Louisville City FC Head Coach and Sporting Director John Hackworth didn’t have to reach far to set his club’s tone on the first day of preseason. Mother Nature did that for him.
As the first USL Championship side to begin preseason training ahead of the 2021 season, LouCity’s coaches and players began their first practice of the new year on Monday morning not with stretches or drills, but by shoveling snow off their pitch.
“I don’t think anything sends a message quite like when you look out your window on the first day of training and a player might think ‘Oh, coach might call this one.’ And we clearly haven’t,” Hackworth told reporters. “That message is just that we’re going to go to work every single day.”
And getting to work is exactly what Hackworth and his club did.
Monday’s session marked the first since the boys in purple bowed out of the playoffs in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals, ending a run of 13 games unbeaten.
A sour feeling about the finish, however, will serve as the perfect motivation as Louisville starts to ramp-up a three-month long preseason with plans to kick off the USL Championship season on or around May 1.
“Every single one of us that were a part of that last year are still pissed off that we didn’t win it, quite frankly,” Hackworth said. “We have motivation. We haven’t trained since that game, and to be back out here and have that opportunity to start, it’s just what we do. It’s just our process.
“I know that’s a cliche a lot of coaches say, but when you put it into practice on days that it’s snowing it has a little more meaning to it.”
Returning from that loss includes the bulk of this season’s roster as it currently stands — 18 of 22 players. That, Hackworth has said, lends this club to do more reviewing of concepts than learning them.
There is still work to be done, however, as LouCity welcomes in forward Jimmy McLaughlin, midfielders Tyler Gibson and Jay Tee Kamara as well as goalkeeper Simon Lefebvre.
“There is such a camaraderie with these guys,” said Hackworth, who is entering his third full season as LouCity’s head coach. “We returned so many returning players and the new guys that are here, they need to get into this culture really fast and there’s no better way to teach those lessons than from day one.
“They heard it in our pre-training meeting this morning. They’re obviously seeing it when veteran players — guys who have won championships here — they grab a shovel and the first thing they’re doing is shoveling snow off the field so that we can do the work. All those messages are massive.”
Monday’s snowy training laid the foundation for a continued tradition of winning for LouCity, which in its first six seasons reached every USL Eastern Conference Final and hoisted back-to-back league cups in 2017 and 2018.
“It’s a mentality that if you’re going to win something, then you’re going to fight hard for it,” Hackworth said. “That you have to fight through adversity, and there’s nothing like having your brand new facility covered in snow to possibly prevent you from training. That’s just not something that we’re going to let happen.”
