How 'The Dream' Has Transformed Women's Soccer: The Power of Mentorship and Community (Footy4MySoul with guest Greg Rowe)

Greg Rowe, the visionary behind the Boston Dream Soccer Association, joins us to unravel the transformative essence of mentorship in women's soccer. Greg shares his inspiring journey from the classroom and soccer field to pioneering a movement that champions equality and creates opportunities for female athletes at all levels. The Dream is about more than just professional success; it's a relentless advocacy for equal pay and opportunities, promoting a level playing field in women's soccer. Discover the power of community-driven support systems and how they build networks to inspire future generations.

Empowering Women Through Soccer Mentorship.  Through leadership pathways, community-building, and international opportunities, Boston Dream is paving the way for female athletes to thrive both on and off the pitch.

What You’ll Learn:

⚽ The impact of mentorship in women’s soccer
⚽ Building leadership and global connections for aspiring players
⚽ Creating a mentorship community without borders
⚽ Removing barriers and expanding opportunities in soccer
⚽ Collaboration between leagues to shape soccer’s future
⚽ Instilling values of advocacy, courage, and creativity

Join us to explore how Boston Dream is creating a brighter future for women in soccer, emphasizing the importance of giving back and fostering positive change.

The Boston Dream Soccer Association:
https://www.thebostondream.com/

Transcript

justin: 0:03

Welcome to Footy4MySoul, where curiosity, caring, courage and creativity shape our exploration of this beautiful game, connecting experiences from the pitch to life. This is your space to learn and to be inspired, whether you're a player, coach, parent, mentor or anyone. Let us enjoy this journey of beautiful growth. Welcome to Footy4MySoul. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce Greg Rowe, a passionate advocate for women's soccer and founder of The Boston Dream Soccer Association, affectionately known as the Dream. The Dream is more than just a soccer organization. This is a movement dedicated to empowering female athletes by creating pathways, breaking barriers and fostering mentorship opportunities that span the grassroots, connecting them through the professional levels. Under Greg's leadership, the Dream has become a beacon of opportunity and inclusivity, leveraging partnerships across the US and Europe to open doors for women in the game. At its core, the Boston Dream Soccer Association strives to keep women engaged in soccer while fostering leadership development for women and younger girls at any age. Founded in 2020 as a nonprofit organization, the Dream offers soccer players education and training in leadership, coaching and career development. Through community-based initiatives, it connects women to opportunities and young players to older players throughout New England, with impact all over the globe. We'll talk about that, guided by its core values of leadership, education, community and opportunity, the Dream envisions a future where soccer serves as a platform for empowerment, growth and lasting impact. In this episode, we dive deep into the transformative power of mentorship in sports. Mentorship, as Greg and the Dream will demonstrate, isn't just about guidance. It's about creating networks of support that connect aspiring players with seasoned veterans, fostering a sense of community that transcends financial motivations. From the impactful work of initiatives like the Soccer Unity Project and Women's Soccer Summit to the Dream's commitment to visibility and diversity, we explore how mentorship builds legacies and inspires future generations of athletes. We also discuss how community-driven support systems like those championed by the Dream play a pivotal role in breaking down barriers for women in sports. By creating inclusive environments where mentorship and collaboration thrive, the Dreamer not just shaping the future of soccer, they're cultivating a culture of courage, creativity and purpose. This conversation highlights how soccer can be a vehicle for personal growth, social impact and lasting change. Whether you're an athlete, coach, parent or simply passionate about advancing equality in sports, this episode offers invaluable lessons on fostering mentorship, building community and using soccer as a tool for empowerment. Don't forget to subscribe to Footy4MySoul for more episodes or visit our website and please explore our Experiences Connected journal available on SubStack. We dive deeper into insights of this conversation and the game. Join us for these heartfelt conversations and the transformative power of mentorship and the extraordinary work of mentorship and the extraordinary work of the Boston Dream Soccer Association. Thank you so much. Let's dive in. Greg Rowe, welcome to Footy4MySoul, thank you. This is special because we have an overarching mission to make a beautiful game more beautiful. We will at times look at places to further refine the game. I'm quite analytical and sometimes a little too much where I'm like, hey, we can do better. This is a situation. It feels so good to just talk to you because, given what was built and the Boston Dream Soccer Association, we look at our stakeholders and obviously we start with the player and the parent, always trying to support the player. We hope the coaches, whether it's a parent coach or more of a club professional coach, embraces the balance between off pitch with what we focus on pitch often, all too often more. But mentors is really where we're gonna lean in for our conversation. So I love to start with what got you there. It's not so much the story. What got you there, it's not so much the story. It's reflecting on the balance or not of the luck it took, the skill, the hard work and, at a very high level, what it took to accomplish where we're at now. Then we'll talk more about where it's going Luck versus skill. Where are we at?

greg: 5:42

Well, I'm a teacher by trade, so part of my goals as a teacher was always to be a coach, and I coached hockey early on, I coached soccer early on and then, when the varsity job opened up, I was a varsity coach for 10 years. With that I became the president of the Soccer Coaches Association for high schools, which really made a lot of those connections. We were talking about some luck, some skill to really embed me into the soccer community from top to bottom, and ever since then I've been working with the Dream to try to promote women in soccer.

justin: 6:17

The Dream, it's great marketing as well, right, because it's inspirational, aspirational, it's where every young grassroots player has the dream at the youngest level. And we're going to talk about how the number of pros that have gone, whether it be in Europe and the United States, that have gone through and been involved in the Boston Dream Soccer Association but as I will refer to it as the Boston Dream or the dream where the name come from, the dream where the name come from.

