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Coffee & Valkyries S1E1: Say Hello to OL Reign Assistant Coach Scott Parkinson
65 Plays2 years ago
Get to know OL Reign assistant coach Scott Parkinson in our first "Coffee & Valkyries" of the 2023 season. Scott talks about how he met OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey, their first stint working together at Utah Royals, his time as head coach of Gotham FC, and reuniting with Harvey for 2023 and more.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello, all Rain fans. Your podcast, Coffee and Valkyries, is back for this season. Or at least we're going to try to be back this season to do more interviews with players.
Interview with Scott Parkinson
00:00:22
Speaker
For this first episode of the 2023 season, we have assistant coach Scott Parkinson. Scott, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. My pleasure. So how's life in Seattle been for you so far this couple of months? Beautiful. So far, so good. I'm over in West Seattle. We're having coffee right now. So I'm a little bit over here.
00:00:41
Speaker
A lovely vibe. I'm loving the beach, the water, the nice view of Seattle. And Lora lives really close by, so I can bug her whenever I want to, and knock on the door whenever I need to. So yeah, for rain fans that may not know, this is your second time working with Lora.
00:01:01
Speaker
one of her assistant coaches. You first worked with her when she was the head coach at Utah Royals. If you can just talk us through, you know, you were head coach at Gotham and then how that came about for you to reunite with Laura after that. Yeah, it's been, I think me and Laura met probably nine years ago on a coaching course in Casa Grande, Arizona on, I think it was a B license. And she actually offered me a job to come to Seattle then. I moved here. I got a place in West Seattle.
00:01:31
Speaker
and I actually drove home a week later because the job fell through. We stayed in contact with each other and probably two or three years after that, I was a college coach and I sold her up for homework and she was following my games, I was following the rain games. She got the job in Seattle, sorry in Salt Lake and she gave me the call.
00:01:52
Speaker
Really tight. We have an amazing bond. I think you do that when we first met each other, we'd get along really well. We like to do things similar things in our time off. We like the water, we like golf. So yeah, Laura left and I went with my wife to Chicago and I was the assistant coach at the Red Stars for a year and a half. And my wife got an amazing job in Chicago. And then the coffee job came up.
00:02:21
Speaker
which I took and I had a year there and then obviously it didn't work out I think as we all wanted it to which is fine and then Lord of Returns close to when I went to Gotham and then Sam moved to Houston
00:02:38
Speaker
and it was almost like perfect timing. Lord have needed someone. I was looking to get back in and continue working and the opportunity presented itself and probably took a little bit longer than we both wanted. But we knew we'd wanted it for probably about six weeks.
Lessons from Gotham Experience
00:02:58
Speaker
So we were working on making it work. And I'm really glad that it did. How did we back together?
00:03:04
Speaker
Awesome. A couple of follow-ups from that timeline you just gave us. Your time as head coach at Gotham, obviously, you gave it your best, it didn't work out. What did you learn about yourself from the aspect of, okay, you've gone from assistant coach, you get your licenses, you get your shot to be the head coach, and then you go through that experience. What did you learn about yourself in terms of
00:03:28
Speaker
getting that job. Yeah, I think the thing I learned about myself was I'm a very optimistic person. I'm believing in myself. I still believe in myself. And I think what I learned was how big of a job it is to take the big job, to be the leader of everyone and everything. I think I learned what types of support I need around me in order for me to be successful. And I also think the word that
00:03:57
Speaker
It doesn't hurt me, but I think it's the word that sticks out the most about the Gotham experience is probably alignment. I probably didn't find a club that I was aligned with, with the front office, with what they were looking for long term and what I was looking for on long term. So I just think there was a lack of alignment. So when you have a lack of alignment, I think
00:04:19
Speaker
every decision should be made to like a north star and I think a lot of decisions were kind of made to two separate stars which is totally fine. I think that happens in a lot of places so I think I know that I need to be supported and the support probably wasn't quite there.
00:04:37
Speaker
like it is now, which is great. They're doing great things now, got from how they train their pre-season, their coaching staff. So it's great to see. So I think that was the biggest thing.
Laura Harvey's Coaching Evolution
00:04:51
Speaker
I'm not super human and I do need support. And then I probably need to do a better job of
00:04:58
Speaker
making sure that I'm aligned with them and they're aligned with me when a contractor's signed. And I didn't know that going in, but I know it now. Yeah. All right. And then you talked about you meet Laura in these coaching courses. She gives you, she calls you up to be her assistant when she goes to Utah. And then you guys do that.
