Where Are They Now: Michael Todd, Men's Soccer

Arriving from John Moores University in Liverpool, England, Michael Todd joined Hofstra in 2003 and would go on to become one of the top scorers in Hofstra men’s soccer history. Prior to his time at Hofstra, Todd was a part of the Middlesbrough FC academy and played for the club from age nine through 17. Donning the Hofstra blue and gold from 2003-06, Todd helped lead the Pride to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and three straight CAA championships.

Todd was a four-time All-CAA selection and was named the CAA Tournament MVP in 2004 and again in 2006. In 2006, after leading the Pride to a third straight conference title and a third straight NCAA Tournament appearance with 12 goals and five assists in 20 games, he was named a National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) Second Team All-American and received the CAA Player of the Year Award.

In his first NCAA Tournament game, Todd scored one goal and helped Hofstra to its first NCAA Tournament win in program history when the Pride defeated Seton Hall 2-1 in 2004. He finished his Hofstra career second in points (101), third all-time in goals scored (40) and tied for third in career assists (21), while his 13-goal season in 2006 currently ranks fifth for most goals in a single-season at Hofstra.

In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Todd was a star in the classroom as he was named a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American in 2005 and 2006, a NSCAA Academic All-Region in 2006 and was named the CAA Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2004.

Todd was selected with the third pick in the second round of the 2007 MLS Supplemental Draft by the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City), but did not sign a contract with the club. He would eventually sign for the Charleston Battery of the USL A-League and played in 15 games for the club. He then joined the Baltimore Blast of the Major Indoor Soccer League for the 2007-08 season, where he scored six goals and eight assists and helped the Blast to a MISL championship.

Todd moved back to Long Island to play for the Long Island Rough Riders, where he played for three seasons before moving into the youth coaching circuit. After working as the Coaching Director for Locust Valley Soccer Club, Todd and several other area coaches formed Gold Coast FC in 2012. Today, Gold Coast FC operates numerous youth teams along the North Shore of Long Island.

In 2010, Todd returned to Hofstra to see his #9 number retired. He joined teammate Gary Flood as the second Hofstra men's soccer player to have his number retired.

Todd graduated with a degree in Exercise Science with a minor in Community Health. He is currently married with three children.

What made you decide to attend Hofstra?

Eugene Larkin, who was the assistant coach at the time, was from the same town that I grew up in in England. He had moved over to America and played collegiately, then got into coaching and connected with Richard Nuttall as the Hofstra assistant coach. I was 19 at the time and going to school in the United Kingdom to John Moores University in Liverpool, and someone asked me if I was interested in going to university in America. They had a good friend who worked over here, and I said sure. He emailed Eugene, and Eugene emailed me asking if I was interested; I said I was, even though I knew nothing about the university system in America at the time.

He came home for Christmas and stopped by to see me playing with my team. We didn’t actually meet or talk that day, but a day or so later he contacted me to meet up and discuss the move. I said yes, and we met up to talk about everything. I ended up transferring from John Moores University in Liverpool to Hofstra.

To be honest, going to university and playing collegiate in America wasn’t something I knew of growing up. As I started to get older, though, around 16 or 17, I had heard of a few people doing it, and it was definitely something that I thought was an incredible opportunity. 

Things were obviously very different back in 2003, as far as access to information, compared to what it is now. It was something I had heard of people doing and I knew that if I had the opportunity, it was something that I would be interested in.

What was your favorite memory from your time at Hofstra?

I had a lot of good memories at Hofstra. I think the Seton Hall game in the NCAA Tournament was pretty special. It was our first time in the Tournament, and the level of competition from the teams we were playing was definitely a step up. The atmosphere from that game was absolutely massive, especially with the alumni presence at that game. I would say that game was very special, because it had a little bit of everything; there was drama, it was a very competitive game, there was complaints with the referee and the fans really got behind us. It had everything.

I wouldn’t say my goal was a scrappy goal or anything like that, it was more like a contested goal; the other team wasn’t happy about how it happened. It was all pretty wild. And what’s funny is that a few years later, when I was playing indoor soccer, I played with the Seton Hall goalkeeper, and he was adamant that the goal should never have counted and I obviously disagreed with him.

Going from living and attending school in England to moving to the United States, what was that transition like for you?

When you move somewhere different, you don’t really grasp how much you rely your family and friends for things. When you come to a different country, with just two suitcases of clothes, you don’t realize you’ve got a dorm room that needs furnishing or things like that. As a 19-20 year-old kid coming from England, you don’t think of at the time.

