Speaker 1: Welcome man, It's time for another Soccer down Here one
Speaker 1: the one. I'm Jason Longshore, and Tonight we kick off
Speaker 1: our coverage of the twenty twenty five Georgia high school
Speaker 1: soccer season. The SDH Network will be live in Decatur
Speaker 1: for the Bulldogs of Decatur High School hosting North Atlanta
Speaker 1: Girls match kicksoff at six pm, the boys kickoff at
Speaker 1: eight pm. You can listen as always at soccerdown here
Speaker 1: dot mixler, m i xlr dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: listen by clicking the listen button soccer down here dot net.
Speaker 1: That'll take you right to the page with the Mixler
Speaker 1: app ready to roll for you. Wednesday through Saturday, it's
Speaker 1: going to be very busy on the SDH Network as
Speaker 1: we cover the twenty twenty five Creek Cup, the first
Speaker 1: edition of this tournament that I think is going to
Speaker 1: have a lot of legs in the Georgia high school
Speaker 1: soccer seeing. Kelly Bowler, the head coach at Johns Creek,
Speaker 1: caught up with us to talk about bringing this event together,
Speaker 1: why it's been such a passion of his, and what
Speaker 1: to expect in the first edition of the Creek Cup.
Speaker 1: Here's my conversation from late last week with Kelly Bowler
Speaker 1: of Johns Creek High School. We've talked about the Creek
Speaker 1: Cup for a little while. It's come together for its
Speaker 1: first edition this year. How difficult was it to bring
Speaker 1: everything together for the twenty twenty five Creek Cup.
Speaker 2: So it's been about over a year's worth of work.
Speaker 2: I started emailing teams I think a year ago December
Speaker 2: about being in a Creek Cup the next year because
Speaker 2: schedules were made so far in advance. Now with all
Speaker 2: the lacrosse teams and everything else, you have to move
Speaker 2: so fast on the schedules. The I mean it is.
Speaker 2: We've We've met probably twice a month every month, me
Speaker 2: and my Creek Cup committee, which is made up of
Speaker 2: a lot of my soccer board members of the parents.
Speaker 2: And when I pitched the idea to them, they were like,
Speaker 2: this is awesome, but we need to do it right
Speaker 2: if we're going to do it, you know, and we
Speaker 2: need to like make it a big thing. And so
Speaker 2: we went out and started hunting for sponsors. I was
Speaker 2: hunting for all the teams. I had a lot of
Speaker 2: teams like balk at me at first because they didn't
Speaker 2: want to pay, you know, a fee to come play
Speaker 2: you know, two games, you know, and so. But then
Speaker 2: once it started to take off, it kind of grew
Speaker 2: legs of its own and and and like now I've
Speaker 2: had teams asking me can they get into it. I
Speaker 2: just had a team email me last week and saying, hey,
Speaker 2: do you have any openings in your Creek Cup for
Speaker 2: next week? And I'm like like no, but it. It
Speaker 2: has taken a ton of work. And I mean, we've
Speaker 2: got everything, food trucks. I've emailed every college in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama,
Speaker 2: South Carolina, North Florida, like just trying to get colleges
Speaker 2: to come. We've got, you know, fifteen schools coming. I
Speaker 2: want to make it an op I want to make
Speaker 2: it an event that high school soccer can be proud of.
Speaker 2: And it's been a long time since we've had a
Speaker 2: tournament here in Atlanta. Used to have to go to
Speaker 2: Alabama to do the best the Stavia Hills or go
Speaker 2: to the gold Shores one to get a tournament experience
Speaker 2: like that. And I think Atlanta, being such a big
Speaker 2: soccer mecca, should have a tournament like this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're really happy to be part of this
Speaker 1: and provide commentary for all the games throughout the tournament.
Speaker 1: Hopefully that adds to that exposure component. You know, this
Speaker 1: is a big deal and a big time for high
Speaker 1: school soccer in Georgia. I've been doing state championship games
Speaker 1: since twenty seventeen. I feel like the level jumps a
Speaker 1: lot every single year. And last year across the board, boys, girls,
Speaker 1: every single classification.
Speaker 3: It was a great season.