greg: 6:49

The name is exactly that. It's when looking at team names and what we wanted to do, the dream really was it, and it's more than just playing professional. It's about equality. It's about equal pay, it's about equal opportunity, because those things are lacking in the soccer space and they're gradually, slowly, but we're nowhere near where the men's side is, and the men's side has set up a great system, has wonderful resources and things like that, and it's awesome to see some programs establish that for the women. However, the number of opportunities for women is not the same as men, and that is something we strive for, we support and any organization that pushes for that. We are behind 100%.

justin: 7:28

So, as you think broadly about men versus women's soccer football, for a minute, even though the women have been more successful on the pitch in the United States context, less opportunity. Now let's just broadly talk about what we mean by opportunity, especially in a world that is largely pay to play. Now, pay to play, the accessibility is probably the biggest issue. When you talk about opportunity within the development and growth of the dream, was it an unmet need that you saw for women, like at the time, because you could have created it for men? What was the driving force for women? Because at the time of creation, the women were winning right it was actually the men that weren't winning and are finally catching up to the women's game. So why women?

greg: 8:16

It was noticeably being a member of the High School Coaches Association. When they're 18, we hand out you're an All-American, you're an All-New England and these are part of these national awards that are offered by the National Coaches Association, and we focused really on the Northeast of New England, the Boston area people, and what we wanted to do was, you know, make sure these women who were getting the awards had the same opportunities as the men. The men we would give these awards to and you'd see them playing in the MLS or the USL or playing in Europe, and the women tended to have great, similar college careers and then not have the opportunity to play at the professional level, not have the opportunity to get those doors opened that the men naturally did.

justin: 9:03

So interesting that we always talk about the pyramid inverting at some level. So there's two levels. So the pyramid women at the top of the heap, there's how far they get as a sex on the pitch, but also inverting that not everyone makes it to the top. And inverting the pyramid is opportunity and community. So, as you thought about the development, the initial genesis, and I think it's going to help think about where it's going, how much of it is once they've gotten to the top, they did more on the pitch, or is it broadening out the opportunities or both?

greg: 9:39

It's really both. It's the playing opportunities, whether it's professional or semi-pro Really both, it's the playing opportunities, whether it's professional or semi-pro. We work with you know professional clubs in Europe. We have connections with the USL and NWSL and we also have the adult leagues that continue on. One of our favorite partners is Mass Soccer and Liz McQuilkin, who, she, is super excited to have the over 70 Women's cup run this year, which is absolutely fantastic, and the biggest group of soccer players in mass soccer is you'll love this name the Over the Hill League.

justin: 10:16

I'm feeling that now.

greg: 10:17

Where they are. You know they have the over 35, the over 40, all the way up to the upper 70s division on men's, and they're growing the women's divisions, so that inverted pyramid, so to speak. We create that web that connects to the youth, that connects straight up to the over 70s. So the dream has done a very and really, as we'll talk about an organic job of connecting the very top of the pyramid to the bottom of the pyramid, but also that inverted pyramid as well.

justin: 10:46

Connected experiences is one of our kind of core, what we believe in and it's very difficult to do, especially in the context of without a financial benefit, right, so to actually do it organically and able to create something. So let's talk about the mentorship angle of this, because in order to connect or invert right Connected experiences, there's more opportunities for women or men it really shouldn't matter, but in this case, we've done the dream, has done an exceptional job on the woman's side. There's no reason this conversation can't also apply to men, to other sports, right? But this is just a great use case that we want to highlight. Doing it, as we've mentioned in the introduction, this is your avocation, not your full-time job. Connecting these experiences from grassroots to pro in the mentorship model. That's the key, because you have to be willing to care and to have the ultimately. You know the curiosity of asking questions and caring enough to connect those experiences right. So today let's think about what the options are from a mentorship standpoint Best practices and I do share as well. I look at it, at the mentoring coaches to coach other coaches, exceptional work by platforms like United Soccer Coaches and my mentor, the tech platform overseas, making it easy and accessible to connect those experiences For the player and that player network. I want to give some good examples, cool examples later of female footballers out on the West Coast, incredible how you have mentors, help with mental health and confidence and again you're connecting that experience the youth to the pro. It's so fluid, it's in your, from my understanding, and every time we do a podcast. We spent time last night talking about this but just share how organic and the DNA of the organization on connecting the experiences and mentorship and to the extent of that relative to what goes on the pitch.

greg: 12:54

It's one of those things that we've always set out to do, but it's true, the way it happens, you can't always play up on that. So, just to think of some examples of that, we have the Women's Soccer Summit, and that was one of the first events we have. So part of it is we have a team that's on the field that plays a dozen games a year, but we always tie it to our core events, which is a coaching clinic, a Women's Soccer Summit, as well as a networking event, and the Boston Women's Soccer Summit has been going on will be in our fourth year in 2025. But what it's done is connect. We have a panel of women that have found success through soccer, on and off the pitch, and they've always spoken about different things, whether it's mental strength or different jobs they've been able to have in the sports industry that not necessarily are coach or trainer or player.

justin: 13:52

So the pyramid is broadening.

