When looking for models of established, successful homegrown soccer players, people on Mercer Island don’t have to look very far.
They can turn on their TV and watch former Island standout Jordan Morris dart through defenders in Seattle Sounders blue and green. Or they can travel to Islander Stadium and watch the Mercer Island girls soccer team in the fall and the boys soccer team in the spring. The Islander girls won their first nine games of the year last season, finished second in the KingCo 2A/3A standings and were just one game short of the 3A state tournament. The Islander boys have finished undefeated in the KingCo 2A/3A league two years in a row and have made three state championship appearances in five years.
Such feats are becoming quite the norm on the Island, and Mercer Island boys varsity coach Colin Rigby believes it can be traced to a partnership that began several years ago between Mercer Island’s recreational and premier soccer programs.
For the past five years, the high school program has worked collaboratively with the Mercer Island FC and Eastside FC leagues to strengthen the Island’s soccer community. Eastside FC president Tim Bauman and Mercer Island FC president Toby Suhm now collaborate with Rigby on this shared vision for Mercer Island soccer. The trio has termed their structured philosophy as “the pyramid,” which lays out a clear path for Island youth who want to make the most of playing local soccer, leading from recreational play to the high school’s varsity team.
Already, Rigby believes he’s seeing results.
“If you timeline what we’re talking about, we started doing this collaboration about five years ago. There’s a translation,” Rigby said. “Without doubt, that has translated to the recent success of the last five years. Had we not built such a structured philosophy, I don’t know how well [the Mercer Island boys team] would’ve been this year. I think there’s a direct correlation.”
Such a path required the partnership of the rec league Mercer Island FC and premier league Eastside FC. Suhm acknowledged that in years past, MIFC coaches may have seen Eastside FC more as an adversary league that stole their best players.
“What we came to realize as an organization is that if we’re really focused on player development and what’s best for the kids, then we need to partner because we can’t offer the kind of development, the kind of competition, the kind of travel that Eastside FC can offer,” Suhm said. “And so we’ve worked really hard the past 10 years or so to strengthen our partnership and have our families, our coaches and our players see that it’s a pathway. We’re developing players at a young age and really developing their skills. Jordan Morris wouldn’t be with the Sounders today, I would say, if he had stayed on Mercer Island and with our program. He just wouldn’t have gotten the exposure and the development.”
Bauman called Jordan Morris “the poster child” for how the pyramid should work. Morris began in Mercer Island FC before moving on to Eastside FC, and then played with the MIHS varsity team before joining the Seattle Sounders Academy.
“If you think about it, it starts out with those community-based recreation select clubs like Mercer Island FC,” Bauman said. “You take the next step up with premier soccer, Eastside FC, and then the very next step at the very top pinnacle of that pyramid is the youth academies like the Seattle Sounders youth academy. That’s how the funnel of the pyramid should work.”
Bauman, Rigby and Suhm all acknowledged a player of Morris’ caliber as a rare talent. But the format was there for the Island’s soccer program to develop local talent of all skill levels, and all three wanted to put it to work as best as they could. Bauman and Suhm both acknowledged Rigby as the impetus for the vision of Mercer Island’s pyramid to take shape. Rigby initially stressed the importance of team chemistry to build a successful program, the kind of chemistry that comes from years and years of playing soccer together.
“If we have a philosophy and a pyramid and a curriculum that [Rigby] has helped develop, that means that we’re starting our players at the youngest ages developing the kind of soccer that he’s coaching at the high school,” Suhm said. “Then hopefully we can build a sustainable program where you are going back to state every year.”
Bauman said the importance of chemistry became evident after 18 members of the varsity team took a trip to Portugal last summer, where the players were able to train together and develop camaraderie. The team was short on returning starters when they took the trip, yet Rigby said he noticed a difference among those players 17 minutes into the first game of the season.
“As a coaching staff, we sat and watched the first 20 minutes of the first game and we had to sit down because we were so amazed at the chemistry on the field,” he said.
Rigby, a former Mercer Island recreational soccer player himself, attests that the trips and the experiences in his own youth soccer career have been “absolutely crucial” to his love for the sport. He says his be-all, end-all goal is he wants his players to continue loving soccer when they’re 40.
“At the end of the day, they all started at MIFC,” Rigby said. “That’s the makeup that builds the chemistry for a team like this year’s team to make it to where they are, because they have at one point been in a group or association together.”