00:05:25
Speaker
She goes, she leaves coaching club for a little bit. You go to do your own thing and then she comes back halfway through the 2021 season and then, you know, she's still here. You're back with her. What sort of changes or like growth have you seen from her compared to your first stint working with her? That's a very good question. And I think I keep telling her that.
00:05:49
Speaker
She's driving a really high intensity in training sessions and it's not that she didn't used to. What she's doing right now is extremely high. She will push the players, she will create an environment that's really tough.
00:06:05
Speaker
kind of steel sharp and steel type of mentality and that's probably been the biggest one where I'm like wow like this is like we're going like we're coming here to train and again we trained at an amazingly high level in Utah
00:06:20
Speaker
But I think what I'm seeing right now is a level that is pretty special. Do you think that's because of the talent around this team? Because you have a squad that has three original players that have been here since the inaugural season. And the expectations for this team is just so high. They win the shield last season.
00:06:46
Speaker
fell short into playoffs, but like, you know, on paper, this is a team that should always be competing for a playoff spot at the bare minimum, but also the shield and, you know, for the NWSL championship. Do you think that intensity that she's brought to training that she didn't before, you think it's because a reflection of the squad that you guys have, like, they have, you know, it's not necessarily win now, but it's like, you know, the expectations are you have to win.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, so she's always brought intensity to train them. The intensity that I'm seeing right now, I've never seen anyone bring, like it's like a new intensity. I think that's what's standing out. And I don't think it aligns to who she's coaching. I think if she coaches anyone, if she coaches the youth team, she's always going to be a lot of heartbeats. She's always going to do it her way.
00:07:33
Speaker
I think we're lucky to have the team that we have. And I honestly, I'll be honest with you, one of the reasons that they're probably all still here is because she's here. People want to play for her. People love her to bits. So yeah, sometimes it's actually easier to push people that you don't know and that you're not close to. So to see her doing it with this group is so good to see.
00:08:00
Speaker
There
Rain Team Culture and Positivity
00:08:01
Speaker
was a follow up question I had along those lines, but I just completely forgot it. I'm sure I'll come back to it later. Let's see here.
00:08:12
Speaker
So, oh, this was a question. So you've spent some considerable time in the league. You've coached against some of these rain players. For many years, you've seen what they can do against players you've coached. But now that you're on this side and you're working with them day in, day out of training, has anything been a revelation for you towards working with some of these players or kind of like a confirmation of like,
00:08:36
Speaker
You knew what they can what they can do on the field or like reputation wise and like, yep, they this is why, you know, they've been such a headache for me as an opposing coach in years past. So it's funny that I actually haven't played against the rain at some without Laura. I never played them in Gotham. I think they just played them when I got the job and I just left and Gotham's next game was Seattle. So I actually haven't played against them in a lot in a while.
00:09:05
Speaker
I obviously have played against them before and watched them in the league consistently. I think that they are amazing players and I knew they were amazing and I don't want this to sound too cheesy but they're actually like incredibly good people and sometimes with top top level players you know there's ego and
00:09:31
Speaker
And that is normal, I think everyone should, but there's just a real, like, togetherness here that they care about the club, they care about where we train, they care about how we train, they care about how we travel, they care about how the staff are treated, they care about, like, they just care. And I know Mona said to me in the past,
00:09:51
Speaker
especially when it was getting close to me coming here. There's something about this group that's hard for me to put into words. You've just got to feel it and be in it. And she's right, it's hard. But there's something special where, you know, Megan Rapinoe trains like she's a rookie. The rookies get treated like they've been here for 10 years. It's a really...
00:10:15
Speaker
safe place where everyone can be themselves and so yeah I think the biggest shock has just been how welcoming they've been and you know it's made me feel comfortable it's allowed me to be myself and I think after you go through a bit of a shitty year
00:10:32
Speaker
Like, I think a lot of you can doubt yourself a little bit and this group's not allowed me to ever feel that way. They've respected me, they've always seemed to enjoy me. So yeah, honestly, it was the perfect move for me.
