Playing position Name Mark Snell 1976-1979 Hartwick College Role Soccer player | Years Team Height 1.88 m 1980-1981 Edmonton Drillers Position Goalkeeper | |
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Date of birth (1958-02-23) February 23, 1958 (age 57) Place of birth Lockport, New York, United States | ||
Player of the Game 6/30/2015
Mark Snell is a retired American soccer goalkeeper who played professionally in the North American Soccer League and the Major Indoor Soccer League. He coached in the FC Dallas youth system for eight years, and is widely considered one of the top youth development coaches in the country for Zone 1 (6-12 yr olds). At FC Dallas he developed the curriculum that included teaching age appropriate tactics through small sided games. His philosophy was that the "best train with the best" and created the Premier team format grouping all the top players in each age group onto a team. Initially, players of all levels were scattered across many teams within each age group. Snell felt the best development model was having teams made up of "like" talent. That way training would be competitive for all teams regardless of talent level. He also authored and managed the street soccer based "FCD LIGA" which was a 3v3/4v4 in house league on Sundays. He grew the wildly successful program from 5 teams to over 30 teams to preach the small sided games format as the best player development tool. He also organized and managed the FC Dallas Development League which hosted the top U9 teams in the Dallas Metroplex.
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Player
Snell graduated from Lockport Senior High School where he was a 1975 High School All American soccer player. He attended Hartwick College where he played on the school's soccer team from 1976 to 1979. In 1977, Snell and his team mates won the NCAA Men's Division I Soccer Championship.
In 1980, he signed with the Edmonton Drillers of the North American Soccer League who sent him on loan to 1. FC Viersen 05, a 3rd division German team. Kicker Magazine cited Snell as the only American at that time playing in the top 3 divisions in Germany. While there he was able to train with Borussia Monchengladbach In 1981, he joined the Buffalo Stallions of the Major Indoor Soccer League before finishing his career in 1985 with the Wichita Wings.
Coach
In 1996, Snell became the freshman team coach at Canisius High School in Buffalo, NY. That year, he led the freshman team to an undefeated season and the league championship.
In 1998, Snell returned to his alma mater and became an assistant with Hartwick College. and also joined the Region 1 ODP Staff. In January 2003, Jim Lennox unexpectedly resigned as head coach of the Hawks and Snell became the interim head coach. The school chose to hire Ian McIntyre before the 2003 season began and Snell left the school to begin a career in club coaching. After spending time with the FC Dallas youth teams for eight years, Snell set off on an 18 month sabbatical where he researched and studied youth academies worldwide. Through his research he befriended coaches around the globe and also studied Pep Guardiola's "Juego de Posicion" (Positional Play) system. Snell discovered that his philosophy of teaching age appropriate tactics starting at U8 through small sided games was actually based on Positional Play. In 2014 Snell became the first head coach of the Fort Worth Vaqueros FC of the National Premier Soccer League in 2014. Recently Snell has been named Academy Director of the Fort Worth Vaqueros new youth academy where they are set to announce an elite free academy in the summer of 2017 for the most talented players in the Fort Worth area. The Vaqueros Training Facility (2400 East Vickery Blvd Fort Worth, Texas 76104) will be a State of the Art set up that will be completed in October 2017. Snell has all the top credentials: US Soccer Federation A License, US Youth Soccer National Youth License and an NSCAA Premier Diploma. Eight of his former FC Dallas players have been called up by the Youth National Teams of the USA, Colombia and Guatemala. Two brothers he had coached will be signing with a world class academy in Europe September 1, 2017.