Tampa Bay Rowdies Head Coach Neill Collins has stayed busy since the 2021 USL Championship season ended. As bitter as the loss to Orange County SC in the championship final was, it didn’t stop Collins and his staff from getting straight back to work the day after to ensure next year ends on a much higher note. Below is an interview with Coach Collins looking back on 2021 and looking ahead to 2022.
With some time to reflect, what’re your thoughts on the way the season ended?
I’ve had some time to reflect, but I think it’s going to take a long time to digest just the game itself. It’s not like another game where you can maybe move on quickly and get it out of your system by playing. Because it’s the final, we’ll think about it for a long time. On Tuesday after the game, you start looking to next year and start having to finalize decisions that you’ve thought about for a long time and making tough decisions about players that have been fantastic for the club, securing players so that we can get ready for next year, and then adding players. Straight away we’re already just excited by what we can build on. That was the great thing, we gave ourselves a lot of platforms to build on. When you’re regular season champions and Eastern Conference champions, we just want to keep building on that and going from strength to strength and make that last step. A lot of great building blocks are in place and it’s my job to make those small adjustments so we can improve again.
How do you find the balance and perspective of dealing with the disappointment of reaching two straight championship finals and not achieving that ultimate goal while still taking the positives away from all the progress and successes the team has achieved?
It’s really hard to have perspective in the immediate aftermath because the disappointment is there. But then you speak to people you’re close to and they start giving you a little more perspective. Then when you try and analyze what the club’s achieved and where we’re at, you’ve gotta have perspective all the time. Balance that against what we want to achieve, which is the main trophy that we missed out on. There’s loads and loads to be positive about. What really excites me is we can all still see real potential. It’s not like we think we got there and we can’t do that again. I think we all know we can do even better, as difficult as it might be. We still see room to improve and the players are the same. That was one of the biggest things for me, speaking to the players that following week, seeing that same hunger and desire in them and obviously still a little bit of disappointment. That’s what gives me a lot of excitement. These guys are a special bunch in terms of their personality and character. So we’ll get them back in here and they’ll be as motivated as ever. One game can’t define what they’ve put into it. We won’t let that happen.
Every season is different, every team is different. What would you hope fans remember about this 2021 team?
They’ve definitely done their talking on the field with the results that they’ve had, but I think on top of that the performances that they’ve had as well. So the people that have come and watched, the players have brought them a lot of enjoyment by the way that they’ve played. But I think ultimately, it’s about the fantastic nights we’ve had at Al Lang. They should be remembered for that part, particularly that one against Louisville. I think that one reflects everything about this group. You ask the players, you ask the staff, I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of a group where every one of them has been so committed to the team, the greater good of the team. At times they’ve taken me aback by just how much they put the team first. That’s what they should take away. It’s a special team and I think the great thing is we’re keeping a majority of those guys and we just want to make them more special.
You’re losing two key pieces of your staff in Assistant Coaches Chad Burt and Kevin Foley. What have they meant to the success of this club and to you as a young coach still developing?
The players always get the most credit, and rightfully so because the players are the ones that have to go out on the field and perform under circumstances that can be very difficult, but the staff behind the scenes deserve so much credit. I think the players would say the staff do everything they possibly can to give them the best possible chance to perform. Chad and Kev have both helped take this club to another level. They’ve certainly helped me as a coach to really support me in everything I’m trying to do. People that get to work with these guys day-to-day, not just the players but the staff, can see they’re 100 percent bought into what we’re trying to do. They’re just great people, and you can’t underestimate the impact they’ve had on not just the players but everyone around them. They’re just willing to do whatever it takes. They’ll be missed, but it’s part and parcel of being part of a professional organization. Good people come and good people go, and you’ve got to just try and find people to replace them so that we can keep moving forward. From a personal point of view and then a team point of view, we’re better off having had them for two years. There’s no doubt about that.
Where are you in the process of adding those new assistant coaches?
We’re very close. It’s difficult replacing good people, especially when you’re coming off the success we’ve had. But it also brings the added advantage of people wanting to come here. People want to work with these players at this club. So that means we get good candidates. It’s not just about finding good coaches, it’s about finding good people that are bought into everything we’re about. Are they willing to help roll the tarps out on a Friday? Because our President is. We need people that are willing to go above and beyond to make the club work and I think we’ll find two people that’ll help us do that.
Where has your energy been focused since the season ended?
Meeting with every player that has been part of the team. I always felt as a player myself that coming into and out of the season, even just a two-minute chat with the coach, even if it’s some hard words, I think it goes a long way. I went through that process and it’s good to see where everyone is off to in their offseason, review their season individually and the expectations for next year. As you can imagine, we’ve also been finalizing some recruitment. That’s important. In some respects, teams are three or four weeks ahead of us. I think we’ve been able to add two or three new players that are going to move us on next year.
You’re now committed to continuing to lead the Rowdies with a new contract extension? How excited are you to know you get to keep building on all the progress the club has achieved the last three and a half seasons?
The first three and a half years have gone by really, really quickly. I’ve enjoyed every moment of it, apart from maybe a couple of months in 2018 that were particularly difficult. I think that time has been invaluable for me to improve but also for us to really improve this team and this club. I’m just delighted to get the opportunity to keep getting that time to improve the team, improve the club for the people that work here and get the people that support the club the success that they deserve. It doesn’t happen overnight. We’re just gonna keep taking it one step at a time, but we’re really excited about what’s ahead.
You stepped into this job not really knowing what you were getting into. With a few years under and a couple successful seasons under your belt, was it an easy decision to remain here in Tampa Bay?
Yeah, it was. It was Bill that showed his faith in me to begin with and Lee Cohen has obviously been supportive and when the new owners came in they’ve been supportive. I’m just grateful I’ve got people that see me as the best person to keep moving the club forward in the right direction. I see myself as a young coach in the best environment to be successful and to keep improving. That’s no different to some of our young players and some of our old players. We can all improve and that’s what we’re striving to do. If I didn’t think we could still improve and I couldn’t still get better, then I would have looked at another opportunity. For me here, I wouldn’t say we’ve just scratched the surface, I think we’ve maybe done a little bit more than that, but we’ve still got lofty ambitions that we want to achieve and that’s what we’ve started working on pretty much immediately once the final finished.
What excites you when you start to think about 2022?
The team’s always adapting and evolving. For me as a young coach, you learn every year about what does a team need more of, what does a team maybe not need as much of. Our style is constantly evolving. I think what excites me is just the possibility of adding a couple of new players, making the players that we’ve got better. I think a great example of that is Dayonn Harris. An excellent first year and you see him progress as the season goes on to showing in the final two games what he’s capable of. Can we make him better next year? That will make us better as a team and hopefully bring more success.
Top team in the regular season. Back-to-back Eastern Conference champions. When you have that kind of success, does it make your job more difficult when you’re looking for those areas of improvement?
It does make it more difficult, there’s no question about that. When I look back at 2018, it was a blank sheet of paper and it was like if we get some of these basics right we’re going to improve. I think we did that and we’ve done that incrementally every year. I think now we’re at a point where we can’t forget the basics. We’ve still got to have all the same things, the hunger, the desire that we’ve shown. That’s up to me to keep maintaining that. But then can we just add different details for the players? The players know how we want to play. They know the standard. So it’s constantly just looking at improving individually and collectively, and looking at how the league is changing as well. It definitely gets more difficult, but I’d much rather be in this position of refining the final points and trying to keep getting better as maybe just one or two percent at a time as opposed to 20 or 30 percent at a time. That’s where you’ve just got to get into the details.
