Nishant Prakash

Most of my experience comes from training High School Varsity/JV and Collegiate athletes but I can work with any age! I have served as a goalkeeper/assistant coach for Arlington High School Boys Varsity (MA) in 2019-2020, where we finished 2nd place in the MIAA and my starting goalkeeper won MVP for our team. From 2021-present I have served as Goalkeeper coach and co-head coach of the UCSB Men's Club Soccer Team, qualifying for the NIRSA National tournament in 2021, finishing 2nd in the Aztec Cup in 2022, and 2nd in the WCSA National Showcase in 2023 with a tournament best GA of 1. This past season, 5 of the players I have coached were added to the spring roster for the UCSB NCAA DI team, with 2 of them being invited to pre-season training for 2023.

Experience:
2022-Present: Co-Head / Goalkeeper Coach UCSB Men's Club Soccer Team (WCSA/NIRSA)
2021-2022: Goalkeeper Coach UCSB Men's Club Soccer Team (WCSA/NIRSA)
2019-2020: Goalkeeper / Assistant Coach Arlington High School (MA) Boys Varsity (MIAA)

In High School I played for AC Milan-Boston before coming to California for college, with a few DIII offers instead I decided to attend UC Santa Barbara where I was selected for the Men's Club Soccer Team, competing in the West Coast Soccer Association and NIRSA. During my time there I was a consistent starter, finishing 2nd in the Aztec Cup twice, Qualifying for the NIRSA National Tournament in 2017 as the #4 team in the country, and winning the WCSA National Showcase in 2019. In addition to my time with the club program I played for the UCSB DI NCAA program from January-June 2017, where I appeared in an exhibition against the Mexico U-17 National Team as well as friendlies against other DI colleges.

My sessions are based on the needs of the players! I emphasize collaboration between player and coach and we will work together to form a plan that works best for them. For youger players I like to use drills that focus on footwork, handling and proper goalkeeping technique. The goal here is to construct healthy goalkeeping habits (and eliminate bad habits) and build a strong fundamental core with confidence. With more experienced goalkeepers I design each session to be focused on a specific aspect of goalkeeping, based on either what the player thinks they need or what I see that they need. A general plan a session is: an active warmup that introduces the movements and techniques that we will be focusing on that session moving into lower intensity drills that allow us to highlight the specific aspect, then evaluate and revise the technique, transitioning into more game realistic/intense drills, using repetion to perfect the skill. Additionally I like to sometimes incoporate filming the player doing drills so they can look at the video and see where they need to improve, I use this often with my collegiate keepers and find it helps them self-evaluate. Sessions are all about collaboration, I encourage feedback from the players so that they can identify what is working and what is not, often there is more than one way to effectively accomplish something so I take steps to find what is best for each keeper. The bottom line is that the session should be effective but enjoyable for the player!