Kansas Wesleyan Men’s Soccer Coach Cody Barltow on Training vs Practice, Coaching Co-Ed, and Building Better Athletes

About this episode

Cody Bartlow discusses his coaching journey and insights on training, co-ed coaching, and athlete development.

On the Contacts Coaching podcast, host Justin interviews Cody Bartlow, newly hired head men’s soccer coach at Kansas Wesleyan University, about his path from an unplanned start coaching a U6 co-ed team in high school to 25 years in coaching across club, high school, and NAIA college programs in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas. Bartlow explains why he now calls sessions “training” instead of “practice,” emphasizing scenario preparation and player autonomy in a sport with no timeouts. He discusses lessons from coaching co-ed and both genders, building belief in female athletes through relationships and individualized approaches, and borrowing concepts from football, track, basketball, hockey, rugby, and baseball to teach soccer. He also covers multi-sport development, workload management, referee relationships, why back-to-back soccer games raise injury risk, regional differences in soccer culture, and the administrative reality of small-college coaching. 00:00 Podcast Welcome 00:30 Coach Bartlow Journey 03:54 New Kansas Role 04:17 Training Not Practice 06:10 Coed Team Lessons 11:13 Building Confidence 16:25 Cross Sport Coaching 22:11 Specialization Club Tension 26:34…

People in this episode

Host: Justin Clymo

Guest: Cody Bartlow

Topics covered

• coaching philosophy
• athlete development
• co-ed coaching
• multi-sport participation
• injury risk management
• soccer culture

Keywords

• coaching
• training vs practice
• co-ed teams
• athlete confidence
• multi-sport development
• injury risk
• soccer coaching

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Kansas Wesleyan University

Places: Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas

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