greg: 13:53

The pyramid is broadening. For example, at our last Women's Summit we had Gilda Doria, who is the founder of Soccer Co and it's a network for soccer players globally. She was able to connect with our speaker, Suzanne McKenzie, who runs the UCAL McKenzie Breakaway Foundation and Able Made. Now Gilda was put in the SoccerHead team, into the TST, the 7v7 tournament that's run in North Carolina by another dream player, who is Kelly Quigley, our friend who will be on the show? Yes, and so Gilda got into that tournament and Suzanne was able to outfit her with Able Made gear. As for the walk-in and everything else and they've made that connection you also have from another summit that we had, diana Gentile, who you're going to have on the show as well she was able to connect with the Soccer Unity Project and host their Boston Youth Soccer Summit, which was attended by NWSL Boston, by the New England Revolution, by Mass Soccer and hundreds of us that are within that community that want to support grassroots soccer in Boston.

justin: 14:58

So let's bring this down to the experience at the player level how old, why do they go and what's that experience in terms of who they need to meet? And when you go through that, can you share those leaders on your board for inspiration? Because one thing that's wonderful about mentorship, one that they care to give the time, they're willing to ask questions and be curious to help, because if you don't ask questions, you're not going to help the young player. But who are those players? And then who do they get to aspire to in those experiences?

greg: 15:34

It's really neat. So we have a wonderful advisory board. We have Caroline Foscato of the Soccer Unity Project, who I just mentioned, who makes soccer free for all kids in Boston, including at the club level, where they hire some of our dream players as coaches. We have Jessica Davis, who is the sporting director at FCN over in Denmark. That's a right to dream program. She does fantastic and I'll bring her up with the Julianne story in a minute. And then we also have the college coaches, Kia McNeill and Ashley Phillips of Northeastern and Brown, who were former Boston Breakers and we always like to say we created the Boston dream to keep those women in Boston, because Kia is here because of you know, the Boston Breakers. We have one of our mentors, Meotis Erickson, who works at the club level, who is one of the OG Boston Breakers, who is one of our mentors, and things like that. But to tell you an example of how that all plays out, we had one group from Scotland come over and they wanted to work with like-minded groups. So they met with Caroline Foscato and I, because Caroline does the youth and we do the adults. So there's that inverted pyramid you were talking about. That they also have at their club and we've we've replicated a lot of what they like to do the um, fc spartans and they were saying, do you have any players? And Ashley Phillips and I were there and I looked at him like, what about Julian? Julian was one of our original members who had just graduated. She got that fifth year because of Covid and then just graduated, and Ashley and I spoke to them highly about Julianne Ross and Julianne went and played for FC Spartans. She then wanted to move to Denmark but wasn't sure what she wanted. So she was able to reach out to Jesse Davis. Jesse Davis is able to tell her how each club is because, while I know, with this podcast we've talked about standards of leagues and expectations, Europe it's a lot more loosey-goosey, it's a lot more widespread. The top tier even has drastically different standards in La Liga, for example, from the top teams to the lower teams, so how each one operates. So Julianne was able to talk to Jesse about what does this team offer, what does that team offer? And she was able to go play in Denmark about what does this team offer, what does that team offer? And she was able to go play in Denmark.

justin: 17:45

Now that's a roadmap, which is great for the semi-pro player to become pro and ultimately they come back right and then they are still involved in this community. Yes, if I am and it shouldn't be just in the Boston area, but anywhere wanted to be associated with the dream you mentioned member and so forth. How do I become a member? And I guess the question is in the context of the youth grassroots player that aspires to be that professional as being different than the professional that stays with the organization. So let's first start at the grassroots level. How do they become part of this? How do they learn about it?

greg: 18:32

Well, we pretty much run our games tied to events. Now, by tied to events, I've mentioned the Women's Soccer Summit, the coaching clinic and networking event, coaching clinic and networking event. However, we do run soccer clinics for kids at Boston Scores and South End Soccer and Soccer Without Borders and Beyond Soccer up in Lawrence, and all these are grassroots, free to play programs and our women run not only a leadership clinic with them but a soccer clinic. So they spend 30, 45 minutes working on leadership skills, how to be a good teammate. What do you expect from your teammates? How can you be a better teammate? How can you be a good leader of your team even if you're not a captain? And then they move on to this is how you know you can play soccer and do the soccer drills and they can show what they can do. And this combination, really, I've always found enlightening because Evren Gunduz, who's Enjoy Life Education, he's a member of our board and does our leadership programming. He has set up this leadership handbook and it's really neat to see a woman who's played professional soccer at Division I soccer or college soccer talk about. These are the things that I look for in a teammate and it's not about dribbling or shooting or strength. It's about trust and loyalty and sometimes it's little things like being on time or never being negative and things like that. And they talk about the pet peeves and, as a younger player, you may admire that or you may have that same pet peeve, and that brings this natural connection to these grassroots players who are aspiring to be players. It's like, yes, you want to be as strong and as skilled as this young woman is. However, there are some mental traits that you may already share that you can see and find on your journey.

justin: 20:21

Okay, so to connect the experience now you have. Oh, let's context how many players have gone through the dream that have played professional.

greg: 20:30

Play professional. We probably have had 25 players play for us that have had a pro contract at some point in their career, either before they were pro or they had played pro and then played for us.

justin: 20:40

And I assume most of them are still involved in the organization.

