I grew up in Germany, where football is woven into everything — Sunday mornings, kitchen conversations, the way a whole town holds its breath together. I came to the United States and built a life here, and somewhere in the middle of all of it, I raised two sons who fell in love with this game completely.
Thirteen years. Every level. Every sideline. Every car ride. Every feeling I didn't yet understand.
That is what brought me here. And if you are standing on that sideline loving your child and this game with everything you have, I think you already know what I mean.
Not as an expert. Not as an observer. As the parent living it.
For 27 years, I helped organizations listen more closely to the people they were trying to reach.
Coaching gave me a language for what life had already been teaching me.
I pushed hard to make sure they were seen, by the right people, at the right moments. I didn't always stop to ask whose need that was serving. I had poured so much of my own unfulfilled longing into my son's talent that I couldn't always tell his dream from mine.
My sons, Jason and Austin, traveled the world of competitive youth soccer with me, through three premier clubs in Washington State, the Sounders Youth Academy, and eventually to the professional academies of Europe, including a youth development contract with 1. FC Nürnberg in Germany.
Jason went on to play Division I soccer at VCU. Austin played Division III at Baldwin Wallace University. Both of them found their own way through, on their own terms.
Watching that happen and learning to trust it changed me.
— Heike McGlothern
- Jason McGlothern, age 16
A driveway in Seattle, after a Sounders Academy game
That is where FieldSide Coaching began. Not in a classroom. In a driveway, with the engine off.
I spent years believing the most important work was happening on the field. It wasn't. It was happening in the conversations before practice. The silence on the drive home. The words that stayed with my sons long after the final whistle.
I spent years believing the most important work was happening on the field. It wasn't. It was happening in the conversations before practice. The silence on the drive home. The words that stayed with my sons long after the final whistle.
If you're carrying more than you expected...I'd be honored to walk alongside you.
FieldSide Coaching starts with a conversation. A free 30-minute call. No pressure. You don't need to have it figured out before you reach out.
