach. The school then received a flood of almost 100 applicants to claim the job.
Schroeder and a selection committee from the athletic department dwindled those 100 down to three, and Tiemeyer's name was still on the list. By the time the list was at three, Schroeder admits that Tiemeyer had an advantage because he is so familiar with Regis. And, well, he should be. He played soccer and went to school here from 1987-1991.
"He knows Regis. He loves Regis," Schroeder said. "And of those three finalists, one knew the game just as good as the other. But I think Keith, in my mind and in the minds of the search committee, tipped the scales with [the fact that] his heart was at Regis. He wanted to be here."
It took the players about 12 minutes to realize that things would be different under Tiemeyer. That's because the season began with a grueling two-miles-in-12-minutes dash that acted as a default tryout. The test itself is not Tiemeyer's invention, but he did add a little twist: if a player failed to pass the test within a week, they were cut. Period. Players had to complete the test in order to even be considered for a spot on the team.
The summer started with a 30-man roster. Only 22 were left after the fitness test.
"That's different," Tiemeyer said. "In previous years it'd be if you don't pass the fitness test then you have to do extra work, but you're still in the group. And I think guys did take that seriously this year."
Freshman Stewart Copeland was part of the first class to be subjected to this 12-minute ultimatum, but he didn't resent the extra work.
"In all honesty...I think that was the very beginning that said, 'We're going to be a different program this year. And if you don't want to be here, you're just not going to be here.' Those people [who were cut], whether they had the heart to play or not, the fact is they couldn't run it. And that was the very beginning, the first sign that we wanted to change this program."
And a lot about the program has changed. Just look at the 7 am practices. Tiemeyer has a litany of reasons for why he moved practice from late afternoon to early morning. First he mentions that he doesn't want to hog the intramural fields or mess up the afternoon schedule of extra-curricular activities.
Eventually, though, he mentions the other kind of extra-curricular activities that account for the 7 am start time.
"It does offer some discipline as well. Like I said, our guys have to go to bed at night. They have to prepare themselves. They have to get proper rest. You know, you can't be out doing certain things and coming out the next morning and performing.
"It's a pretty cool campus. There's a lot of neat things going on on our campus at 3:30, 4 o'clock in the afternoon..But you know what? At 6:30 in the morning there's not a lot going on on this campus except people stumbling into the dorms."
The 7 am practices have put a kibosh on the players' social life. ("I don't even know what people do on weekends," Copeland said.) But that may have been just what the team needed. According to some players, much of the 2006 debacle stemmed from off-the-field issues, namely alcohol.
"Just sitting in the meeting room, talking about everything that went wrong in the years past, and the single most important thing was alcohol," Copeland said.
"People [were] drinking way too much. I wasn't here completely, but just hearing people talk, it was drinking the day before [a game]. It's not just games that the alcohol affected. When you don't train and practice because your alcohol is affecting you, that's one less practice you have.
And there's only so many practices. And when you don't practice hard, how do you expect the person next to you to be practicing?"
Schroeder also felt that the players weren't being held accountable.
"I think there was a clear lack of discipline in the past, both on and off the field," Schroeder said. "I think McDowell was a very good technical,
tactical coach. His toughness and the expectations he had for the guys to work hard were a little bit lacking….[The players] needed somebody who was going to hold their feet to the fire and say, 'Hey, this is how hard we're going to work, and if not, this is going to happen.'"
Tiemeyer said almost exactly the same thing: "We're holding their feet to the fire a little bit, saying either you perform or you have to come sit down on the bench."
The change that has taken place under Tiemeyer has, for the most part, been indirect. He never explicitly outlawed his players from drinking, but tying one on isn't really an option with practice at 7 am. He also didn't give edicts to his players about what they had to do during the summer, but they knew about the lung-popping 12 minute run waiting for them when they got together in August. And Tiemeyer never said, "If you mess up, then you're coming out." But with a new stockpile of talent sitting on the bench, players know that a misstep on the field could be the first step towards the bench.
With so much change surrounding the soccer program, it is dangerous to speculate about how this season will play out. Maybe the freshmen will succumb to the length and physical demands of an NCAA schedule. Maybe
kinks will appear in the Regis defense. And maybe the rigors of trying to claim a spot in the postseason will befuddle a brand new coaching staff.
But for now, with a 3-1-1 conference record, there is every reason to believe that this team will compete for an RMAC championship, and maybe more.
For now, Regis soccer is proof that change is good.
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