greg: 20:43

They are involved, because they usually tend, if they move on or find careers or spread across the country, like some of our NWSL and USL players have, or the woman playing in Europe. Now they stay as our contacts to how to find the right agent or what to expect when you go to a certain part of the country or a certain part of the world, because every place is different and they're able to help out. The perfect example I can give you of this is we had one of our players that was playing in Israel. She had played for us, you know, while she was home in the summer and then went back and played in Israel. There was another player that we had in our network you know that we had met at an event and was friends with everyone suddenly calls me up and says I'm going to Europe in a week, what do I do? Roadmap, roadmap needed, so she had. Essentially, I'm like, talk to Natalie over in Israel. You're going there, she knows the clubs what to expect, things like that. However, this was during the time of COVID, where you still had to quarantine. So Brooke ends up traveling to Israel to play for her new team and has to do a two-week quarantine in an apartment with no kitchen, and then Natalie would come every single day and bring her meals and sit on the other side of the door and just talk to her for an hour Now if you had asked me when planning this in 2019 and 2020, if we were ever going to have a situation like that no, that would never have come to my mind. Would we consider that a random?

justin: 22:08

act of kindness and a butterfly effect that we didn't think we would have thought of when creating this.

greg: 22:10

Exactly, exactly. That is one of those things that is an amazing story about how amazing these women are and how good they are to each other and how supportive they are of each other, and how it can have that butterfly effect that continues to this day.

justin: 22:23

Okay. So there's mentorship from the player to the next aspiring pro player. There's programming, which we spoke about, for grassroots. When you think about the player that's still at grassroots and wants to play for the dream someday, who is their mentor? Do they think of there as a mentor there? How do they get one? Is it just they go to the camps I think you mentioned, was it? Christine Lilly has camps and you think about young kids and I know you know you can tell when she played for the national team and so forth. But having a pro that played at the highest level, care and do camps is, I would think, that kind of mentor. Is that the best example or how we've connected the grassroots?

greg: 23:13

to the pro. That is one thing that we've done very well is creating these opportunities for our women to continue being involved in the game. Our whole mission is to keep women involved in soccer, and coaching is one natural way to do it. There are a ton of behind the scenes stuff that we're seeing happen too. We mentioned Kelly Quigley. We have Paige Kowalski, who's also a member of Delaware North. We have all these professional in the sports industries. But with that youth program we do. We have women that work with Christine Lilly in our Christine Lilly soccer camps. We have the Ucal Breakaway Foundation. Ucal McKenzie, his wife Suzanne, runs this amazing program for the kids in the city of Boston that we run those camps with. We've sent kids to the Foley Athletic Advising ID Camp, which IDs the top 100 players in Massachusetts, and they work at those camps with those players. We also have things like the Laura Ray Soccer Camp up in New Hampshire where our women go and speak at, and so there are all these different opportunities. They have to find different ways to impact kids. We were able to connect with the Mayor Wu, the Mayor of Boston. She ran a soccer festival this summer and we were able to send players to that, to work a jamboree and speak about their experiences. So at all levels, whether it's at the elite college ID camps to the very tiny grassroots plant place, we find ways to get our women integrated and to know these kids and to know these future stars and these future players, these hidden gems, and watch where they go.

justin: 24:47

Watch where they go. So setting context for what a mentor is probably is worthwhile for a few minutes. Obviously, at its core is the development of trust, but you need somebody to care to give you the time. So that's really tough in an environment You've built a great one. How do you define mentorship within the context of Boston Dream and, as you answer that, think about how others can do it? Because one thing of it's great to talk about the success here and we're going to dig into mentorship, but I always sometimes get concerned that it's available to the Boston area. But what if you're in another region and it doesn't have it? So you know, part of the butterfly effect we talk about is let's dig into mentorship. But you know, greg, what you have, we have in the new england area, is awesome. As you think about what are the? How do we help others do this? We're going to talk more about Boston Dream Association. Can it happen elsewhere? But just mentorship, how do you think about it and how do we help others?

greg: 26:09

Lot of it is trusting and we have women. I mean, the beauty of the Boston area is that a lot of people from all over the world come here and we have a lot of women that were not necessarily played in Boston or were even raised in the Boston area, but they come here because of jobs or because of work or because of other opportunities and we're able to connect with them and that kind of naturally broadens. You know, oh, we know people from here and we know people from there, but there has to be a certain level of trust that is built between mentor and mentee and that level of trust is very important and the women are always very honest and that's why it's not me acting as an intimate, like as like I'm telling them what to do. I'm like, no, I will connect you with someone who has been there and done that. And having someone who has been where you want to go, who has done what you want to do and is able to give you honest, real feedback we call it the good, the bad and the ugly of what is going on has been really true, like Julia Weithofer, who played for the UWS Mutiny, played for Joe, and she was home this summer and played for him in the final four of the UWS, and she has a great resume of playing in Ireland and the Netherlands and in England and now she's in Italy, and so she knows a lot of players. She knows a lot of experiences that she is able to share truthfully and honestly with these upcoming players. So that mentor-menteeship you know you need trust, you need a connection and you also need that. We're in this together. To find the professional female athlete is a very rare, rare thing, and to be able to connect them to those people that are truly honest and caring and really want to make a difference for the next generation, even if it is just a year or two after them, is really awesome. And that's why, if you look at the Boston Dream team, half of them are, you know, former college captains, whether it's D1, 2 or 3. They have had leadership roles, they have had impact on younger players. They want to continue expanding that role leadership roles.