Speaker 2: Mm and it was it's and you called my game
Speaker 2: a few years ago. I remember listening to your voice
Speaker 2: back when I had to go back and watch through
Speaker 2: our our painful loss to Dalton. So so the it
Speaker 2: is like high school soccer has taken on a whole
Speaker 2: new level. When I started at Chattahoochie back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and five, you know, most of the soccer teams
Speaker 2: were coached by offensive coordinators on a football team, or
Speaker 2: you know, some somehow they were getting a football coach
Speaker 2: into the school to do double duty. They'd be a
Speaker 2: football coach and a soccer coach, and they wouldn't really
Speaker 2: know anything about soccer. And so a lot of kids
Speaker 2: either didn't play for their high school team or they
Speaker 2: you know, they were they weren't very good or they
Speaker 2: weren't very organized because they were pretty you know, poorly coached.
Speaker 2: But now you look around and every high school around
Speaker 2: us is either a former club coach, a former player,
Speaker 2: you know, or is a current club coach. You know,
Speaker 2: Like we've got Walton coming in. Bruce Wade is a
Speaker 2: coach at NASA, you know, and he's a successful one.
Speaker 2: You know, River Ridge won the state championship last year.
Speaker 2: Phil Thomas is, you know, a really good coach at NASA.
Speaker 2: You know, Like you've got all these club coaches that
Speaker 2: are now involved in high school soccer and realize that
Speaker 2: because Atlanta is so good at soccer and there's such
Speaker 2: a depth of talent that the high school it like,
Speaker 2: you don't you don't see teams playing like direct soccer anymore.
Speaker 2: Everybody's trying to keep the ball, everybody's trying to play
Speaker 2: the right way, and it's it's it's very competitive, and
Speaker 2: it's gotten like more and more competitive as I have
Speaker 2: gotten older and more experienced. It was. It has changed
Speaker 2: a ton.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and it's statewide too. That's what's so cool
Speaker 1: about it. I remember you doing a state championship game
Speaker 1: and Breeman came in and they're running a really well
Speaker 1: organized pressing system, and I'm like, pressing in high school.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen this before. It is amazing, and it's
Speaker 1: just taken on so much debt.
Speaker 2: And I invited Bremen to the to the Greek Cup
Speaker 2: they're boys and girls, because they were both super successful
Speaker 2: in the last couple of years, and so I was
Speaker 2: trying to get them to come, and he was flirting
Speaker 2: with the idea of coming. So, you know, in some
Speaker 2: of the smaller classification schools, I get not wanting to
Speaker 2: jump into something like this because it's going to be,
Speaker 2: you know, some tough matchups, but also wanted to get
Speaker 2: teams in there that like they might dominate their division
Speaker 2: and and could especially with now the new format for
Speaker 2: power rankings for the one through three a's. That's part
Speaker 2: of the reason Lagrange is coming. The coach Pulliam at Lagrange,
Speaker 2: he's a former college coach and he built a national change.
Speaker 2: I think he won a national championship if I'm correct,
Speaker 2: when he was in college or as a college coach.
Speaker 2: And he's built that Lagrange program from kind of the
Speaker 2: ground up. They were really not a great program. He's
Speaker 2: gone in there turned them, you know, entirely around, and
Speaker 2: he is, you know, like they he wanted to play
Speaker 2: in a tournament like this to up his power rankings
Speaker 2: because he's playing neutral on a neutral field against teams
Speaker 2: up a classification and our successful teams, and that's going
Speaker 2: to help him when it comes to making the playoffs
Speaker 2: as an at large team or whatever, so or getting
Speaker 2: a better seat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for kind of our our kickoff to high school
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, explain that aspect of it, the
Speaker 1: power rankings, and how that's different than previous years.
Speaker 2: So I wish I knew more about it because they're
Speaker 2: not doing it in my classification.
Speaker 3: Like I'm trying to learn myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've kind of like I've kind of like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll learn this when it comes. But I do know
Speaker 2: that in classifications one through three A that you know,
Speaker 2: they're going to base seeding. They did it in football
Speaker 2: this year, right, you know, And and what they're trying
Speaker 2: to do is get a more accurate seting of teams
Speaker 2: going into the playoffs. And like this is one hundred
Speaker 2: percent true. You know, when we went to the final
Speaker 2: four two years ago, our first round game was against
Speaker 2: Lanear and Lanier won their region going away like they
Speaker 2: smoked their region and then we were the four seed
Speaker 2: coming out of our region. But our region was the
Speaker 2: toughest region in the state. So when we had to
Speaker 2: go play linear, that was almost like a state final,
Speaker 2: you know, or a state semi final level game. And
Speaker 2: what they're trying to do is make sure that those
Speaker 2: games happen later on in the playoffs and you get
Speaker 2: a more true elite, a more true final four, a
Speaker 2: more true championship game than somebody kind of coasting through
Speaker 2: with like an easier bracket and not getting and having
Speaker 2: like easier seeds to go up against. So they're trying
Speaker 2: to create that by using power rankings, your difficulty of schedule,
Speaker 2: your record where you play teams as well, because if
Speaker 2: you play a home heavy schedule, it's going to hurt you.
