Surf Nation is comprised of like-minded coaches and administrators dedicated to our Surf mission to provide the best experiences and opportunities for their athletes. Since 2022, Idaho Surf has been a proud partner of Surf Nation, and we have thoroughly enjoyed the partnership. We have watched their amazing club grow and seen them take full advantage of being under the Surf brand.
We sat down with Idaho Surf’s George Hunt to learn more about how Surf has helped their club, players, coaches, and administrators and their upcoming season goals:
What is the biggest value of being part of the Surf Nation community??
The connection to other surf clubs around the country, being in a small state, and being a club with varying levels of commitment and talent, as well as having options for every player around the country, is a huge benefit to us. We also have players who wish to play on the East Coast or down South, and while we do not advise our teams to travel that far all the time, Surf does have teams traveling to destinations our players would like to play in. Idaho Surf utilizes the connections for guest playing to bring players in and have players go out and experience different soccer cultures. Collaboration amongst the Surf national staff and directors is something we are excited for and have only just begun to enjoy as the staff is all new. Our first Surf Summit is coming up this year, and we look forward to learning more about what we can implement for our families. The resources, coach education, College pathway, and tools that Surf provides allow us to strive to provide the best of the best experiences continually.
Looking back on 2024, can you share some of the Club highlights that you are most proud of throughout the year?
2024 was a year of change for the club; the club has completely revamped and changed everything about the inner workings. The soccer staff’s dedication to the club’s growth is incredible. We now have 2 A-licensed coaches and 2 B-licensed coaches. We also had 10 coaches achieve their next level of licensing in 2024. The coaching staff’s buy-in has changed how the club can grow and the positive experiences we can bring to the players. Our top 3 highlights from the Fall 2024 season we are multiplying the size of the club by 3X, including creating 3 established locations with a staff that is on the same page, and we are excited to be building our College ID camp and CAP program with the most experienced college staff in Idaho, lastly was Our league expansion.. being able to enter a league like the DPL in our first year of a girls program was a great showcase of what Idaho Surf has for the future.
As you move into 2025, what key KPIs have you set for the Club?
Completing our game model from our youngest ages in the Junior Academy up through our HS ages and CAP program, we need to continue to build our plan together. We are diligently working on this and making adjustments all the time, while we know this will never be a completed document we hope to implement with coaches come spring of 2025. With that implementation, we find coach education formally and informally essential to the club. The coaches are the ones on the field with the players; they are the front of the club and can impact the development of the players every day. To achieve this, we have some coaching licenses coming to Idaho and Surf, as well as Idaho Surf-specific coach education opportunities. We are also building out our informal coach education for in-season work with the coaches and will have that active in the spring of 2025. Our last KPI is our retention rate; while we believe that growth is a great indicator of what we are doing, retaining players is the best way to know if our staff is performing how we want. Players that join Surf at a young age and then go through the system to high school graduation is the goal.
You have recently moved into some of the Elite competitions across North America, such as the DPL and JPL. Can you share your player development pathway?
While leagues are great and can help us achieve our goal of providing all levels of soccer here at Idaho Surf, the main idea is to build competitive games that bring a more consistent level of play to our players on a more continuous basis. Pushing players to be able to perform at a regional and national level is the ultimate goal of our Player Development framework. We have been pleased with our performances and the level of the leagues we are a part of, and we are excited for the future within those leagues as things progress here soon. Currently our player pathway begins with the Junior academy at 5yrs old, we have that option for players up to 9, however at U9 players can enter our Competitive programing. The main difference is the games and the number of training sessions the players participate in. Starting from u9-u12, our teams play in a US club league here in Idaho while beginning to enter tournaments locally and regionally that fit their individual teams’ commitment to travel and their level of play. At U13, our top girls’ teams will be playing DPL, while our top boys’ teams will play JPL moment. Within our state, travel gets tough, so we are working to ensure we find the right balance of value for the parents through leagues and tournaments.
You recently announced a new tournament in collaboration with Idaho Blaze. Surf Nation believes in the need for collaboration. What does this event bring to the community, and why have you entered into this partnership with Idaho Blaze?
Our Tournament, Blaze and Wave, collaborates with the Idaho Inferno soccer club. The purpose of the collaboration is to show the soccer community, as a whole, that we can work together in something and bring a great event to Idaho. Idaho is struggling for a quality pre-season event, and while we may have been able to pull something off alone, the partnership and collaboration with Idaho Inferno have really allowed us to create something great. Combining our resources and our collective knowledge of the soccer landscape has allowed us to create an event that puts the players first and the club/tournament second. We hope to see this event grow over the years and would love to see some Surf squads from outside of the state attend this event as an opportunity to visit the Boise area!
Learn more about Idaho Surf at https://idahosurfsoccerclub.com/