justin: 28:25

They have had impact on younger players. They want to continue expanding that role. So we are going to have, as I mentioned before, female footballers. That has kind of built it as a platform to some extent, and Cassie and their team which is awesome will do it for the player and it goes down to that youth level and I know you know her and that's something that is awesome. And then you have it at the tech level for coaches. We mentioned with my mentor. The reason I asked the second part of that question is it's so hard to do it in so many places and it's organic. This community and we're going to talk about how you define community. That's second to how we define mentorship. But I want to throw out something kind of cool that happened when we did an ID camp. All right, now I've got some. If you guys can see here I'm going to try. If you see on the camera this says mentor match Club to college Women, lift women and foreign footy. So why does crazy Justin Van Til say that on a podcast? Well, greg mentioned the ID camps a few minutes ago and being at an ID camp is incredible because they're getting exposure to leadership and mentorship, when really those ID camps, the coaches they're looking at pretty much one thing right, are you gonna? And it's on the pitch. Now we know it's the balance. You're great on the pitch if you've got everything off the pitch. It is a balance. So, um, last summer we uh, our group created a uh, what we called a MyID, and MyID was a camp and we had some players from Ivy League, superstars from Harvard, a player from the Lebanese national team, a player who played in the Croatian national team, a number of players at the collegiate level that will be playing professional soccer at some point somewhere, and we put them together with a lot of youth grassroots, I'd say eighth grade to 11th grade players. But half of it was on the pitch, half was off Off the pitch. We did a shark tank and in the shark tank we asked them to break up the players, to break up with the professional level players, and we gave them business plan ideas, go create a mentor platform. And they came back to the group and we had judges and listening to and it was fun myself and some of the other coaches that were putting together this MyID program. It was about entrepreneurship, listening to the youth, talk to the future pros about mentorship and creating business models of commercializing something. Why did we do that? Because it's so hard to have mentorship at your fingertips, right. So to think about a matchcom swipe left, swipe right if you're going to find your mentor. Or the Women Lift Women, which was an actual marketplace where I could go on as a young kid, a young grassroots player, and have all these college players that would be paid like an hourly fee to give advice to a young player. Now, look, none of these were trademarked. This was a fun little shark tank. But that entrepreneurial effort where I sat there as a judge asking how much money they needed to build a platform for mentorship. If I told you that ended up taking more time of that MyID camp than on pitch bet, you'd believe it. I do. And when we I've spoken with the players since, I mean it must've been. It was a small little clinic 30 players, 10 coaches, these pre-professionals they still tell the story today about what's going on. Let's go build a business together. So what's my point One? You know I like to go off and yap a little bit about this, but it's very meaningful to me because it shows that at the youth level they are creative. To me because it shows that at the youth level, they are creative, they want that connection, they have some incredible ideas. I mean things I didn't think about swipe left, swipe right for your mentor. So let's get to Boston, the Boston dream. You've done it organically. It's an incredible network, no-transcript, but you have built a community that is without borders. That's true. I'd argue, based on just the time we've spoken before the podcast, what has been built could be a global operation at some level because of how you define community. So you talk us through the notion of because you're not paying money to be part of Boston Dream. You are not. So that's what's awesome and tie it to this, because this could happen right.

greg: 33:13

And this is very much on the mentor-mentee how much do they want to give? What do they want to give? Because what we do is we make that connection. We have a player right now who had Sammy Smith, who graduated from, you know, from Boston College, went to play in Iceland, is looking at opportunities and we're able to connect her to the players who played in Iceland and other places and she's able to pick and choose what she wants to do. But it's up to her to follow up with those connections. It's up to our, you know, players who said they will be mentors, to respond and have conversations. And there is a natural affinity to it because, like we said, that professional player is rare. It is really awesome to see a lot of our women give back at different levels, like we talked about how it opens doors. So we have a woman working with Rachel Woods Summit Soccer and Rachel's one who helped establish what the dream should be and things like that Former Boston Breaker you know now coaches you know the high school level and coaches individuals, and she has two of our players now working with her and she's a mentor to them and they are now mentoring the players she is. We have kids working with the Soccer Unity Project. We have players who are coaching the Soccer Unity Project. We have players who are coaching the Soccer Unity Project and those are the kids in Boston who get to play soccer for free. So with our network and communications, we do get people from outside the Northeast, from outside the New England area that do reach out and we put them in contact. We are the middle person, we are the ones who are able to connect the dots for people. We are looking to do this.

justin: 34:52

Could we have the Edinburgh dream, the St Louis dream, the Rome dream?

greg: 34:58

You could.

justin: 34:59

What stops that? Because the notion of community, since there's no fee to be a part of this. This to me. From understanding it, you lean in and once you've leaned in, you know, without saying it, you're a mentor. Without saying you're a mentor. It's just how the DNA of the organization dream with me, for a minute, five years, 10 years, 15 years from now. What stops? Besides, you have a day job and we all have day jobs, right? Yes, and it was not intended to be a commercial interest.

greg: 35:34

It is not. It's a 501c3. It's a 501c3.

justin: 35:38

What stops others from saying I want to take part in this Because it seems like there's no barrier to entry.

greg: 35:43

There isn't. And one thing that we love is every program we work with is now part of our community and network and has access to everything we can get them access to. For example, we played a friendly with Suffolk University in East Boston. We worked with the Soccer Without Borders community, so that's Boston kids with a Boston-based college, but even though most of those players are from outside of Boston with a Boston-based college, but even though most of those players are from outside of Boston. However, one group that got brought in which was really remarkable was the Afghan National Women's Team who had to flee the Taliban, and about a week before that clinic, I get a call from Bruno Contreras at Soccer Without Borders saying Greg, we have the Afghan women, some of their players are coming to Boston. We told them about this event. They want to come. Can you integrate them? I'm like, absolutely. And so these women had fled their country, some of them burying their soccer stuff in Afghanistan, because if they got caught with it, horrible things would happen. They get out of the country, they're here and they see all these women playing soccer. You know the kids and the college players and the dream players and we they're like, can we play? But they didn't have anything. And to watch the Suffolk woman, the dream woman, and the soccer without borders kids rummage through their bags, find extra cleats, shin pads, everything, pads, everything, and they gave it to the woman. And all of a sudden you have all these people, all different languages, all different cultures, from all over the world, playing the beautiful game in this community which I remember sitting with Ellen, the Suffolk coach, being like we're supposed to kick off in 20 minutes. Can we delay it 20 minutes and just let them keep playing? And that was awesome.