Speaker 2: So they want you to travel, play difficult games, see
Speaker 2: how you do on the road, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And as I understand it, they're also not necessarily they're
Speaker 2: they're flirting with the idea of not necessarily giving every
Speaker 2: region for playoff bits. Okay, you know, like where they're
Speaker 2: and that's as far as I understand, I may be
Speaker 2: taking on that. But the idea is to have some
Speaker 2: at large bids for some of those regions that are stacked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw it last year.
Speaker 1: There were some really tough matchups late in the season
Speaker 1: to determine who's going to get to continue on yep.
Speaker 2: And I mean there's been years, several years in a
Speaker 2: row where I finished as the fifth place team in
Speaker 2: our region and we should have been a playoff team,
Speaker 2: you know, like we should like, but our region was
Speaker 2: so hard that somebody had to be left out. I
Speaker 2: can't say how many times we've gotten into March or
Speaker 2: mid March and the top ten has been full of
Speaker 2: teams from our region, five or six teams, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: two of these teams are one of these teams can't
Speaker 2: go to the playoffs because there's only four spots. But
Speaker 2: I think these at large bids, if they do implement
Speaker 2: those at large bids, that's where you're going to be
Speaker 2: able to get these teams in there, and they deserve
Speaker 2: a shot. Because you lose a game in PKS in region,
Speaker 2: that costs you a playoff appearance against another stacked team,
Speaker 2: you know, that's that's not a real, you know, fair way.
Speaker 2: And necessarily to determine you know, the best playoff teams
Speaker 2: coming out of a region.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned with with Creek Cup and bringing it together,
Speaker 1: how important it was to have something like this in
Speaker 1: the metro Atlanta area. What does it do in your
Speaker 1: mind for the teams that are going to take part
Speaker 1: in this early in the season, the first weekend of
Speaker 1: the first week and weekend of the season, what does
Speaker 1: it do to help them be a playoff team and
Speaker 1: be a competitive team at the end.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean to put you against challenging teams, and
Speaker 2: it puts you in a like a playing for a
Speaker 2: trophy environment like our kids, you know, even coming out
Speaker 2: of club. And this is I love club. I used
Speaker 2: to coach club all the time. But if you're an
Speaker 2: e CNL or ECRL player, which a lot of the
Speaker 2: teams that are coming in are stacked with right my
Speaker 2: program is stacked with it, Walton, Sequoia, Campbell, you know,
Speaker 2: they all are loaded with team with players that play
Speaker 2: at this level. At that level, they don't get to
Speaker 2: play for trophies anymore. You know, they're playing for a
Speaker 2: league title and that's about it. But when they go
Speaker 2: to these showcases, they're not playing anything. They're not playing tournaments,
Speaker 2: you know, and so the kids kind of miss out
Speaker 2: on that getting to play for a trophy thing. It's different,
Speaker 2: and it is and and when you when there's a
Speaker 2: something at stake, you know it, it definitely is different.
Speaker 2: And that's a more playoff environment, you know. And so
Speaker 2: we're trying to recreate a little bit of like a
Speaker 2: little you know, semi final final for everybody against tough teams,
Speaker 2: against good opponents. And when you look at the brackets,
Speaker 2: and the brackets are pretty stacked with teams that are successful.