I was definitely somewhat naïve about it, and I definitely found the transition tough at first. Even things like the weather took adjustment; I didn’t realize how hot it would be. Summers in England are pretty mild, so playing soccer in that kind of weather was something I wasn’t used to.

You played a very big role in securing two of the first NCAA Tournament wins in Hofstra men’s soccer history. What did it feel like to score those goals in such high-pressure games?

It’s nice to be remembered for those goals, but it’s a reflection of the team we had. The one against Seton Hall was particularly special because it was the program’s first win in an NCAA Tournament, there was a massive alumni presence there, and the atmosphere was phenomenal. I was fortunate to have been a part of that game and apart of such a collective team effort with those wins.

You finished as one of the most accomplished Hofstra players in men’s soccer history, ranking at or near the top of every major statistical category. What do you attribute to your success on the field?

What you see with those awards is a reflection of the group of players we had. We were very successful as a team; we were ok that first year, but we won championships the next three years and made the NCAA Tournament. So for me, I was very fortunate to have a great group of players around to allow me to be as successful as I was, which was a reflection of how well we performed as a team.

Someone is always going to get that recognition for awards, whether it’s for scoring goals or creating them, and it just happened to come my way. I would say I look back on that as how good we were as a team and how great it was to be a part of that. With those kinds of awards, there’s always going to be someone who gets that recognition, and it just happened to be me.

You were not only accomplished as an athlete, you were very accomplished in the classroom. What did it mean to you to be named an Academic All-American and a CAA Scholar Athlete?

I think my parents were really proud of that, more than what I did on the pitch. If you move away from home and my family in a completely different country and you succeed in class and athletics, your mom and dad are going to be proud of you. I think, with having moved away, it was such a commitment and it made me grow up quicker. Obviously I came here to play soccer, but you’re not going to waste your time leaving your family and moving across the world without doing a good job. 

I almost fell under the pressure to make sure that I did well and succeeded in the classroom and on the field, particularly when you get scholarship money. I definitely felt like that was something incredibly important, whereas a year or two before that, I was a little more naïve and probably wouldn’t have been so conscientious of my time in the classroom.

At the end of your Hofstra career, you were drafted by the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer in the Supplemental Draft. What was it like to be drafted to a professional team?

I was told that clubs were interested and it was likely I was going to be drafted. It wasn’t a complete unknown, I was aware of the college draft, but it was still an unusual experience for me. It was also very exciting to have that opportunity to continue my soccer career; it’s something you’ve always dreamed of since you were a kid, to play sports professionally.

You eventually signed a professional contract with the Charleston Battery of the A-League (now USL League One). What was your experience with the Battery like?

I had actually signed a contract with the Virginia Beach Mariners before that and trained with the club for a couple of months, but then the owner pulled out and left everyone without anything. The assistant coach for that team, Jim Rooney, was close to me, and once that club had folded, he arranged me for a trial game for Charleston against the New York Red Bulls in a preseason game. I had a great game, and I think the next day I was offered a contract, so it all worked out after everything happened with the Mariners.

If I’m quite honest, I definitely underachieved with them as a player. I played a lot and did alright, but I think one of the reasons why I succeeded at Hofstra was because it felt like a family and you had that close-knit environment, and I feel that helps you off the field in life when everything seems unstable or out of balance. When I moved down to Charleston, I was on my own and definitely a little bit bored. It was very different compared to college, where you have a lot of people around you all the time and you were able to socialize. There wasn’t much else for me to do other than go to practice and then go home every day.

Looking back on it, I definitely wasn’t happy off the field, and I think that bled into my on-the-field performance. It was a great experience; Charleston was a great club, they had a terrific stadium, and the city is an amazing place. But I think I could’ve done better if my life off the field was in a more secure situation, and I could’ve acted more professional about it.

After some time with Charleston, you then played for the Baltimore Blast, a professional indoor soccer team. What was that experience like?

That was something I knew of, but wasn’t very knowledgeable of. I knew people who had played in that league and it was something I had always wanted to try if the opportunity were to arise. I had actually played against the owner’s son while I was at Hofstra and he played at Towson, and so all four years I played against his son, so he’d seen plenty of me, and I think that’s why they wanted to sign me. When they reached out to me and offered to sign me, it was another surreal experience, but I was willing to try anything. 