00:10:49
Speaker
related to that yesterday, Bethany Balzer posts an Instagram story, a picture of you talking with her, and she was just having some fun with it and said, guess what Scott and I are talking about? Wrong answers only. Can you share with us, at least, what you guys were really talking about? We were actually talking about all the manages getting fired in the Premier League.
00:11:11
Speaker
So I think she'd probably come to me because I've experienced it. No, all joking aside, obviously, I think Conte had just been let go at Spurs. So I think that's what we were talking about. Maybe Graeme Potter had just been fired to a TSC and we were talking about, you know, I think at the time it was 13, managers had been let go at 20 that when it started the Premier League. So you had to be at first, that was the conversation.
00:11:40
Speaker
Related to that I guess this might be one of the more painful questions for you But I've also asked you this like sometime last year when they pulled off the great escape They're gonna do it again. You're everton and they're gonna somehow pull off the another great escape. Yes
00:11:55
Speaker
I think they are. I'm liking what I'm seeing with Sean Diesch. I like our fixtures compared to others. Right now, today, we're safe. We're in a safe position by goal difference. I think it's 10 goals to Forest. I'm looking at Forest's schedule, Forest's team. Our schedule, our team, our manager. I don't know why we're playing. I think we're going to just be OK.
00:12:25
Speaker
I'm still nervous, yeah, but we are, I think it's us and Arsenal, we've been in the Premier League for the longest amount of time, I think 70 plus years, so I think we've been through it, and sometimes haven't been through, it helps, yeah. So, I am feeling optimistic.
00:12:41
Speaker
We're building a new beautiful stadium on the waterfront in Liverpool that we've been dying for for years and for 20 years we've been trying to build down there and it's halfway done and we do not want to be playing Plymouth Argyle in that stadium, not offensively with that guy. But we want to be playing in the top level and the club and the Panthers. So yeah, I'm optimistic.
00:13:05
Speaker
It's unfortunate that my colleague Susie's in here with us because we had joked about when they had officially announced you joining the staff, we had tweeted out like, oh, you and Susie could get together and record a podcast commiserating about Everton. Well, no, there'll be no commiserating this year. Me and Susie can do it whenever she wants. All right. That's awesome.
00:13:32
Speaker
I think a question that fans might be curious about just your overall, just what your coaching style is like, if you can just describe that for us. It's a good question. I think my coaching style is catching people doing it right. I think I prefer to help a player see themselves doing it well and then catching them doing it well in the training session and being vocal in that moment.
00:14:02
Speaker
She scored an unbelievably good goal today in practice and she's been working on it. How to take her first touch to be a real problem quickly to defenders. She's been working on it, she's talked to coaches about it, she practices it and today she did it.
00:14:23
Speaker
It was a huge screen across the field to me, eye contact, a bit of a fist bump, so she knew that that's it. That's what we've been working on, like good job. So I think if I have a preferred style, it's probably catching and doing good.
00:14:39
Speaker
That brings me to a fascinating question that I've been curious about for a long time and got to ask a couple of players about it a few weeks ago. As a coach, you know, we're all understanding that everyone has a bad day in the office. And so I'm curious as a coach, you don't have
00:14:59
Speaker
to give any sort of specifics unless you want to. But when a player is just having a bad training session, and you guys can tell, you can read the body language, they're just having an off day. How do you guys, or how do you acknowledge that, recognize it, but also don't treat it as an indictment that, oh, because they had an off day on Tuesday's training that you can't rely on them to be a starter for the weekend.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think the thing that most coaches do is they normally go off like bottles of work rather than just like a training session or a day. I think I've had pause training sessions or things have not gone out. I've planned them as I'm sure the players will some days come in and maybe feel like they didn't quite get out of the training session once they wanted to get. So I think
00:15:56
Speaker
create an environment where it's okay to have a bad day, like it happens. I think figuring out why and if you need help and you've got a solve on that or you've got it yourself and it was just a bad day. I think we have a staff that has some decent emotional intelligence where
00:16:19
Speaker
We'll all kind of speak to each other on hey, you know, she didn't look herself today and then maybe Moderna say I got it or it'll be John's just got a little word and we will just navigate to kind of that way and I don't think anything needs to be too out in the open or to and You know to to form for just a little shoulder to show that you're doing good today. We're good. I
00:16:46
Speaker
everything okay and you know when it's not and we just want them to know that we're there for them and everyone's entitled to a bad day and if they need us to help them we want them to know that we're here for them I don't think we always have to solve all of their problems sometimes just leaving them alone yeah to sit with whatever they're sitting with is and knowing that we're there is the best way to do it
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah, so when I asked that topic or that question towards a couple of players about a month ago, it was Olivia that had talked about how there was one training session where she was just not touching the ball correctly or had missed something.
