:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65699565/image2__1_.0.jpeg)
Kevin Nuss has made a number of coaching stops in his post-playing career, but his latest gig as the head coach at Camden County College is one he considers one of the most rewarding yet.
Coaching at the junior college level doesn’t carry the profile that some of his other jobs have had — like an assistant at Brown University and St. Joseph’s University and the head coach at Ocean City Nor’easters last summer — but the opportunity it’s given Nuss over the past two seasons to work with players from across the globe is something he’s enjoyed.
“As a coach it’s rewarding to say we’re going to be good and we’re going to win games here but I’m also going to help you develop and be better at the next stop,” Nuss said in a recent interview for The Path Soccer Podcast. “It’s definitely something that lines up with the values I have in terms of a coach. It’s been a perfect match.”
Nuss grew up in South Jersey in Swedesboro and was a goalkeeper for William Patterson and Rowan University at the college level before making his first coaching stop at Camden County as an assistant. He served as an assistant coach at Rutgers-Camden, St. Joseph’s University and Brown University before returning to Camden County last year and has been an assistant, general manager and head coach for the Ocean City Nor’easters in USL League Two.
His job putting together a roster at Camden County has similarities to his work with the Nor’easters, where he’s helped to recruit and bring in players for the summer league. In both places, each year’s team has a lot of new players who haven’t played together before.
Only two players on the this year’s roster are from the U.S.
“It’s very labor intensive physically to travel and see these players but then also to manage the expectations of players and get them to buy into the way that we want to play and then the international piece, we have players from South America, from Germany, from England, from Portugal from Israel so the language barrier is another piece where they first come in and you have to get them to communicate and understand how to work together,” Nuss said. “It’s challenging, but it’s rewarding.”
The Cougars play Bunker Hill Community College in the quarterfinals in Herkimer, N.Y. on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.