MustangSoccer.com: Fred Wilson's club in the East Bay. Founded 1972, roughly 5,400 players across Mustang and the Mt. Diablo Mustang affiliate. Fred's email is fred.wilson@mustangsoccer.com and he means it when he says he will take the meeting.
Mustang Soccer Data and Analytics: The club's public page on what they measure and why.
BeyondPulse.com: Heart rate and workload monitoring worn on a belt, no vest to plug in. Matt Pell is the CEO. All 445 competitive players at Mustang are on it.
Bepro.ai: Game analytics AI that tags 74 match moments per player with a video clip attached to every one. FIFA approved and used at the professional level.
Pixellot.com: Mustang's main camera supplier for automated game filming.
WinningLeader.com: Jeremy Boone's leadership program. Mustang ran their leadership group and then their coaches through it from August to December.
CoachingYouthHoops.com: The one stop shop for youth coaches. Practice plans, season planning, and the resources behind this show.
HeySai.com: Text based assistant that takes the administrative pain out of youth sports. Get on the wait list, launching this fall. (Say it "Hey Sammy," spelled H E Y S A I.)
Coach Bill sits down with Fred Wilson, a Bay Area youth soccer legend who started as a volunteer rec coach at Mustang Soccer in 1989 and now oversees one of the largest and most respected clubs in the country. Along the way he helped launch the San Jose Earthquakes Academy and spent eight years there.
The conversation opens with the hard question. Mustang measures heart rate, workload, game analytics, and eventually psychological profiles. So at what point does helping a kid improve turn into watching a kid too closely? Fred's answer is the thread that runs through the whole hour: the data is only ever a starting point, because you cannot measure head and heart, and none of it works without the relationship.
From there it goes into the tech stack, the culture work Mustang did with Winning Leader, how a volunteer board evolved into a collaborative governance structure, why kids should play multiple sports, and a rapid fire round that every club director should sit with.
Episode SummaryTimestampsTimeTopic00:00Good for kids first, good for soccer second00:46When does helping a child improve become monitoring too closely?01:00You cannot measure head and heart02:44The four pillars: technical, tactical, physical, mental03:251989, and how a volunteer rec coach ended up here04:02Launching the San Jose Earthquakes Academy, 2010 to 201805:21Coaching the third generation of the same families06:01The Mustang track record: 200 plus college players, 20 pros, 70 titles06:40The tech philosophy and why he even cares07:49"You'll need a data scientist and it will be overwhelming"09:1219 algorithms, 900 games, and the 94 percent stat10:03What happens when you cross biodata with game analytics10:31Building the app, and giving players actionable items11:52Could every player have a chat bot that knows them?12:32Using data to take the emotion out of hard conversations13:36Which ages are on it: U13 and up, all 445 players14:18Why the "why" behind a vendor matters more than the what14:58Why the belt beats the vest at 445 players15:44What is Bepro, and what is a match moment17:10How many players in the whole program18:04Three lessons from 1989 to today18:44Five minutes to make a seven year old love it or hate it19:42The car ride test: "I can't wait to go back tomorrow"21:18Leave everything at the gate22:39Taking your coach to show and tell23:27Why invest so much in culture25:22The promised land, the true north, and the common language28:12Holding the club accountable, and holding parents accountable too31:10How it changed the way they interview coaches32:38A child has succeeded at Mustang if...34:26The wedding story36:16What a small club can copy, and what it should not39:43The board: how governance actually evolved45:38Specialization, and why kids should play everything48:01Muscle imbalance, injury, and functional movement50:02The hour and a half drive that burns kids out51:54Rapid fire56:03Parting words, and an open book
Connect With Us
Fred meant the open book line. Reach him at fred.wilson@mustangsoccer.com or MustangSoccer.com.
For everything on the basketball side, head to CoachingYouthHoops.com and bring your questions to the Coaching Youth Hoops Facebook group. And get on the wait list at HeySai.com before the fall launch.
See you next week.
A few items the transcript garbles that are worth a second look before this goes live:
Fred credits the development of Beyond Pulse to a "Mark Wilson" and separately names Matt Pell as CEO. Matt Pell as CEO checks out publicly. The developer name does not, so confirm it or cut it.
Bepro's founder is called both "Louise Kang" and "Louis King" in the transcript. I left the name out of the notes rather than guess. Worth confirming the spelling if you want to credit him.
Fred mentions testing a company called "Spin." Could not confirm which company that is, so no link included.
Coach Bill dates Mustang to 1989, but Fred says that is when he started as a volunteer and later references a board member who played there when it was founded in 1972. The notes use 1972 as the founding year and 1989 as Fred's start.
The transcript renders Pixellot as "Pixelot" and "Six lot." The company is Pixellot.
Production Notes (not for publishing)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
