Moving Quickly
August 10, 2006 01:40 AM | General
August 10, 2006
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| Marlon LeBlanc |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Things are moving pretty rapidly these days for West Virginia University’s new men’s soccer coach Marlon LeBlanc. On Tuesday the former Penn State assistant coach was helping the Nittany Lions prepare for its season opener against Furman.
Yesterday, he spent the afternoon driving down Route 220 to Morgantown in time for an 8 pm practice to get a look at his brand new team. Earlier Wednesday morning, West Virginia officially named LeBlanc its ninth men’s soccer coach. He becomes the program’s fourth head coach since 1995.
“I’ve got about six month’s of work to do in two weeks,” LeBlanc said. “I’m getting down there in time for practice and I really want to watch the kids a little bit and evaluate. Then I’ll meet with the staff and meet with some of the core players and get a plan of action and a directive. I will be watching a heck of a lot of video in the next 24-48 hours.”
LeBlanc is replacing Mike Seabolt, who was relieved of his head coaching duties in mid-July after three seasons in Morgantown. Also in July, potential NCAA infractions were announced within the men’s soccer program after a year-long investigation by WVU. The department voluntarily notified the NCAA of the potential violations. LeBlanc was undeterred by the present circumstances when he made his choice to take the West Virginia job.
“What I told (Athletic Director) Ed Pastilong is I don’t care what happened in the past. Let’s deal with what is going to happen in the future,” LeBlanc said. “I’ve been reassured that we’re moving in the right direction and all I care about are these kids now and where we go from here.”
LeBlanc is leaving a pretty good situation at Penn State, picked fifth in one preseason poll and returning nine of 11 starters from last year’s Big Ten championship team. LeBlanc was a player for Barry Gorman at Penn State before spending the last five seasons on his coaching staff. The Lions have made four NCAA tournament appearances and produced a 58-31-12 record since 2001.
The 2000 PSU graduate says leaving his alma mater was difficult, but having the opportunity to become a head coach at a Big East school was too good to pass on.
“(Penn State) has a great program and the time I’ve been with them they’ve done very well but West Virginia just excites me so much,” LeBlanc said. “Penn State is all in the past and I’m looking forward to getting down there and working with the guys.”
LeBlanc emerged as the No. 1 candidate for the soccer job after the school sifted through an impressive list of applicants that numbered nearly 100. Five candidates were interviewed on campus.
“When they asked me the question ‘why do you think you’re a good fit for West Virginia?’ I didn’t have a rehearsed answer like most people would for questions like that. I just told them, ‘It feels right.’ And a lot of things just feel right here,” LeBlanc said. “The similarities are uncanny between the two universities.”
LeBlanc accepted the job Tuesday afternoon.
“When the position opened up I approached my boss here and said that I was going to throw my name in the hat. Just from playing West Virginia and having a little bit of a feel for what the program was like and having been down to Morgantown before, I thought this could be a great fit,” LeBlanc said. “Everything happened so quickly but I knew when I got down there, met the people, saw the facilities and saw the university, things in Morgantown are very similar to what it’s like in State College.”
The Mountaineers are not exactly starting over this year, even with the hiring of LeBlanc just hours before its first fall practice. The nucleus of last season’s NCAA tournament team returns and LeBlanc got a chance to see some of West Virginia’s players during a spring game when the Mountaineers played at Penn State a couple of years ago.
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| West Virginia's new men's soccer coach Marlon LeBlanc spent five years as an assistant coach at Penn State.
Penn State photo |
“The spring before, we played West Virginia and I coached our Penn State team because Barry was away,” LeBlanc said. “I got a chance to see a number of their guys then and I enjoyed the way they played. They worked hard and they worked for each other. That alone is a good foundation for having a great team.”
LeBlanc plans on employing an exciting and entertaining brand of soccer this fall.
“At the end of the day we want to play attacking soccer,” he said. “At Penn State we’ve always tried to play attacking soccer and get people excited about the team by scoring lots of goals. But we were also very tactically organized and we didn’t beat ourselves. That’s going to be the philosophy that we’re going to have here at West Virginia.”
LeBlanc says future WVU rosters will be made up primarily of U.S players.
“My strategy has always been to get players that want to play for your university. I was never big on talking kids into coming to Penn State. I think if they want to be at your university you’re going to get more out of them at the end of the day. My recruiting has always been U.S.-based, not that we haven’t had internationals, but I want kids that want to play for West Virginia,” he said. “We can pick out the best players and we can pick out the worst players, but the key is picking out the guys in between.”
LeBlanc believes the tri-state region has more than enough players to support a first-rate Big East soccer program.
“My recruiting base is this area: it’s New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio … it’s the same area I will be working with here at West Virginia,” he said. “I know some good clubs and some good players and we’re going to see a trend of getting good players from the immediate region come to West Virginia.”
LeBlanc is also pretty familiar with the outstanding brand of soccer played in the Big East Conference.
“We’ve played Georgetown and St. John’s and I know about 14 of the 16 coaches in the Big East very, very well,” LeBlanc said. “The Big East and the Big Ten are two of the top three conferences in the country. All you have to do is look at the national championships that have come out of those conferences.
“West Virginia is right there,” he added. “There are 20 teams in the country that have a legitimate shot at going for everything and we can get there. It’s on a pace to get there very quickly.”
LeBlanc doesn’t anticipate a lot of turnover to the roster with the season so close at hand.
“We’ll go with the cards that are dealt,” he said. “I hate to see any of the kids leave at this stage. I haven’t been made aware of anybody looking to leave so it sounds like everybody is planning on staying.”
LeBlanc indicated that the present coaching staff will also remain intact for this year.
“Bryan (Green) has done a great job and my hat is off to him for keeping everything together,” he said. “I’ve known Bryan and we’ve always gotten along well together. Bryan is on the staff and he’s got my full support and along with Keith (Wiggins) we’re going to get things going right away.”
In the meantime, LeBlanc will leave his wife Jennifer and their young daughter Alexandra in State College until they can sell their house.
“My wife has got the task of packing and selling,” he laughed. “I got the official call (Tuesday) afternoon and by 7 o’clock we had a realtor at the house. My realtor made a call down to Morgantown and got a hold of Tara Trickett, the wife of (WVU football assistant head coach) Rick Trickett. She’s a realtor down there.
“It’s funny how things have kind of fallen into place.”
Being both a Penn State player and coach, LeBlanc says it won’t be difficult switching allegiances.
“I’ve got the blue already. It’s just the other color I’ve got to get changed,” he said. “I’m excited about this and I’m looking forward to getting started.”