Speaker 2: I mean, my bracket has doth In in it, which
Speaker 2: was I think in the Elite eight or Final four
Speaker 2: last year. In Alabama, you've got Tucker, who won their
Speaker 2: region last year and pretty much dominates their region almost
Speaker 2: every year. You know, Murray County is somebody that's trying
Speaker 2: to build a program up. Then you go to that Walton, Sequoia, Campbell,
Speaker 2: and North Atlanta bracket. North Atlanta's who knocked me out
Speaker 2: of the playoffs and the Elite eight last year, they
Speaker 2: won their region. Walton won their region, Sequoia was second
Speaker 2: in their region to the state champion River Ridge. You know,
Speaker 2: like so these these teams are like these brackets are stacked,
Speaker 2: and like I want. I wanted to recreate a very
Speaker 2: competitive environment that right out of the gate, you could
Speaker 2: test your players, You could throw them in there, see
Speaker 2: what you've got, see what you have putting it, put
Speaker 2: them in front of college coaches. Play for a trophy,
Speaker 2: you know, give them something to play for that matters
Speaker 2: these non region games. And most of us play a
Speaker 2: lot of non region games. Right we have six region games,
Speaker 2: but we play eighteen game schedule, so that means there's
Speaker 2: twelve games in there that are like they count and
Speaker 2: they're important because they're you know, they go to your
Speaker 2: schedule and their record. And as a soccer player, everybody
Speaker 2: wants to win everything that they do. If you're a
Speaker 2: high level soccer player, you want to win all the time,
Speaker 2: whether it's a drill or a non region game or
Speaker 2: an exhibition game like tonight. But the it just puts
Speaker 2: a little bit more at stake when you're playing for
Speaker 2: a trophy and you're playing for something, you know, And
Speaker 2: so I wanted to create that. And the last time
Speaker 2: I knew of an Atlanta tournament of this size was
Speaker 2: back when I started at Chattahoochie. Chattahoochi and Brookwood were
Speaker 2: like co hosting like an Adidas Cup or something like that.
Speaker 2: At the that was a high school tournament and then
Speaker 2: we haven't had one for a long time, and I
Speaker 2: wanted to bring that back to the Atlanta area. Has
Speaker 2: always been a goal of mine. And admittedly I didn't
Speaker 2: want to stick my neck out for a long time,
Speaker 2: you know, because like it can blow up in your
Speaker 2: face if it's handled in correctly. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure I had the right people around me, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to make sure that we were ready to
Speaker 2: put on an event like this. And I also was
Speaker 2: more concerned at the time with building my program to
Speaker 2: where I wanted it to be, but now it's comfortably
Speaker 2: where I want it to be on a consistent basis. Now,
Speaker 2: I felt like it was something we could do and
Speaker 2: my players are super excited about it, you know, and
Speaker 2: it puts my program at the forefront of Georgia soccer
Speaker 2: for a week and it's a really good thing to,
Speaker 2: you know, bring the attention to my program, which I
Speaker 2: think we're doing a great job running.
Speaker 1: So and you guys have been able to bring a
Speaker 1: lot of great sponsors on board with us too.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, So, Emory Sports Medicine is our keynote sponsor. There,
Speaker 2: our key sponsor, Our our team doctor is doctor Janthy.
Speaker 2: He's one of the head people for Emery Sports Medicine
Speaker 2: and he he was all about this, he was all
Speaker 2: over it. He wanted to do it. Not only did
Speaker 2: he provide us a sponsor ship check, he is providing
Speaker 2: all the trainers for free, which I mean.
Speaker 3: Like that's a huge expense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that we would be paying that he's covering. So
Speaker 2: we're super excited about them. We've got Toka, which up here,
Speaker 2: I mean ninety percent of my soccer players go to Toka,
Speaker 2: you know, once or twice a week just to work
Speaker 2: on skills, work on first touch like that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Then we have Football Vita, which is a clothing a
Speaker 2: soccer clothing company that's coming in.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They're great, they're great friends of us at SDH.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we've got We've just got tons and tons
Speaker 2: of sponsors. And I wish I could name them all
Speaker 2: they're like, but there's so many of them that I
Speaker 2: would forget. I'm afraid I'm gonna forget some of them.
Speaker 3: But we will be naming them on all the.
Speaker 2: Every we're reading about them every day and like we
Speaker 2: we are so excited about it. We've got three food
Speaker 2: trucks coming to be there and they are giving us
Speaker 2: a share of their sales. Like this is like this
Speaker 2: has turned into a massive event where and Tokia is
Speaker 2: going to have a soccer experience at our stadium, nice
Speaker 2: in the grass field over to the side. So it's
Speaker 2: just going to be a really cool event, I think
Speaker 2: with college coaches in the stands, and yeah, want of
Speaker 2: the talk of the Taco mac is providing the food
Speaker 2: for the hospitality room for those college coaches and the
Speaker 2: high school coaches that are coming over, the colleagues and
Speaker 2: our announcers.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, exactly, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: The college coaches is a big part of it, and
Speaker 1: I kind of want to touch on that before we go.
