College

From nothing, Pacini builds success at Lasell By Andrew Hush
October 15, 2005


In 1996 Giovanni Pacini was reading the Boston Herald when he saw that the all-female Lasell College was to become co-educational. On a whim, he sent a resume to the Newton-based school and the rest, as they say, is history.

Giovanni Pacini

Now Lasell is established as a consistent force in Division III men’s soccer in New England, having won the North Athletic Conference in 2002 and finishing runner-up in 2004. Currently 5-1 in conference play this fall, Pacini admits that things are a little different to those early days:

Giovanni Pacini: “I came in here with no team, no field, nothing. I had been an assistant at MIT, having previously been at Eastern Nazarene. In a proactive stance, I sent a letter and my resume and suggested implementing athletics for men, unaware that that was in the works. I came in for an interview and here I am, it seems like 8 days ago!”

Soccer New England: How did you go about building the program?

GP: “Oh my god! I had been coaching for a number of years and built up a good network of contacts. My Modus Operandi has always been to build programs with no history of success. Crummy programs, bottom line. It is critical to know how to recruit, you go out and you hustle, you hit the road and go to games, tournaments and showcases. You get on a plane and you look for players.

“I developed a system that I still use where you start with so many players and break them down until you get the ones you want. I compliment that with phone calls, emails, letter writing, home visits and campus visits, all these are things that will widen that bottom number at the end. I recruit from all over the place, not just locally. I have had players from Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Long Island and Maryland.”

SNE: The success that you have had suggests the system is working?

“Over the course of eight years we have been to the NCAA tournament and often finished in the top ten in New England. We were ranked number three when we got to the nationals which drew some players attention from professional scouts. We have had a winning record in six of eight years.”

SNE: How have the demands changed since you began at Lasell?

“Recruitment is more of a challenge now because Lasell has grown as an institution and the academic requirements have gone up. We are now attracting a smarter, more educationally sound kid and this means I am competing against another realm of school.

“I am lucky because I have a good admissions dept who will work with us in terms of getting athletes. I bump heads with other good soccer programs so that’s why I’ll go out of the region, maybe get on a plane and fly someplace.”

SNE: How do you attract players to Lasell?

“Kids who come to a small Division III school have usually made the choice to come here for something as well as soccer. Typically, these schools are smaller, we have 1200 students here, and they want that smaller faculty idea. However, just because we are a third division school does not mean the level is low accordingly. I had a conversation with a dad yesterday who had delusions of grandeur about his son, who, I admit, is very good. He was giving me a list of all the schools looking at his son and my pitch was that you shouldn’t necessarily compare the division but look at individual programs.”

SNE: How frustrating is it when you think you have a player who then goes somewhere else?

“It is the nature of the beast. I have what I call the ‘next’ theory. If I do not get ‘this’ player, who is next on my list of players that I like? The coaches out there who have a small pool are shooting themselves in the foot. I have a top 10 board here that changes regularly and I have a recruiting book too that has the players I have looked at. The top 10 is of the players that we feel we have the best chance of attracting to Lasell."

Pacini keeps his recruitment method simple, with his ‘yellow sheets, white sheets’ system. Players that have been looked at and are to be followed up on are recorded on a yellow sheet, whereas white sheets are assigned to players who have enquired but have not yet been checked.

SNE: When do you watch players?

“I have two assistants. One handles the yellow sheets and the other the white and I jump in wherever I am needed. That can be to do anything from writing a letter to hosting a campus visit.

“I don’t have the chance to go to games in the fall so I focus on the club season. To be honest, there is often not a lot to see at high school level. Those teams are made up of whoever happens to be in the school and there may be only one good player here. Club teams are a collection of the top players and I watch these games, plus tournaments and showcases. Wherever a collection of quality players is playing."

So far this season, Pacini has overseen a side that is flirting with the .500 mark overall but crucially, has been in impressive form in conference play. A comprehensive 4-0 thumping of Husson on Monday took its NAC record to 5-1 with three games to go in the regular season. For the coach, this good form is all part of his long-term plan to build the program:

“Our schedule has been tough. My vision has been to make the program one of the most competitive in the region, which is arguably the most competitive Division III area in the country. From year one we played Babson, Brandeis, MIT, Tufts because we wanted to challenge ourselves. This year, we had problems early as we couldn’t finish a free lunch! However, we are now playing good soccer with a high quality of play.”

“We try and play as high a brand of soccer as we can. The easiest way to do that is with good players, whatever level you play at. The way we carry ourselves is important. We have a dress code when we travel to away games and I try to instill a professional attitude in and how we train and prepare for matches. When we step on the field that impacts the level of play, I couldn’t do it any other way.”

With a professional approach comes ambition and, following last year’s rollercoaster ride that saw a side with six freshman starters recover from a 2-6-1 start to reach 11-8-1 and come within a penalty kick of making the NCAA tournament, Pacini is confident he has the players to challenge again this season and for years to come:

“Everyone is a year older, our recruiting class is not big in terms of numbers but it is very high in quality. I have two freshmen up front in particular, named Zach Gagne and Jeff Danzo, who are terrific. Another rookie is center midfielder Mike Liotta, who has been excellent.

“It’s always one game at a time but, with the program now established, the expectations are to reach the NCAA tournament and winning the conference will give us an automatic berth. We have created a soccer culture here through a conscious effort on my part. From day one, before we even had a team, that was part of my mindset and now that we have some history, we have alumni to drive that into new recruits, who learn of the standards we have.”

SNE: What is in the future for Giovanni Pacini?

“I am not one of those people who get into a comfort zone. I am an education junkie and am very passionate about the game so am always looking to learn. I have written articles about coaching and am the state technical director for the NSCAA, where I have been specifically involved with the goalkeeping position. When the NSCAA went more ‘grass roots’ and appointed local directors I was lucky enough to be selected and so have overseen a great deal of the coaching that has been implemented.”

As well as through his involvement with the NSCAA, Pacini has been involved in training goalkeepers for some time and wishes to expand his ‘South Shore Goalkeeper Training’ program in the future. There is, he feels, a great need for specialized coaching in this area:

“I call it (goalkeeper) the lost position. I usually start to take players when they are eleven or twelve. I get phone calls from parents who say their son or daughter is eight and likes to play in goal but I don’t think they should be playing in goal specifically at that age.

“The program has just taken off from a phone call I had a couple of years back. There is a serious demand for goalkeeper coaches at every level up through college. I love it and on Sundays, my one day off, I am doing goalkeeper training. In the past I have been doing clinics but a goalkeeper-specific camp is in the works too.”

Giovanni Pacini has come a long way since he began his coaching career at Weymouth High School twenty-four years ago and has seen many changes in the game. The success he has had in building programs and improving the level of coaching in the game has been reflected in the progress the game has seen on a wider scale:

“When I was coach at Weymouth, the youth and club soccer phenomena were not in place and the standard of coaching was not as high. Fast forward to now and there is a consciousness of player development that has driven the level of play up. In addition, national teams, MLS, and A-Leagues are all doing well which helps too.”