The Blast had, and still have, a very strong fan-base; we’d usually get anywhere between 10-15,000 fans per game. I did well when I played there, getting Rookie of the Week my first week with the team and being named the supporters Rookie of the Year. We played in the Major Indoor Soccer League that year and we won the championship. I really enjoyed my time with the Blast. Baltimore was a great place to be, the city and the people are all great, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing the indoor game. It’s very different from traditional, outdoor soccer; there were nuances that guys who had been playing for a long time knew of and were very good at using, and newcomers like myself took some time to adapt to. It was a terrific experience.

You then spent some time back on Long Island, this time with the Long Island Rough Riders. How did that come about and how did it feel being back on Long Island as a professional?

I got to a point where I knew I wasn’t going to make serious, major league-type money, and I wasn’t going to bounce around the minor league levels of American soccer. As much as I enjoyed playing after college, I tried to figure out what I was going to do after that ended. I had spoken to Gary Book, who was the assistant coach at Hofstra when I left, and he offered me a job back on Long Island to start coaching. I didn’t want to stop playing, but I saw that as a more secure profession for myself rather than bouncing around. I reached a point where I didn’t enjoy bouncing around and relocating myself every nine months. 

I decided to move back to Long Island, where all my friends from college were and I would begin coaching, and as I did that, I had spoken to the Rough Riders coach, who I had known very well, and he loved to have me on the squad. I played with the Rough Riders for a few years with Gary Flood, a great player from Hofstra in his own right. That team with the Rough Riders was ridiculous; there were a lot of players similar to me, where they had gone off and played all across the minor league levels before coming back to Long Island. That was such a fun group to be a part of.

How did you get into youth coaching?

Soccer has always been part of my life, and when you think about career progression in the sport, do you want to go into job in a front office or anything like that. It may sound one dimensional, but soccer was really all I knew and it’s always come very natural to me. As far as coaching, it felt like an obvious progression for me. I enjoy working with kids, I enjoyed the game, so the more I could be around the game, the better. If someone told me I would end up coaching soccer for a living, as much being a soccer player was my dream goal, being a coach and making a living from that was an equally amazing prospect.

You started Gold Coast FC, a youth soccer organization, in 2012. How did it come about and what has it been like to run your own youth organization?

So I worked for a few years with Gary and I decided to kind of branch out on my own. I was directing a club on the North Shore called Locust Valley Soccer Club. A guy who I met and was coaching around the area named Michael Cipriano, who I had actually played against in college at Northeastern. We were each growing our organizations and we kind of developed a friendly competition with each other, but sometimes some of the parents would’ve taken into unfriendly territory. So Mike and I came together and went “this is crazy, we’re both working towards the same goal of coaching kids, why don’t we just work together here instead of against each other?” because, as professionals, the last thing we wanted to do was compete against each other. We both understood that the benefit of working together was for the kids. So we, along with Hofstra 2005 graduate Peter Hulse, created Gold Coast FC, and we merged the small communities together. 

It all initially started with some extra tournaments and it grew and grew in popularity from there. I’d say we’re now one of the bigger clubs on Long Island with about 30 travel teams and we’ve been going on for about eight years now. We haven’t set out to be an academy program, but what we are is an organization with kids who are very good academically and are two-sport athletes. We’re aiming to be one of the best community programs as we can be in the sport on Long Island.

How did your time as a student-athlete at Hofstra prepare you for life after college?

It had a massive impact. The way Richie set up his program is very much like a family atmosphere. There’s obviously the sporting aspect of it, but the sport is the vehicle for other things outside of soccer like representing yourself well and family being the most important thing. It’s things you don’t think about when you’re a young kid, but as you grow older, you understand how important they were. 

I’m still very close with the guys I played with at Hofstra, and we talk to each over group chats and in person whenever we can. Those kinds of things are so much more important than the sport itself.

What does it mean to you to be a part of the Hofstra family?

Coming from a different country, it does feel being a part of a family. Plenty of people and plenty of programs can say that, but the environment and the culture that I experienced and has continued to exist after I graduated reinforces the feeling of family. It’s something that changed my life and made me realize and learn a lot of good things that I’ve been able to take along with me. I’m definitely proud to be a part of that.

What is some advice you would give to a current student-athlete at Hofstra?

First off, make sure you’re enjoying what you’re doing and you’re happy off the field. Second, you get out what you put into what you’re doing. If you want to achieve something, you’re going to have to sacrifice some things in order to do that.