A passion for soccer born at Princeton

Today Broad is the director of American Soccer Programs, an organization that runs annual youth summer camps and helps talented high school players get recruited by colleges.

“The camp does a number of things,” Broad said. “It provides training and clinics for youth soccer players, but it also offers a lot of college guidance. For the last 18 years, I’ve done personal guidance for soccer players.”

Middle States Soccer Camp, the camp run by the four-decade-old American Soccer Programs, offers team training, goalkeeper-specific camps and an advanced circuit for the best players. The college counseling service educates high school players about the recruiting process and puts players into contact with potential coaches.

Broad thrust himself into most soccer circles at George Mason, where he coached from 1976 to 1984. In nine years at George Mason, Broad compiled a brilliant 88-53-17 record, and the Patriots were ranked in the top 20 in each of his last four seasons as head coach. While at George Mason, Broad began his work with American Soccer Programs.

But Broad’s soccer career didn’t begin as you might expect. For starters, when Broad first came to Princeton, he was far more interested in basketball than in soccer — and wasn’t very good at the latter.

“I didn’t mature physically until I got out of college,” Broad said. “I played [soccer] the last two years in high school with a distinct lack of ability to score.”

“I was a basketball player in high school, but when I went to Princeton they had guys like [Bill] Bradley [’65] and [Geoff] Petrie [’70] and people like that who played in the NBA. So your odds were against it. I wasn’t good enough to play in the NBA — or run for president.”

But Broad, a self-described sports junkie, couldn’t go without sports. If there was a ball, he was interested. Soccer fit the bill.

“I had to look for something else,” Broad said. “At that time, soccer wasn’t really developed, so if you were a reasonably good athlete, you could pick it up on the way.”

Soon after college, Broad began coaching soccer. After spending a few years teaching and coaching at the prep school level, Broad was invited back to Princeton by then-head coach Bill Muse and jumped at the opportunity.

“I like working with young people, and I have a masters in administrational education,” Broad said. “But I didn’t want to be a school administrator.”

Broad coached at Princeton for several years while playing on an accomplished amateur team that included several former Princeton varsity soccer players. It was there that Broad finally became a defender, his best position.

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During his tenure at Princeton, Broad learned the game of soccer at a much deeper level. He credits Muse with teaching him the intricacies of the game.

“I thought I knew something, but Bill explained to me how stupid I was,” Broad said. “I will forever be grateful, because the guy, he really just taught me so much about the game. I never would have had any success at all without Bill giving me the opportunity.”

After coaching at George Mason, Broad dabbled in the nascent television soccer industry but eventually returned to coaching, both with American Soccer Programs and for W.T. Woodson High School (Fairfax, Va.), with whom he won a state championship and two coach of the year awards.

“Coaching is a vehicle in which you can be in something you enjoy and also have a positive impact on the lives on young people,” Broad said.

Broad has since moved on to his another passion: a full-fledged career in sports media. Currently, he works for several channels, including the Big 10 Network, the CBS College Sports Network and Fox Sports.

It seems too good to be true. What could be better than talking about sports for a living? The transition, though, was neither simple nor easy.

“I learned the broadcast profession on the fly,” Broad said. “I must have looked like a stuffed animal or something at first, it was awful. I got to work with some great people, though. That helped me figure it out on the go.”

Soccer has clearly exploded in the last few years here in the United States, as evidenced by the massive increase in club soccer options for young players around the country. Indeed, the national team has become increasingly competitive in recent years, especially in the World Cup. Much of the improvement is the result of youth organizations like American Soccer Programs.

Broad would like to see soccer continue to develop in the U.S. Soccer still takes a backseat to more popular sports like football, basketball and baseball, which makes it hard for America to reach the top of the figurative soccer mountain.

“Before we can compete with the Brazilians, Argentines, French, etc., we need to get more of the best athletes on soccer teams,” Broad said. “It’s a diverse country — a lot of options, lot of things for young people to do, but more and more good athletes are playing soccer. … When you think about it, our best athletes are playing other sports. All over the world, the best athletes are playing soccer.”

The lack of soccer media exposure doesn’t help alleviate this problem, and Broad sees the irony in covering a sport that doesn’t always rise to the top of most Americans’ must-see list.

“When you do TV work, you almost always start with your open, where you stand up in front of the camera,” Broad recalled. “I was doing a game this weekend, and … I said, ‘How do I look?’ [My play-by-play guy] said, ‘Don’t worry about it — you’re covering a sport nobody watches on a channel nobody gets!’ ”

When you look past the jesting, there’s no denying the fact that Broad has had a real, tangible impact on the face of American soccer, which continues to grow to this day. And in an increasingly globalized world — where the biggest sporting event is not the Super Bowl but the World Cup — that’s a good thing.