Behind Enemy Lines with Dartmouth men's soccer coach Chad Riley

After finishing in second place in the Ivy League last season, Dartmouth men’s soccer’s coach, Jeff Cook, left the Big Green to become the Philadelphia Union Academy U16 coach. To replace him, Dartmouth promoted assistant Chad Riley to head coach. Riley spoke about the transition to head coach, his team’s strengths and what to expect against Penn on Saturday.

Daily Pennsylvanian: What are some of the changes you made since becoming head coach?

Chad Riley: I wouldn’t say there are any drastic changes. I think coach Cook was a very successful coach here, and you are just always trying to evolve things. So I don’t know if I could put my finger on sort of one big thing that I’ve changed now but just trying to evolve things to highlight the good parts of our team for this 2013 season.

DP: What have you learned in transitioning from an assistant coach to a head coach?

CR: I think it’s something you think about a lot as an assistant coach. You just see more of the weight placed on all of your decisions with your team and all the things that go into a game and the difference between giving suggestions and making decisions. I think that is one of the biggest distinctions.

DP: Do you feel differently coaching at Dartmouth compared to at your alma mater Notre Dame?

CR: Yeah, I definitely think it’s different. I coached at Oberlin and St. John’s before going back to Notre Dame, so I think I had a good sense of that. Something unique for Dartmouth was [that] the coach I played for at Notre Dame [Bobby Clark], then worked with for six years, was also the Dartmouth head coach for nine years earlier in his career, so I definitely felt a connection to Dartmouth.

But I do think it was very exciting to be in a new league and I knew a lot of the coaches through recruiting and different things in the Ivy League. But it’s definitely been a lot of fun and very exciting to be part of a new league.

DP: You guys had a really strong out-of-conference schedule and then lost two close Ivy matches. What are you doing to try and turn it around?

CR: I think in the Ivy League, every game is tough because there is so much importance on each game and because there is no conference tournament. That is an exciting part of our league but it puts so much importance on each game, and I think any time you don’t score goals you leave the game in the balance.

Probably like every coach in the league you would talk to tries to figure out a way to score goals because that changes the game in your favor and it creates different situations on the field. Overall, I think our goal every day and every week has been to get a little bit better with what we are doing, and I think that continues to be the goal in trying to get results as well.

DP: What is your biggest strength as a team and how does that play into facing Penn this weekend?

CR: I think Penn is a very talented team and a well coached team. They’ve done well with their start in the Ivy League. I know a few of their players through the recruiting process and certainly got a lot of respect for coach Fuller and their team. I think one of the things that we try to make a hallmark of every Dartmouth team is a really close-knit team and I think that manifests on the field with being a team that works for one another.

DP: The last two years when Penn played Dartmouth, you guys have come out early with a few key goals that the Quakers haven’t been able to come back from that. Are you going to have a similar strategy this time as well?

CR: Yeah I think you are always trying to score early. I think that changes things and I think — I was part of the game last year, but not the year before — in some ways you can plan for that, and it either happens or it doesn’t — and the game is sort of open during that time with both teams are getting chances. But I wouldn’t say that is a strategy — I think you just prepare for the game, and sometimes that is something that happens early on.