00:17:27
Speaker
Pino had just kind of made eye contact with her without even saying anything but just with her eyes were just kind of saying you got the next one and you know kind of sure enough she did and just kind of like you had just been talking about kind of brings up to culminates what we've heard from other players whether they're you know the originals in Fishlock, Barnes, Pino or like the newer faces like Olo etc about how
00:17:51
Speaker
how welcoming the environment is and in terms of like like what Laura had told you before like it's hard to describe it you just have to come in there and see and feel like yeah and myself and some of my colleagues have been fortunate to kind of witness parts of that by attending training just kind of kind of from from afar reading that body language that you know everyone's there
00:18:13
Speaker
to have a good time, but also very there to support each other, you know, physically, emotionally, all of that stuff. So I guess it's just nice to hear from your perspective from what the coach's angle in terms of like, you know, what do you guys do when somebody is just having an off day for whatever reason, and then how you guys try to give it respect and also knowledge it, but without making it seem like it's in a diamond. Oh, you know, we can't rely on them come.
00:18:39
Speaker
Come game day. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I think Lauren and the club have done a really good job of building a roster that we rely on. And then within that, people are going to dip out of form, you know, maybe be a little bit under the weather, maybe have a slow weave. But I'm sure we're looking at it from a body where we know what they're up to. We know what they can do. And we trust them all. But just being there when they do fall.
00:19:07
Speaker
I'll pick them up, dust them off, and get them back up again. And as I say with this group, like Pino, make an eye contact with Olo, a lot of the players do that for us. There's a lot that won't even come to Lordaeron myself because the players are able to pick each other up and be there for each other too, which again is a part of that kind of special thing that's hard to put into words. It's just something.
00:19:31
Speaker
And I hope and I'm actually confident that, you know, not every player plays forever. I'm hopeful that with this group that if and when people do decide to, you know, move on or stop playing, that that kind of special sauce stays at the club. I think some of the best clubs in the world can have success for 10, 15, 12 years.
00:19:56
Speaker
because it sticks with people and it goes down to the younger kids and they carry the torch. So I think the way it's done here so naturally, it leaves me optimistic that there's a bright future here for a long time.
00:20:12
Speaker
You had mentioned that Zee had put in a cracker of a goal at training to just kind of give us, paint us a picture of what that goal looked like. I think it's just Zee being Zee. I think picking the ball off a bit of a diagonal, taking a really good touch.
00:20:31
Speaker
shooting across the goalkeeper and putting it in. It wasn't the finish, Z finishes like that all the time. It was her position and how she beat the defender there. So just Z being Z. But again, Z being Z on things she's worked on. So yeah, I think
00:20:53
Speaker
It's been a really good week. This week, I was saying it's a lot after training. There's so much where the players all want to get better individually on little things. And like today, I've seen a lot of them things happen with a lot of players on things that they've been really deliberately trying to get better at, that they want to get better at. And yeah, it's been a good five days training. Cool.
00:21:20
Speaker
When you guys are doing training is there any sort of specific Aspects that you like to work on or is it kind of used to go? wherever Laura wants you to be working on like you focus on like say the defense or like attackers or I'm pretty holistic on everything and I think if
00:21:43
Speaker
If there was a bit further to explain it on any given day, it would probably be predominantly planned by me and Kate and then shared with Laura and then Laura makes her tweaks, changes to the plan. But the plan always starts from what Laura wants for the week or wants for the session.
00:22:05
Speaker
and what the sports are into sports and all things like that. And then me and Kate try and jumble all that together and create something that we think will pull out what Lorna wants to pull out and test the players on things that we want to test them on. And then, you know, there could be some days where she'll send us, this is what we're doing today. And we'll draw it up and we'll get it all ready. So it's, you know,
00:22:30
Speaker
It has a really nice flow to it now. Me and Kate are brand new. We've never known each other before coming here. And we're both working for Laura in Seattle for the first time. So I feel like we've got ourselves in a nice groove now. We're pretty organized. Everyone knows what's going on. Everyone knows what's expected.
