Concordia’s men’s soccer program is turning to new leadership following their 1-15-2 season in 2025.
Graham Brennan was recently hired as the new head coach of the program following the departure of Brad Callahan, who held the position for the last three seasons.
Brennan brings a wealth of experience, largely in the Chicagoland area. Brennan was the head coach of the Roosevelt University men’s soccer program from 2012 to 2019, with a record of 84-60-11 and six winning seasons during that span. Most recently, Brennan was the assistant men’s soccer head coach for the past six seasons for Loyola University Chicago.
“I’m using the same kind of model I had back at Roosevelt, hitting the Chicagoland area between contacts in high school clubs to attract talent that way,” Brennan said. “In my time with Loyola, I’ve kind of improved my network outside of Chicago and internationally to try and attract players that way, too.”
Taking advantage of the hotbed of talent in the Chicagoland area is important as the program looks to turn into a winning one. Major League Soccer, the top level American soccer league, had 18 players from Illinois on team rosters as of 2024, which tied with Florida as the fourth biggest source of players in the U.S. Finding a coach with experience in the area who could keep athletes home was important for athletic director John Jaramillo.
CUC’s men’s soccer program has only had one winning season since their founding in 2001. Rebuilding this program will take time, and both Jaramillo and Brennan acknowledge that. “Wins, loses, and ties are how the public sees success. But we want people brought in and rowing in the same direction,” Jaramillo said.
Brennan said he is focused on building the culture of the program rather than simply on the wins and losses.
“I’m not concerned about the wins and losses,” Brennan said. “It’s kind of like the foundation of getting players in, getting the culture going, setting expectations, and getting the players love for the game back.”
The current players on the team have experienced many losses during their time at CUC, so getting them to enjoy the game they fell in love with as a kid again is Brennan’s first priority. After that, Brennan wants to establish a culture and expectations before truly focusing on developing the team’s strategy.
While turning around a struggling program like the one at Concordia seems like nearly an impossible task, Edgewood University, another team in the NACC, has already proven that hiring the correct coach makes this task possible. Edgewood had only won one combined game in the three seasons prior to the hiring of their current head coach Tim Bonner. Since then, Edgewood has gone 41-14-7 in his three seasons, including two regular season NACC titles.
Very similar to Brennan, Bonner put a big emphasis on getting the players to love the game again when he came in.
“As a program with one win in the previous three seasons, we knew we needed to start by making it fun and really tried to make the experience not feel like work,” Bonner said. “Change the relationship with the sport back for our athletes to where it once was.”
Similar to Brennan, Bonner was focused first on building the culture at Edgewood before he really worried about the wins and losses.
“We were in a similar place to the current CUC program at the time when our staff came in March of 2023. We had a few difficult years prior to arriving, and the culture was fractured. In my early one-on-one meetings with players, I realized they had friends on the team, but they weren’t close as a group,” Bonner said. “We emphasized the importance of liking each other, rooting for each other and wanting to win for each other and as we continued to move towards a room full of people with that mentality, the results followed.”
Changing the culture and restoring his players’ love for the game again played a big role in how quickly Edgewood was able to turn around from a one win program from 2020 to 2022, to the top team in the NACC this past year.
Alumni, fans, and family have not had much to root for with the Concordia men’s soccer team since its inception. However, with Brennan coming in with a similar mindset to that of Bonner when he turned Edgewood into national contenders, fans should have hope. If Brennan is able to establish his culture and bring in the right people, Concordia could be a team who is having an ESPN-type of turnaround very quickly.
