Travis Blair

I have played professionally for 4 seasons for the Long Island Express, and Philadelphia Fury. Prior to that I was a college All American. Currently I am an assistant for a D2 college and have experience on with both men's and women's programs. As well as a club coach with Asphalt Green. Previously, have coached for elite club programs in NY and nationally ranked teams in NJ.

I am comfortable working with any age group as my coaching experience over the past few years encompasses youth soccer from U-8 up to the collegiate level.

I have played four seasons professionally with the Long Island Express in the American Soccer League (ASL) for two and then the Philadelphia Fury (ASL) for two.

I have played against teams from 2nd and 3rd division teams in Spain, and 3rd division teams from Italy.

Prior to this I played collegiate soccer at Wheaton College (MA) at the D3 level. As a team we were NEWMAC Champions in 2014 and NEWMAC regular season Champions in 2015.
My individual achievements are listed as follows:
• NSCAA All-American 2015
• Chad Yowell Male Athlete of the Year 2014
• NSCAA All Region 2x
• ECAC New England All Star 2x
• NEWMAC All Conference 4x
Career Statistics:
-50 Goals -19 Assists -18 Game Winning Goals

Finished my career Second and School History in Total Goals (50) and Career Points (119)

I always begin my sessions with an extensive warm-up with some dynamic movements; safety and preparedness of the player is always foremost important. From there I transition into the technical aspect of training, which will take up the majority of the session. Personally from my experiences I like to couple technical work with agility and speed ladder exercises. The combination of these two alongside ball work forces the player to become accustomed to playing and remaining composed while exerting a high cardiovascular level.
Now that the player is fully engaged and somewhat fatigued I like to focus on the player’s ability to move the ball with their first touch with every surface. This is something I believe is vastly overlooked even in the high school level. The variations of this drill I use reinforce positive habits that allow for them to not only buy themselves time, find space, but even better beat the defender on the first touch.
Towards the end of the session dependent on the player’s position on the field I like to break down the correct movements that they can make off the ball and replicate these situations into drills for when they do receive the ball. One of my main goals for a player is to build up their confidence and self-belief so that when they find themselves in a game scenario this is something they have done time and time again. For example for midfielders I will replicate the movement of receiving the ball on the weak side of the field and knowing what to do to exploit the space the have created. For forwards I would replicate the runs checking and receiving the ball between the lines of the back line and midfield.
To end my sessions I always work on finishing followed by a cool down. Regardless of where they play on the field this is something that needs to be worked on because simply goals change games. This covers from long range finishing to heading.