A coach who started with his own interference.

The first test I failed was public. A player of mine was assaulted on the field, the referee gave nothing, and I stormed onto the pitch. I was sent off, and a substitution went wrong in the chaos that followed.

I had lost self-control, and once I lost it I stopped deciding well. So I worked on it like any other part of my coaching. When the same situation came round again, I stayed calm and made the call the game needed. Read the full story.

The standard I hold myself to came earlier, from the boxing gyms I grew up around in Belfast. My grandfather, Mike Callahan, worked in boxing as a promoter and matchmaker. My uncle, John Breen, trained fighters, and his gym ran on high demand and high support at the same time. He treated the people in it like family. I didn't notice how much of that I had carried with me until I started coaching.

Since 2010 I've coached in Northern Ireland, Canada, China and the United States, from primary school programs to academy and senior football. On the football side, my thinking starts from one idea: perception and decision come before technique. Every action is communication, decision and execution, so I coach what a player sees and chooses as well as what their feet do.

Over those years I built a system for the other half of the job: self-awareness, confidence, self-control and the other skills that decide performance, with equal weight on a player's wellbeing and growth as a person. In 2020 we turned it into technology, and today a team builds HeadCoach, a performance and readiness platform for athletes, coaches and clubs. I'm co-founder and President.

These days most of my week belongs to Chicago City Soccer Club, where I also coach two teams. Staying on the grass keeps the rest of the work honest.