justin: 37:25

We want to make the game more beautiful and that often takes more resources or more resources going to the off-pitch development. Yes, it's one thing to connect a person, a younger, to a senior with some guidance. It's another thing to go across towns, states, countries. To go across towns, states, countries, as a 501c3, if a listener wants to contribute to this, how do they? I mean, I guess if there's a link, we'll put it in the description below to contribute to the Boston Dream Soccer Association. Tribute to the Boston Dream Soccer Association. But as a contributor, what would be their impact to like, what would you do with if I stroke that check for half a million dollars and said, greg, where would you put this?

greg: 38:20

A lot of what we do is we find a way to remove the barriers for women. In soccer there are less opportunities that come out. So, whether you are a member, that membership all the members get to choose where they divvy up the money, as someone who donates more than what membership is they can either. You know, we would like to see this done for education purposes. We would like to see this for working with the grassroots programs for the kids in the underserved communities. So one thing that we were very proud of is that we allow women to are involved in our programs and we have, you know, if there are, if they've been involved, if they've stayed involved, we'll buy everyone a grassroots program. We'll pay for their education. We've paid for referee IDs and the woman that been with us for more than one year working with us in programs. We're allowed to pay for their C license, their B license, their A license, which at over, when they're over, well, they're almost $2,000 each. So that's a big chunk of change for a young woman looking to. You know, I'm starting my job and starting my career.

justin: 39:28

That's a month's rent in the Boston area Would you suggest, though the licenses are what you do on the pitch, not the other side of the mentorship and leadership and so forth. Would you expand it?

greg: 39:39

Oh, we totally expand it. We have our Boston soccer coaches clinic and what we do is we focus. One third of that is on the field X's and O's. So we brought in we've had Ashley Phillips and Allison Foley and Rachel Wood give presentations on this is what you do on the field. But then we brought in Evren Gunduz from Enjoy Life Leadership to do leadership seminars and teach our coaches how to teach kids leadership skills and high quality of life. We have had Myra Sack from Emotion and Common Goal. She has come in to talk with how students and how players deal with grief and how to do that on the field. We've had Ayesha. Was talked about mental strength and how to like overcome obstacles and things like this, and she herself is a wonderful example as she was a rower in the 2016 Olympics for Singapore and just made a comeback and made her second Olympics in 2024. So having these women and these people step up and say these are the mental sides, these are the things you can take not only on the field, but mental strength off the field and how to do that is really a core part of our mission. We call it coaching with heart. You know how do we deal with the social emotional part for players, younger players and older players.

justin: 41:08

And we work with programs like Athlete Ally to make sure it's a more inclusive and, you know, diverse population that we can work with. We want to connect experiences with other episodes. One of our goals here in Footy for my Soul is to find that commonality. So some recent ones we've done has to do with nutrition and we talked about elements of being holistic, wellness and your relationship with food and the importance of sleep. We had a recent discussion on transformational leadership and how important it is for the accessibility and so forth. So let's just think about the different elements of. We'll start with nutrition, for example. So with the nutrition and leadership and strength and conditioning and recovery and sleep and all these different elements that I think a mentor should be, should think about and giving guidance. Um, you made a comment Once you're part of the community, you have access to everything. Um, would I have? I do? I like doing use cases. I'm not on New England anymore, we're Fresno, california. I'm the director of coaching of the town association. I got 30, 40, I don't know how many coaches. They're parent coaches. I got hundreds of parents. I would like them to be aware of Boston Dream for a mentor context but also have information on all this. That's very complicated, very difficult to do. What did that relationship be? When they talk with you, would they have access to all that stuff too?

greg: 42:33

One of the side effects that was a good side effect from the COVID pandemic is we started off on Zoom so we did a lot of our stuff remotely and we've had Tiffany Jones of X Factor who came in and did mental strength and things like that on Zoom. So we have run programs through Women in Sports and Entertainment through Zoom. We're doing another one with Patty Robb coming up this January. We're also doing a nutrition via Zoom for a woman that's going to come questions. So any woman that are part of the network, it's for the dream team, so to speak. But any of those kids from those programs, any of the network you know, it's for the dream team, so to speak. But any of those kids from those programs, any of the colleges we played, they all get the link they want to sign in. They can go see it.

justin: 43:14

So you've democratized this information. Yes, that's the thing. A lot of in the um call it overly adversarial models if it's a club versus club or group versus group. Well that I'm providing this to my captive group. You don't think that way, right? Whatever we're doing, as long as you're part of the community, which we've demonstrated there are no barriers to being part of a community except lean in and be part of it, like footy, for my soul, is now partners with the boston dream soccer and that took a couple emails and conversations and that's all it takes.

greg: 43:47

That's all it takes.

justin: 43:48

So it's easy to do one thing that I put myself in the position of someone listening to this has heard so many different examples of great opportunities, right, different um sources you've worked with, so while you get homework assignment, you can link all of them because I don't know this websites to all these. We definitely, definitely want to. Within Boston Dream, you have that website and then ability to give, but I think we also want to highlight in our show some of those other organizations for people as a resource, and so forth. So now that gets us to measuring success. Think about the success at the grassroots first. I think it's clear what the pro gets, what's the success and how you measure it. So we know that you're doing this because you love it Mm-hmm, not your paycheck, that is true. How do you measure success?

