Riverhounds coach Dave Brandt doesn’t sugarcoat the issues with his team. He was hired a month and a half ago and can tell you straight up what needs to change.
There’s a lack of vision on the field. There’s a lack of cohesion in the locker room. There are cliques and factions and sometimes an every-man-for-himself mentality. That’s not the way it works in Brandt’s eyes.
He took over a struggling Navy team in 2009 and built it into a consistent winner. So how does a coach go about changing that culture with a 2-10-4 team in Pittsburgh?
“I only know how to build one way,” he said, “and it’s brick by brick.”
Two of those bricks might have come in the form of brothers — two brothers who have known Brandt for years tracing to his days winning national titles at Messiah College. Three weeks into the job, he signed midfielder Jack Thompson. One week after that, he signed his older brother, Nick.
Nick Thompson, 28, played for Brandt for two years at Messiah, winning a Division III national championship in 2009. Jack, 24, hadn’t played for Brandt but played at Messiah and worked with him throughout the years.
Now, the Thompsons give Brandt two players who understand him and can help change the Riverhounds culture.
“He’s a very unique person in that he is non-stop extremely, extremely demanding, but in the best way,” Jack Thompson said. “Guys will be joking in the locker room because he will be sweating more than we are. He will be working just as hard, if not harder, as we are at all hours of the day.”
Brandt lists the traits both Thompsons bring to the team. They’re hard workers, smart, sincere and trustworthy. He doesn’t like to insinuate bringing them in was a ploy of some sort, but they represent the type of players and people he wants.
Players will ask Nick and Jack, “Is he really this crazy?” Nick says it’s a good thing. They see how hard he works and want to replicate it. Players want to make an impression on this fiery guy.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s coaching a U-10 team or he’s coaching the Pittsburgh Riverhounds, he’s the same way,” Nick said. “He’s intense. He’s demanding. He’s passionate. He’s energetic.”
Nick Thompson hasn’t been a player in quite some time. The past four years have been a series of coaching stops. He volunteered at N.C. State for a fall and under Brandt at Navy for a spring. Then, he worked his way up at smaller schools, becoming head coach in the fall at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts.
Jack spent 2015 with the Charlotte Independence. He and Nick had never played together. They both played in high school and at Messiah with their other two brothers, Danny and Logan, but the four-year difference between Nick and Jack meant they never matched up, until coming together in Pittsburgh.
“It’s been great, it’s been a lot of fun,” Nick said. “But it’ll be a lot more fun once we start winning.”
The two always have had a good relationship, but now they can build on an on-the-field one. And they can be a part of the Riverhounds’ culture change.
Nick provides Brandt with a veteran who also understands the coaching profession. Jack gives him a younger talent who possesses similar traits.
But Brandt’s first year at Navy was an 8-11 season and he didn’t truly break through until four years later. So, again, how do you change that culture?
Brandt answered: “As painful as it is to say it, maybe for people to hear it — slowly.”
Brody Miller: bmiller@post-gazette.com and Twitter @byBrodyMiller.
First Published: July 17, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
