I was born in Germany to a military family. I lived there for the historic 1974 World Cup win for Die Mannschaft in Berlin. I believe my love for football originated here! Much of my early childhood was spent travelling between Europe and Canada as my father was posted to various military assignments. Upon my father's retirement, we eventually settled in his hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada where I still reside to this day.
Being Canadian, I have grown up with the game of ice hockey. I spent much of my youth playing as a competitive ice hockey goalie in the fall/winter while spending my spring/summer as a soccer goalkeeper.
In 1992 I attended St. Mary's University where I studied Commerce and was a part of the varsity soccer team. In 1993 I began coaching with the Scotia Olympics Soccer Club. I quickly became impassioned with coaching and knew that was what I wanted to do with my career.
I accepted a full-time position as a Messenger Porter at the local hospital to pay my bills while the rest of my time was spent training, playing and volunteer coaching soccer with our local club as well as in our provincial High Performance Program.
I pursued all coaching certifications and courses readily available to me through the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) as well as the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP).
I was one of two coaches accepted into the Soccer Nova Scotia Apprentice Coaching Program under Technical Director Stephen Hart (Head Coach Canada National Team, Head Coach Trinidad and Tobago National Team).
Through the apprentice program I was mentored by Hart for the next two years. Upon completing the apprentice program I was offered a full-time job at Soccer Nova Scotia as Program Coordinator. My time would be split between on-field coaching as well as administrative work. One year later, I was promoted to High Performance Director (Technical Director). At the time, I was the youngest Technical Director in Canada. I was now responsible for all aspects of the high performance teams in the province (training, administration, travel, equipment, etc.). I was also responsible for delivering and administering all aspects of the provincial coaching development program among other things.
During my time at Soccer Nova Scotia (SNS), I was also offered a part-time position as a staff coach at the National Training Centre - Atlantic (NTC-A). The NTC-A was dedicated to training youth players in Atlantic Canada who had been identified to the national team player pool. My main duties focused on the training of goalkeepers, but time was also spent training outfield players when required. During my two years with the high performance program, combined with the next two years of employment with SNS and the NTC-A, I produced five youth goalkeepers who went on the play for Canadian National Teams. Several of those goalkeepers went on to play professionally.
I left Soccer Nova Scotia, to begin my own soccer academy. The Serious Soccer Academy was started in 2004 and has taken on many different forms since then. I still run the academy to this very day, now being very heavily focused on video analysis and remote training programs.
In 2006, I made the decision to further my education and obtained an I.T. Diploma (Programmer/Analyst Internet Solutions Developer) from CDI College in Halifax, N.S. I spent the next 13 years working as a Software Engineer specializing in web and database development. My evenings and weekends were spent coaching and training soccer.
The I.T. experience afforded me the ability to do many soccer related things that other coaches/trainers were not capable of doing. I quickly started developing soccer websites, fitness databases, YouTube channels, etc. This then evolved into video analysis, film editing, 3D modelling, etc.
In 2018 the "Canadian Premier League" was born, and it would become Canada's top tier fully professional league starting with the 2019 season. Halifax was announced as one of the teams (HFX Wanderers FC) and soon afterwards I was offered a full-time position as Assistant Coach. I left my lucrative I.T. job to again pursue soccer on a full-time basis at the professional level.
Halifax went on to sign local goalkeeper Christian Oxner who had been a part of my academy program since age 11. Oxner went on to be named a Golden Glove finalist in 2020. In 2021, Halifax signed local goalkeeper Kieran Baskett to a professional contract. Kieran had been a member of my academy since the age of 10. This made Halifax the only team in the country to boast two local homegrown goalkeepers.
I spent one full season with HFX Wanderers FC. The 2020 seasons was decimated by the Covid Pandemic and I made the decision to pursue my own full-time soccer academy once again, offering remote online training and video analysis programs. My program now includes clients from all over the world.
When I am not coaching or working on soccer, I am an award winning miniature sculptor and painter. I also enjoy scale modelling and am an avid toy soldier collector. In my youth I enjoyed reading and collecting comic books and am interested in everything pop culture.
Above all else, I am a family man and have been married to my wife Sonja for fifteen years. We have a teenage son named Oliver (after the great Oliver Kahn!). We all share a love for travel and exploring different parts of the world.