greg: 44:45

It really comes down to how many women and kids we impact. So how many women have gone through our programs? How many coaches have taken advantage of our program? Because when we run these, yes, it's geared with the female coach, the female player, the female rising athlete in mind, but we have done clinics with 45 little boys running around. We have our coaching. Clinics are open to male, female and transgendered coaches. Like everyone can come and be a part of it. As you said, there are no barriers to it. Is it a female game focus? Yes, but it is open to everyone. So that's how we bring everyone into this community. That's how we care for everyone. So our metrics for success are at the end of the year how many coaches have we impact? How many players have we impact? How many kids have we impact? How many people have made connections because of what we've done? So those are the metrics that we look at. Does anyone see?

justin: 45:47

you as a competitor.

greg: 45:49

They did at first. So when we first came in, everyone's like, wait, what are you trying to do? But as we've shown like we have great relationships with the UWS, we have great relationships with the WPSL, we have great relationships with the USL, and they all are at the same level of oh, we're looking at that 0-23 player that might be playing what they have found is, when they have players that play both for the Boston Dream and for their WPSL-UWS team, they actually can go crossover and they get more players. They get quality players going for them, players going for them. So I know that one of the UWS teams was able to snag our goalie for a game when they couldn't find a goalie and I know that the a couple of our players went from one team you know, playing in the women's adult league, to now playing in the WPSL because they were put on the same team as a dream player and they make all those connections. So, as organizations realize, we're not trying to compete with them because because, like we said, we're nonprofit. This is all very organic. It's not like we're trying to take dollars away from them. The way that clubs compete, the way that semi-pro teams compete for that and that has garnered a lot of attention, which we actually like. Like we've got a lot of people reach out like, hey, someone told me you do this. I'm like, yep, that's it it. And they're like what's the catch? I'm like there is no catch. It's as long as you are doing what we're doing, which is supporting a woman in soccer, then we are able to back you up and they tend to back us up, which is nice so my complaint is that when you look at the, the, the, the soccer landscape of the providers' sources, they don't have you on

justin: 47:33

their website as partners. Now, maybe it's a calling card. I'll fight a battle your two statesmen like to do I think they should all of them because there is no competition and all it is is additive and enrichment, and you're trying to provide more fertilizer into a process that's additive. So I think that would be nice. Uh, to make a game more beautiful. This is my editorial, um, I would like, it would be nice to see the bodies globally to look and say best practices, and I'm sure they're out there so if they're out there, it's not intended to be, um, any sort of a slight or an attack, but if you so, if they're out there, it's not intended to be any sort of a slight or an attack, but if you've done that, that's great. But it's not only for you, it's any organization that's a nonprofit, non-commercial, trying to help both on and off the pitch. Does that frustrate you? That more don't co-market or co-support, because everything you've done is organic and everyone involved with you helps grow it. But there are a lot of organizations out there. Again, you can be statesman like two. I'm trying to create a little bit of a wrangle. But why do you think more? Don't say hey look, this is a best practice.

greg: 48:48

A lot of it is time and money and commitment it's. I do know that a lot of programs want to do what we are doing but there is no time or money or, um, the where they view it. There are things they view that are more important than you know the coaching with heart that we've talked about, like that nutritionist aspect right, such a key part to a player's growth and development that so many clubs, high schools, colleges don't have strong enough. I think you're seeing it develop more and more now, which is great, like over the past 10, 15 years, like it has grown immensely, but it's still not where it needs to be. So I do think that everyone has the right intentions but, as they're, everyone is kind of scraping by, trying to put everything together. It doesn't always fall high on the priority list, got it? So we look at them, we do want to support them, we do make those connections because we try to help, like this is someone you can go talk to and you do see those connections happening and you do see as our players who have now graduated our program we call it, have moved on to coach college, to coach club, to coach high school, are incorporating a lot of what we gave them as an experience. They want to have their players experience. So you're seeing that grow and while it's not as fast as I think we would like to see it, it is definitely something that I think is growing and will be a big part of the next decade.

justin: 50:19

So we always transition the end of our podcasts to the impact on the soul. I think the perspective of for a parent or a mentor or caregiver in general, the idea that this is additive to the player and the coach I think a lot of people weren't aware of this best practice, but so many people out there want to impact those random acts of kindness, their own flapping of wings that can impact a hurricane on the other side of the world, that butterfly effect for the parent or the mentor or the. How can they impact? What impact can they make? How, if, does boston dreams inspire or influence them? What can they do? What? What is it you want them to learn about what you've built so they can make their own impact to the kid because this is all about mentoring the young kid to become the pro and if you're not a pro, you're still going back and mentoring others. There's a lot listening that are have gone past that, they're too old to be a pro, but they want to do those random acts of kindness to help. What advice do you have for them?

greg: 51:39

The one thing for those women who have been truly at that elite level. They only have seen, you know, the club college world. That truly is like Division I college female athletes are absolutely amazing and they go off to these amazing careers. However, that six day a club, six days of club a week, the college scholarship, where the sport is more your job than being a student, that isn't every level of soccer, even though that was their level of soccer for 10 to 15 years. There are so many different levels to get involved with, whether it be the one week long camp with Suzanne McKenzie and the Ucal McKenzie Breakaway Foundation, whether it's the one time a year with the city of Boston and their soccer festival, whether it's once a week with Boston Scores, whether it's every other week with Soccer Unity Project. There are different ways to keep your foot in the door, to keep your foot in the game and however you want to, as a former player, as someone who just supports this, there are ways to get involved and ways to support it that are not that traditional club college pro.

