Q and A: Sam Stockley discusses present and future aspirations for Lexington Sporting Club

Sam Stockley is helping shape the present and future of Lexington’s newest professional sports franchise.

Stockley serves as both the men’s sporting director and the men’s senior team head coach for Lexington Sporting Club, which fields a senior men’s team in USL League One, the third tier of American pro soccer.

Stockley initially joined the LSC project when it was first announced in October 2021 as the club’s first sporting director.

In October 2022, Stockley was named the head coach for LSC’s USL League One team.

Stockley has now overseen the team’s first professional matches, including its debut at One Knoxville SC on March 18.

Prior to the season starting, Stockley sat down with the Herald-Leader in mid-March for a wide-ranging interview that touched on his duties as both a head coach and sporting director, what expectations should be for Lexington Sporting Club and other key factors that will determine if LSC is a success, or not.

Here are eight questions and answers from the Herald-Leader’s interview with Stockley.

Answers have been edited for brevity, clarity and grammar.

Q. What was the process like for you becoming the senior men’s team head coach in addition to being the men’s sporting director?

What we didn’t want collectively was a head coach that came in and then brought in all of their own staff, which a lot of head coaches can do. ... Because in a year’s time or two years’ time, you hope that that head coach does really, really well and they get headhunted and move on. Then maybe you’re getting some compensation. So it’s like selling a player, you’re selling a manager, which is a big part of our philosophy, then the whole team goes behind him.

Then you’re having to start again after literally starting for the first time. So we had a model where we knew that, the first assistant, the assistant, the head of goalkeeping, the performance, the analysis team, the medical, the mental wellness and player well-being, the operations, we kind of knew that each one of those was a fit within the whole system. ...

So going forward, that process allowed us to really identify the head coaches that we wanted. And we had two candidates that we looked at. We had multiple candidates, but narrowed it down to two. ...

So we kind of went through a process of almost three to four months of looking for our head coach. As we went through that process, we were still building the youth club, we were still building the philosophy, the culture and everything like that. That’s when, after those two candidates sort of didn’t happen, we spoke as a group here, and it was mentioned, why didn’t I take it?

I was a little bit hesitant because I love my sporting director role. And I love what we were doing with the club and being involved in that. But after a couple of conversations, it also made sense that with the temporary training ground, with the temporary stadium, still trying to get things up for the first time, trying to integrate our culture, trying to make sure that we get the right manager in that understands that we want to bring our youth through. ...

So we just felt that myself stepping in there, knowing everything that we now knew, where we wanted to go, was probably the best move for us, at least for the first 12, 24 months, however long it takes just to get us up and running and established and moving and that’s why we did it. The coaching part of me is ecstatic.

Q. How would you describe your head coaching philosophy?

I think my style is I’m relationship-based. I’m really passionate about relationships, it’s what I like more than anything. I think my strengths are creating holistic relationships for players.

What I mean by that is making sure they’re right on the field, making sure they’re right off the field, making sure we’re doing everything we can to allow them to be the best version that they are because ultimately if we do that, we’ve got a great chance of them being at their maximum confidence, which ultimately is where we need them because that’s when they’ll perform their best. ...

We want to play very attacking, modern football. We want to make it exciting because that’s what the city wanted. We want to get bums in seats in the way that we play. We want to produce young players through the system, so there’s a connection with a team. We want to be competitive. We want to challenge for championships every year, which is a hard task, but we believe that we can get there. ...

If you can create relationships with your team, because then they buy in, and if they buy in, they trust you. And if they trust you, they’re going to do what you ask them to do even in tough, pressure situations where they might be uncomfortable and not wanting to do that.

Q. What are the strengths and weaknesses of LSC’s USL League One team so far from what you’ve seen in preseason?

I think this group has an unbelievable culture already. They have a team togetherness. They’re fit. They’re working hard. We’ve got great quality right away through the team. We’ve got a lot of different types of players that can unlock different types of situations, depending on what we need. We’re a technical group that like to possess the ball.

I think that the only thing that we’re probably missing, or the only thing that we’re always going to add throughout this entire season, is just the growth of us together and understanding (with) 22 players coming together, they all have to get to know each other.

We’re trying to get to know them. They’re trying to work out each and every one individually as their teammates: Who likes to combine in tight areas, who wants a ball in behind, who’s really good at crossing, who’s someone that’s going to cut back and then combine again. We’re still working all of that out. That’s going to be a consistent process throughout the entire season.

Q. What was the roster-building process like to put together the 22-player squad for the USL League One team?

We had a lot of data analytics on that: It was huge on culture and people first, and then quality players. ...

We looked for players that had had a little bit of a bump in their career. So maybe being at a level (and) predicted to maybe be a superstar in the MLS and maybe, for whatever reason, didn’t quite hit that first peak. So (they) have had to drop down a league or a couple of leagues to try and get back up there.