Speaker 1: You know, I do a lot of high school game
Speaker 1: or high school games every season. I do a lot
Speaker 1: of college games every season, and you mentioned getting those
Speaker 1: players ready for that kind of atmosphere. I think high
Speaker 1: school across the board, and this tournament specifically, it helps
Speaker 1: these guys get ready and women get ready to play
Speaker 1: at the college level in front of crowds, dealing with pressure.
Speaker 1: This is a huge opportunity for both sides of it,
Speaker 1: whether it's the kids and the families to play and
Speaker 1: be seen, but it's also a huge opportunity for those
Speaker 1: college coaches to come down and see a whole lot
Speaker 1: of programs in a short period of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you get it on if you come on.
Speaker 2: If the college coaches come on Saturday for our finals,
Speaker 2: right for the for the final day, if you come
Speaker 2: to Johnswree High School, they're going to get six games
Speaker 2: of high school soccer, of high level programs, all on
Speaker 2: a row of kids that they would go to a
Speaker 2: showcase to see any day of the week. But now
Speaker 2: maybe these kids are off of their e C and
Speaker 2: L teams and now they're on a high school team
Speaker 2: where they're even more counted on or more relied upon,
Speaker 2: and now they can shine because they're not subbing off
Speaker 2: halfway through the game. You know, these ECNL teams and
Speaker 2: these ECL teams, I go watch. I've got some of
Speaker 2: the top players in the state, you know, at certain
Speaker 2: positions in my program, and I go watch them. I
Speaker 2: went to their showcase in South Carolina to surprise them
Speaker 2: and watch them play up there. And here my players
Speaker 2: are playing the first twenty five minutes and then coming
Speaker 2: off the field, and I'm like, you know, sure college
Speaker 2: can watch you in those twenty five minutes, and most
Speaker 2: college coaches can probably tell you how interested they are
Speaker 2: in that player in those twenty five minutes. But now
Speaker 2: if you're put in a position where maybe you're an
Speaker 2: outside back. We had a we had our one of
Speaker 2: our star players last year was an outside back for
Speaker 2: NASA and then for US he was our attacking mid.
Speaker 2: You called I think you guys called his game. I
Speaker 2: think you were the announcer for the game last year
Speaker 2: against Carrollton. Yeah, it was Julian sa Here. Yeah, he
Speaker 2: I remember he played outside back for his club team,
Speaker 2: but for US he played attacking mid and was, you know,
Speaker 2: an All state player. You know, so they're going to
Speaker 2: get to move to positions where they're more relied upon,
Speaker 2: where they're more central to everything, and it's going to
Speaker 2: be you know, it's it's an opportunity to see players
Speaker 2: in a different environment, and it's important to be that
Speaker 2: kids get recruited. I send college emails all the time.
Speaker 2: I've put people in college that had no idea that
Speaker 2: they had even had the opportunity to do so and so.
Speaker 2: I think it's really important and I want to get
Speaker 2: more colleges. I was hoping for even more schools than
Speaker 2: we currently have, but I'm super excited that we have,
Speaker 2: you know, eight boys programs and three girls programs coming
Speaker 2: to come up here and watch. Most of them are
Speaker 2: pretty local, but you know, they you know, it's an
Speaker 2: opportunity for some of these kids. It'll be an opportunity
Speaker 2: that they might not have gotten otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's awesome that all these games are going
Speaker 1: to be streamed. You can watch them on the different
Speaker 1: schools John's Creek and Northview's websites where the games will
Speaker 1: be streamed on their sites. You'll have our commentary provided
Speaker 1: by the SDH Network, and hopefully some college coaches tune
Speaker 1: into that as well. If they can't make it out
Speaker 1: in person, they'll be able to see a lot of
Speaker 1: great soccer in a short period of time. Creek Cup
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. It starts on Wednesday. It runs through Saturday.
Speaker 1: Every team's going to play two games at both John's
Speaker 1: Creek and Northview. If you're in the area, come out
Speaker 1: and see some of this high level soccer. And if
Speaker 1: you can't get out there. You can listen to us
Speaker 1: on our mixer app, and you can watch on the
Speaker 1: school websites. It's going to be amazing. We're really happy
Speaker 1: to be a media partner this. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: Kelly for having us on, thank you.
Speaker 2: For broadcasting it, and thank you for having me as
Speaker 2: a guest. I appreciate it.