00:22:48
Speaker
So yeah, that's how we roll. Awesome. So you earlier talked about how you and Laura have shared a lot of similarities in terms of what you guys like to do off when you guys need your own personal time to not be thinking about football. What's the thing or things that Scott Parkinson likes to do when he wants to not think about football? I love to play golf. Absolutely love it. And in Utah, when we got there,
00:23:17
Speaker
For whatever reason it was incredibly cheap like super cheap like 14 bucks and the courses were stunning and so I was Using that time as my like downtime first time a bit of the pros. So it was nice unwind a little bit and Me and the goalkeeper coach Jason Barty we'd go a lot and they're loaded ended up asking. Can I come? Yeah, absolutely. Let's go
00:23:40
Speaker
I think she ended up getting the bug. We were there, we would play a lot. We were plan training out there. We would talk about games and strategies out there. So yeah, I'm excited for the rain to just move out a little bit more. And then I think I'm going to try and get the golf clubs out a little bit more often. Awesome. There's actually a course next to the practice facility in Starfire. So I'm going to try and hit that up a little bit. Awesome. Yeah.
00:24:10
Speaker
Let's see here. Okay, time to move on to the fun questions. These are some questions that we've asked the players over years. This one is a food question. It's not candy corn related, like our dear friend Jenna has asked many of Gotham's players. But this one has been a fun question to ask the rain players over the years. Where do you, Scott Parks, stand on pineapple on pizza?
00:24:37
Speaker
I'm a milk pineapple on pizza. Yeah. Even today there was like some sort of potato salad after training and it had raisins in and I don't want any fruit near my kind of savoury type of stuff. So absolutely no fruit on near my food. That's fair.
00:24:59
Speaker
Probably one of the most entertaining answers we've had that's against pineapple on pizza was Jess. She was so emphatically against it. Yeah, exactly. Me and Jess are from a similar place. I'm a scholar from Liverpool. She's obviously Welsh. We have a very similar upbringing and probably palette.
00:25:23
Speaker
So this was another question that we asked the players last season. This was kind of a running gag, but it all started because of Fallon's, you know, interest and passion in marine biology and Nikki being...
00:25:41
Speaker
I guess the team goofball. But do you- She's much more than that. Yeah, I know, she is. But do you, Scott Parkinson, think mermaids are real? I do not, you know. Sadly, I wish they would be. I think they'd be really interesting, but no, their nights are not real. Somehow Nicky's gonna hear about that and try to make a pitch to persuade, change your opinion on that. I know.
00:26:11
Speaker
If you were in charge of the team's match of the day music playlist, what song would you put on? So this is the most random answer you're going to receive. So I played college in Oklahoma. And the playlist was country, always. And the song that came out just before we played was John D.A. Green.
00:26:36
Speaker
country song and it's actually not even very good I don't think it's like it's a Pavlov's dog where it's you start to drool when you bring the bell yeah that's kind of what it does see me it makes me feel like it's game time and so John D agreeing a country song did you
00:26:54
Speaker
Were you listening to country before, you know, you were playing in Oklahoma or just kind of? It was when you got to Oklahoma, that was everything. And now I love it. I have ever listened to music in the car. I normally just think in the car. It's like a bit of a downtime. Think about training, think about whatever. But if I do have music on, it's always a country station. All right.
00:27:18
Speaker
That was pretty much it for the fun questions that I had here. So really, the last thing to just talk about is give the floor to you to just kind of talk about Saturday's home opener against a San Diego Wave FC and just kind of how you and the team are feeling about that. Yeah, I'm all super excited. It'll be my first home opener. I've been to Lumen to see the sounders. So I'm really excited personally to be in there.
00:27:49
Speaker
excited to see all the fans and see the players play in front of their fans. I know they're excited. And then, yeah, you know, San Diego's a tough team, well-coached, very solid, very direct, but direct with a purpose. So I had some problems with them last year when I was at Gotham. So, yeah, I think when you coach for Seattle Rain,
00:28:18
Speaker
your confidence with any team on the planet on any given day. But as I say, it's the NWSL. Anyone can beat anyone, so there has to be some respect there. So I'm excited. I'm excited to get our players back tonight, after they play the internationals, and we can all get together and prepare for hopefully what will be a full night. Well, Scott, thank you very much for taking the time to chat with us and all the best to the team this weekend. Thank you. Appreciate you.