That for us was a big part: Players that were humble and hungry and focused and had a point to prove, but who were also great characters that had no egos that wanted to be part of something, that knew the importance of the community and know the style and the way that we wanted to play.

Q. How do you grade success for the 2023 season?

I will privately, and respectfully, keep our team and in-house goals of where we want to be. But I think for us it’s always about wins, because that’s the nature that we’re in now. We are going into a first-team pro environment, with a league where every Saturday we compete for three points, and ultimately enough three points will get you into a chance to be in the playoffs. And then from the playoffs it’s a one-game season for three or four games. Ultimately, to get to that stage would be a huge success.

But, I think for us, being successful on the field means winning games, definitely. But I think more so to that is making sure that we perform how we want to perform, the style of play that we want to impose on our opponents, how we want to be in possession and out of possession, how many crosses we get in the box, how many shots we get on target, how much we dominate possession, how much we are effective defensively and stopping (opponents) from doing what they want to do.

I think, ultimately, our goal is to continue to grow and get the city involved and excited, which will hopefully translate into the business model, which is season tickets, merchandise, sales, more sponsorships, and all of those business aspects is huge.

That’s part of the overall picture when I have a head coach and a sporting director hat on, the business side of us is huge. Can we continually lead the charts for merchandise sales, season ticket holders, sponsorships and all of those things?

We will look at two things: Game day, be successful and win games, and then community, are we continually growing the game? Are we continually growing our youth club? Are we bringing young players through? Is that helping us with sponsorships? Is that helping our season tickets? Is it helping the merchandise sales? And ultimately, is it helping the community feel connected to the professional football team that we now have?

Q. How much of an important, measuring stick moment will the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup match against Louisville City be?

All credit to what Lou City has done, the stadium that they have, the training facility they’ve got, they’re doing everything absolutely right. And I think that’s fantastic for them and for the state of Kentucky in this area. I think you can probably roll FC Cincinnati into that as well at some point because even though they’re now MLS, they were in the USL to start with and they were having fans of 24,000 or 25,000, which enabled them to go into the MLS.

So I think if you look at those two, then now we make up almost that golden triangle. It drives us every single day. It drives the ownership. It drives us on the field to want to be as successful, but in our own right. We are Lexington Sporting Club. We are our own club. We are our own city. We have our own ways and beliefs and philosophies and values and traditions that are really close to us. ...

But when it comes time to shift to the Open Cup, we’re going to embrace it. And it’s what we wanted, it’s what we hope for, to have two regional teams competing against each other, and that creates great rivalry, and friendly rivalry we hope, but great rivalry.

Hopefully, it’s a great opportunity for two clubs to sell a lot of tickets, sell merchandise and all of that. It’s going to be an extremely tough game for us just because of how established they are and how they’ve been in the league before and what they’re doing and full credit to them.

But it’s a great opportunity for us and our club to go down there and do what we can and show them what we’re able to do and focus on our game and we’ll certainly be doing that.

Q. How have you seen the community respond to the creation of this team and the long-term viability of it?

I think it’s been fantastic. I’ve been in the community for now 13, 14 months and every time I’m out and about somebody knows something about the club and is excited for it to come. I think that with our ownership and who we have involved, that was the only reason why they got involved in this and why we were so passionate to get involved in this, because they only see it as a long-term plan and sustainability. And every year, we plan to get a little bit better and a little bit better. ...

I have no doubt in my mind in any way whatsoever, how focused and determined our ownership are and how much they want this to be a success and how much it means to them and their families, because they’re submerged in this community. It will be a success, there’s no doubt in my mind that this franchise, and this club will not be a success.

It’s going to take a little bit of time, how quickly we get that success, we’ve got to work hard and keep planning and everybody from the front office, to the first team, to the kit man to all of us to doing everything we possibly can to make it a success.

Q. How can Lexington Sporting Club capitalize on soccer’s growth in the United States and especially in this region, with the World Cup coming to North America in 2026?

I think that’s our sole focus is to focus on the players that we have here. I think that we have some untapped markets here, with the players in the different communities that we have: The horse farms and the university and the different dynamics that we have, I think it’s so exciting for us and we’re seeing it in our academy.

We’re seeing it in our youth, we’re seeing these players now starting to come in and starting to stay home because they see that there is a true pathway and an opportunity to be in our youth club, play in our academy and get into our first team.

I think as we now grow, and as we become more successful with bringing players through our system that brings the spotlight in bigger areas onto us. It enables us to attract players from Texas or California or England or Ireland or Spain or Mexico or wherever in the world.

We want to get to a stage where we can attract those younger players to also come to our academy and our environment, so it all lays on top of each other to make it a better environment.

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