Podcast: Sean Carey on the growth of the New England Club Soccer League

Players battle for possession during a New England Club Soccer League game. (Courtesy photo)

The latest guest on New England Soccer Journal’s “The Goal” podcast is New England Club Soccer League (NECSL) founder and league director Sean Carey.

The NECSL has an enormous presence in the region. There are more than 1,300 teams registered to play U-8 through U-15 this fall, and close to 2,000 teams from more than 60 clubs set to compete next spring, when the league adds older age groups. These numbers make the NECSL the largest youth soccer league that has existed in New England. The New England Premiership (NEP) ceased operations at the conclusion of the spring season, with many NEP clubs leaving to join the NECSL.

Carey, who is also an elementary school teacher, graduated from Transylvania University in 1992 after being a three-time NAIA All-American. He went on to play professional soccer until the age of 35. In July of 2011, he was hired as the League Director of the NEP, where he remained until May of 2020.

He says he founded the New England Club Soccer League with the goal of providing a more transparent and merit-based league platform for clubs to nurture and develop their players and teams.

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Here are some highlights from our discussion with Carey.

On how the NECSL has been able to expand and grow:

Carey: “What we’ve done is try to stay true to what our core beliefs were right from the very beginning, when I founded the league. Prior to founding the New England Club Soccer League, I had helped manage and grow the New England Premiership in a similar fashion. About 10 years ago I took that on and there were 200 teams at the time. With the New England Club Soccer League, we are trying to stay focused on having it be as transparent an environment, where clubs are taking care of their own business in leagues, or the league is taking care of their clubs. I think that’s the reason that you’re seeing it expand.”

On what he learned from his experience at the NEP:

Carey: “It was an amazing experience at a variety of levels, professionally, personally. When I first came on board, there was not a lot of infrastructure in place. Building out the websites and putting in procedures and protocols and all of those things, a lot of putting some expectations in place, a lot of that really connects to what I do in real life, actually, which is I teach elementary school during the day. So, even while managing the New England Premiership for those years, during the day, I was teaching fourth grade or third grade, depending on the given year. So, it was a positive experience at a variety of levels.”

On what it was like, initially, to start the NECSL:

Carey: “It was daunting. You stare into the abyss and wonder if you’ve made good decisions. But in the end, when you look at your intentions, and, generally, what I have found over the years in working with a lot of different people is that when you have good intentions, generally — not always, of course — things work out and they don’t always work out on the timeline that you want or expect. But it was a leap of faith.”

On carving out a presence in the club soccer world:

Carey: “For us, it’s trying to provide the infrastructure for players that aspire to play at that next level, for them to be competing in a training and playing environment within their club to reach that next club that they want to reach. And, that’s by competing each weekend in a good game against another strong club at a nice facility, and let them continue to let the players drive that dream that they have and let that be settled on the field for them. That’s what we try to do.”

On his childhood days playing soccer:

Carey: “I think I was maybe six or seven when my dad made me go out to try out for a team in Lexington (Mass.). And at that time, obviously, like the rest of the country, there wasn’t as formalized a club component. It wasn’t even until maybe I was 13 or 14 that you started to see some semblance of club soccer. I went to Concord-Carlisle (Mass.) High School. There was really not much of club soccer — that was the mid-80s. For players, when you got in the high school ages, you competed in men’s leagues. If you really wanted to do that, that was your aspiration, then your opportunity to sharpen your knife was to get better against bigger, stronger players.”

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