justin: 52:48

Very good so that parent or caregiver outside of New England. What can they learn from your experience? To again do that random act of kindness to impact either someone they love or just impact the game because they love the game? What can they learn from your experience?

greg: 53:05

That, as you mentioned many times, this is the beautiful game and this is something that gives back to you as much as you give into it, and that is something that, if you want to go work with underprivileged kids, go work with underprivileged kids. That if you want to go work with underprivileged kids, go work with underprivileged kids. If you want to be able to spread the word of a soccer nutritionist who does a bunch of TikToks and Instagrams, spread those stories, spread that out there. Find the good people, find the helpers and promote them and support them. And those are ways that the message gets out, the word gets out. That's how we have found a lot of our people. We work with nutritionists. We work with Julian Hubbard, who is one of the top ACL experts in the world about recovering from injuries of all types and strength and conditioning, and we have those great connections.

justin: 53:52

It's hard, though, because that's awesome. There's only one, Greg Rowe, who has a full-time job, and I'm again a parent somewhere in the world that wants to do what you've done. Yes, you're saying, have the courage, lean in, do it. It's possible. As much as you give in, you're going to get much more back, and you're going to not only for yourself. You're gonna impact kids. Um, I guess that leads it to, people will learn how they can do more if they're interested based on, I guess the last question for you is, uh, your soul, so obviously your mind. You've created something great and it's so scalable and it's growing. It just feeds itself. Yes, feedback loop. It keeps growing. Everyone involved's heart is in the right place.

greg: 54:51

That's what we're up for.

justin: 54:52

But at the end of the day, you didn't need to do this. Yes, I asked you at the beginning. You're a teacher and you had an opportunity that to me, devil's advocate. You fell into it, but you could have fallen into a lot of different things and decided for after years, after years and I know you'll say that you know it always is three times the hours people think it is because you're always thinking about this yes, right, so what is it about? You know in your soul, why are you doing this? What is it that you want to get out of it deep down?

greg: 55:31

It really is leaving something behind that makes the next generation better. It's me, as a coach, putting my heart and soul into a soccer program for over a decade, you know, and these are it's public high school. So it's these are kids. These are the kids you get. You can't push kids out or get in. These are the ones you want, wanting to make them as good as possible, not only on the field but off the field as possible. And for me to be able to continue that with some of those same people is fantastic, and that journey has really allowed me to make connections that make me feel whole, that make me feel like I'm making a difference, and it's one thing to watch. You know it impact my family and my young kids and what they see is that the first rocket scientist scientist my physics loving son ever met was a 24 year old goalie and she is phenomenal as an athlete and phenomenal as a person and his he wants to go into physics and go into space. And the first rocket scientist he meets is a is a six foot tall woman who's amazing athlete, who is super smart and done amazing things and works in the New England area. It's awesome and for me, those little rewards are important, my soul. I never want to be the face of the organization. I never want to be the one promoting you. Go to our website. Our board is just listed as names.

justin: 56:56

There's no pictures.

greg: 56:57

There's no biographies, because we are the ones supporting this pure.

justin: 57:01

You're enablers of this. It's not about you, and I think, that's something that should be commended.

greg: 57:06

Yes, and it's one of those things that we see. You know, these women take the lead and take off. And to know that we had a small part, just even a small part of this flapping our butterfly wings, to see them become hurricanes and change the world.

justin: 57:22

In Israel, knocking on the door.

greg: 57:24

Yep, and whether it's in Denmark and finding a home, or whether it's in Italy and finding a team to play, or whether it's in Portugal or Romania or Lithuania or any of the dozens of other places our women have played in this world. Those connections, those friendships have been truly remarkable. And to say I had a small hand in that, to say that The Boston Dream had a part of making that connection, is really awesome.

justin: 57:53

So what I heard was service and this deep commitment to service that you felt. Now I the my last question. It's the hard one, because, as I was thinking about it, I'm thinking about how my daughter is going to um, when I'm no longer around, tell stories of oh yeah, my dad did this little podcast in in the basement and he called it a studio and, regardless how footy my soul is, it's small or it impacts many, many people in the world. I always wonder when my daughter says why did her dad do it? What did she say? And I know it's not for money and again, that's maybe another conversation for another day, but it was nice to meet Teddy and Isla, your two kids, last night conversation for another day, but it was nice to meet um, Teddy and Isla, your two kids, last night. Play it out 20, 30 years from now when they're married with kids. They I talk about. Yeah, greg did, my dad did boston dream. Here's why he did it. What do you think when the real answer, why do you think answer? How did you influence your kids and what do you think they're going to say about what you've built?

greg: 59:05

I am hoping for my kids. They take the value of giving back.

justin: 59:09

Great.

greg: 59:10

In whatever community it is, whatever cause, they believe in that yes, you do some things. You do a profession for money, you do a profession for your stability and the house and food on your table and everything else. But you need something also that feeds your soul, something that pushes forward. And if my kids, when they're adults, see they want to make a change in the world and they can have the ability and advocacy to go do it, then I feel like what I'm doing now is working.

justin: 59:41

And on the four, the C's that drive this tactically it's courage and it's creativity and it takes a lot right To build. That took courage keep building wake up every day and handle it and being creative to do it. So, on that note, thank you so much thank you pleasure my friend very much, so thank you.