Twenty-five years separate L.A. Galaxy coach Bruce Enviornment and New England Revolution high man Jay Heaps, however those that know each males say they share many attributes.
BY
Brooke Tunstall
Posted
December 06, 2014
8:28 PM
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CARSON, Calif.—Bruce Enviornment and Jay Heaps are very completely different coaches.
Enviornment is 63 and famously salty. He can come throughout as standoffish on a great day, boastful and dismissive on a nasty one. Heaps is 38, and whereas his MLS profession featured greater than its share of arduous fouls, off the sector he’s fast with a smile and affected person with even the dumbest questions thrown his approach.
Regardless of the variations of their age and personalities, these near each coaches say they’re extra alike than completely different, notably in what makes them tick.
“They both work very hard,” stated Los Angeles Galaxy first-year goalkeeper coach Matt Reis, who performed with and below Heaps on the Revolution. “They have a work ethic that drives their success. Both are direct. Both are honest. They might say it a little differently but they get their point across pretty clearly. They’re each very competitive and that translates on the field.”
Former MLS defender Evan Whitfield performed with Heaps at Duke for 4 seasons and says that work ethic was evident even then.
“He was that guy who was always going 110 percent in training,” stated Whitfield, now an lawyer in Chicago. “There’d be times in training, like the day before playing like, Elon, or some smaller team we were supposed to beat. And most of the guys would be taking it easy but Jay would still go all out in training and we’d be like, ‘Really, man? Take it easy.’ But that’s not his way. He’s a really nice guy off the field but very intense during practice and I think that helps in his coaching.”
Enviornment has identified Heaps since 1995 when Heaps was a freshman at Duke and Enviornment was in his last season teaching on the College of Virginia. Whereas not stunned at his teaching success, he noticed a unique type of management potential in Heaps.
“You have a bright, articulate, hard-working guy. He might have been the U.S. senator from Massachusetts,” stated Enviornment. “He went into finance (after retiring as a player) and decided that that was boring. I understand that because I did that at one point.”
And earlier than anybody sees Heaps as a possible inheritor to Ted Kennedy or Elizabeth Warren, Heaps has little interest in the trail Enviornment envisioned. “No, none,” Heaps stated.
Heaps truly performed a task in ending Enviornment’s school teaching tenure a bit sooner than Enviornment had hoped. In 1995 Virginia had received 4 straight nationwide titles when the Cavaliers met Heaps’ Blue Devils within the nationwide semifinals in Richmond, Va. Regardless of being heavy underdogs, and taking part in earlier than a sold-out stadium holding 20,000 followers in Virginia’s capital, Heaps scored a purpose and added two assists to guide Duke to a 3-2 upset.
“I remember I played well but I can’t say I remember all the details,” Heaps stated. “My biggest memory of that game was the crowd. It was the biggest crowd I’d ever played before. IIt felt like 100,000 fans.”
Heaps was named nationwide freshman of the 12 months and as a senior he was nationwide participant of the 12 months. In between, he famously performed as a walk-on for Duke’s basketball group below the legendary Mike Krzyzewski.
“Obviously athletics has been a big part of his life and I think the influence of the Duke basketball program gave him an inside track on coaching and he’s made the most of it,” Enviornment stated.
Heaps retired as a participant in 2009 after 12 seasons in MLS and spent the subsequent 12 months working within the wealth administration division of Morgan Stanley earlier than being employed to interchange Steve Nicol in 2011. He had completely no expertise as coach at any stage. It was a dangerous play by the Revolution however one the group thought could be definitely worth the threat.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that I knew then that three years later we’d be here playing for MLS Cup,” stated Revolution common supervisor Michael Burns. “However we had seen sufficient in Jay when he was a participant to know that he had all of the qualities to turn out to be an awesome coach and we needed to be affected person as he discovered. On the identical time, we put collectively a blueprint of the best way to get higher.
“The year before he was hired we won five games. So we knew we had to get better and we identified the areas we needed to get better and addressed them piece by piece and as we did that Jay was learning and the team got better as he did.”
One of many largest challenges for Heaps was out of the blue being the boss of his former teammates, lots of whom had been previous buddies.
“You have to set boundaries,” stated Heaps. “It’s not like we’re not friends any more but you have to establish what the expectations are and how to handle that as pros—and that none of what happens with the team is personal or about our relationships.”
And now it’s not as massive a deal as most of his former teammates have moved on. Solely Kevin Alston, Shalrie Joseph, Bobby Shuttleworth, and Andy Dorman remaining from Heaps’ taking part in days. “We all got old so it’s not much of an issue anymore,” stated Heaps.
Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. You’ll be able to comply with him on Twitter.
