Coaching Background and Experience

Mike has served as the Breakers full-time Technical Director since June of 2001 and currently coaches the girls U12 White, U14 White and U15 White teams.  Over the past 20 years, he has worked as a head coach with the Westside Breakers, Galaxy Alliance and Santa Monica United youth soccer clubs.  During the 2000 league season, Mike’s U19 Westside Breakers team finished in 6th place out of 12 teams in the prestigious Coast Soccer U19 Premier League, the highest division in the most competitive league in the country.  This finish was the highest level ever attained by any Westside club soccer team.  His same U19 team also won the CYSA State Open Cup championship in 2000.   In addition to coaching youth soccer teams, Mike also served as the Head Men’s Soccer Coach for Los Angeles Mission Junior College from 1989 to 1990 leading the team to the playoffs in 1989.  Mike has also worked as goalkeeper coach for So Cal United Soccer Club (now Real So Cal) from 1998-1999 and as an Olympic Development Program staff coach in 1996.  In 2005 and 2006, Mike served as the head girls soccer coach at St. Matthews Parish School where his team won the Delphic League Middle School Championship in 2006.  Mike received his US Soccer Federation "A" coaching license (the highest level in US Soccer) in 1999.

From 1995-1997, Mike held the position of Director of Player Administration for Major League Soccer (MLS) where he was integrally involved in putting together the initial player pool for the league’s inaugural season in 1996.  Mike was responsible for organizing and staging 18 open player tryouts in cities throughout the US involving over 5,000 players.  Mike was also responsible for taking the initial MLS player pool of over 300 professional players and organizing them into teams that participated in the initial MLS player combine in 1995.  At the combine, he also served as one of 10 MLS player evaluators working along side legendary Dutch National Team coach, Rinus Michels and former US National Team coach, Bob Gansler.  The league office moved to New York City in December of 1997 and he stayed on as a league consultant until 1999 when he took a marketing position with the Los Angeles Galaxy.  Mike also worked for the 1994 World Cup Organizing Committee from 1992-1995.  

As a player, Mike played high school varsity soccer on the Westside for Santa Monica High School where he graduated from in 1980.  He went on to play collegiately at Cal State Los Angeles earning all-conference honors his senior year.  In 1986, Mike signed his first professional contract with a new Los Angeles area professional team called the Hollywood Kickers that joined the Western Soccer League (WSL) which, at the time, was the highest level league in the United States.  With the Kickers, Mike played against US National Team players such as Eric Wynalda, Kasey Keller, Marcelo Balboa, and Paul Caliguiri and also played international friendly games versus various international club and national teams including Scotland, Canada, United States (Olympic Team), Brazil (Olympic Team), Morocco (Olympic Team), Manchester City, Chivas of Guadalajara, Hearts and Dundee United (Scotland). The Kickers won the 1986 WSL league championship in their inaugural season.  During the winter of 1986, Mike signed another contract with the Toledo Pride of the American Indoor Soccer Association (AISA) but was seriously injured in a pre-season game and sat out the remainder of the year.  Mike then played three more years for the Kickers and then retired from professional soccer when the WSL folded.  Mike played semi-pro soccer in the Los Angeles area for many years playing primarily with the San Pedro Croat winning three California State Men’s Open Cup Championships.