Jamestown Soccer Club sends athletes to ODP camp

Jul. 28—Tommy Neinhaus and Nick Becker have worked with hundreds of athletes in the Jamestown Soccer Club over the last eight years.

A couple of weeks ago, four of those athletes reached another level.

Connor Traut, Brady Harty, Nolan Schmidt and Daygen Nienhaus were invited to the Regional ID Soccer Camp in Rockford, Illinois. The foursome was selected from a previous State Camp through the Olympic Development Program (ODP).

ODP started back in the late 1970s as a format to identify the best soccer talent in the country. Up until about the last 15 years, it was the primary developmental tool and identification platform to find the U.S. national players for the national teams.

Tommy Nienhaus said that the recruiting and identification process has changed over the last 15 years due to the introduction of Major League Soccer (MLS) into the bigger cities across the country but mentioned that for areas like the Dakotas, Kansas and Nebraska, ODP has still proven to be a valuable tool for exposure and collegiate recruitment.

"ODP has always kind of more existed in the back of our minds in this town but over the last eight years, I and Nick Becker, the University of Jamestown women's soccer coach, have done the best we can to push this platform on families," he said.

Through ODP each state has at least one state team — teams comprised of the hottest talent among the state's soccer community. After state teams are developed, teams compete against other state teams. From there each state association takes its top players from the state team and sends them to a regional event — the midwestern regional event was held earlier this month.

"To get to that level, the boys need to have a certain technical acumen, they have to understand the game from a larger perspective and they also have to have the flexibility and adaptability to come into an environment where they may not be the best player," Nienhaus said. "These are all the things that we've been trying to impart to them while they are here with their youth club."

The Jamestown Soccer Club was established in 1978. Nienhaus and Becker took overseeing the youth development when they were newly hired with the University of Jamestown soccer program. Nienhaus said that he and Becker have worked to develop skills at a young age to help prepare athletes for ODP recruitment and collegiate level soccer.

"We use ODP to really challenge players in Jamestown who really take soccer seriously," Nienhaus said. "If we didn't do our job at the club level, they wouldn't be prepared to participate at the state level, let alone the regional level."

While Traut, Schmidt and Daygen were first-timers to the regional event, Harty was a regional event participant in 2019. Former Jamestown High School and current Montana State University soccer player Austin Shafer also was an ODP state team selection.

"We understand that development typically happens at the youngest ages," Nienhaus said. "We set about kind of reformatting the recreation program and making sure that the recreation program was a better feeder-system into competitive (play)."

Nienhaus said that while he and Becker still allowed the younger athletes to have fun with the game, the duo focused on developing soccer skills and techniques early on in the athlete's career. Nienhaus said he and Becker did this so that when athletes transitioned into traveling, competitive soccer, they were better prepared to handle the overall demands of the sport.

"From there, we just continue to make it more challenging and more difficult," Nienhaus said. "We keep raising the expectations year after year."

The four Jamestown athletes were grouped according to their age. Traut was a part of the 2005 boys team while Harty was grouped with the 2007 team. Schmidt and Nienhaus were part of the 2009 squad. Athletes are eligible for the program through their senior year of high school.

"One of the fun parts about this is that you get to see a kid develop over a decade," Nienhaus said. "Athletic development, sport-specific development is not just a one or two-year thing and you need the parents' help with that."

Nienhaus said that he has also targeted the soccer moms and dads in the Jamestown community, encouraging parents to buy into the soccer culture to where families really understand the elements of the sport and help develop their athletes, outside of his and Becker's coaching.

"From a cultural standpoint, we try to get kids to watch soccer on TV — watching the U.S. women's and men's national teams, the Olympics, qualification, World Cup — all that kind of stuff," Nienhaus said. "We've been able to make players better at younger ages which leads to more long-term success."

Brandi Harty, the head coach of the Jamestown High School boys and girls soccer teams and a former UJ women's soccer team member, said that it has been a commitment for the family and Harty as he has dedicated himself to learning more about the sport of soccer.

"He'll go out to the field on his own and he'll work on some things that he feels he needs to improve his game a little bit," Brandi said of Harty. "He's also involved in lifting with coach (Bill) Nelson and he sticks to a pretty strict schedule with that and that's helping him get stronger as he gets older.

"He's extremely fit, he goes on a run just to make sure that he's ready. These last couple years, he's really evolved as a player and it will show as he gets older for sure."

Aside from the physical work, Brandi said that there are many a conversation centered around the technical aspects of the game.

"Soccer is very important in our household," Harty said. "Everybody's aware of the game. When we watch games together, we have a lot of conversations about the game. Through ODP I get really knowledgeable players (at the high school level). They understand the game really well."