So who are You and what's your role with the club?
My name is Evan Raimist and by title I'm the Vice President and Director of Operations at Maryland Bobcats FC. In practice, as I'm sure many people in the lower leagues know, I touch just about everything.

Tell us about your personal history with the Bobcats.
I always tell people that my involvement with the club is pure luck. After I got done playing in college, I was sure that I would want to hang up the boots for a while after playing non-stop for the previous 18 years. It turns out, a month after graduation, I very quickly got the itch. At the time, the Maryland Major Soccer League had a free agent page on their website where players could post their position, a short bio, and if clubs were looking for players, they had a database to choose from before going to other sources. Moving back to Maryland (Baltimore in particular) after college, I threw my name and info on the site, and the first person who emailed me was one of our now owners Jay Saba saying they were looking for another goalkeeper for their team. To be honest, if another club emailed me first, I most likely would have never hooked up with the team/club and been in the position I'm in now.

I played with the team for a while (through a few name changes too) and about 8 months into being with the team, on a US Open Cup Qualifying Round road trip up to Rochester, NY, I heard Jay and our Head Coach at the time talking about how they needed to do more marketing, branding, and outreach to start to become a club vs. just a team. I sat up from my seat at the back and let them know that what they were talking about was the kind of stuff I did with my day job and that I'd be happy to help in any way I could. My front office journey started by agreeing to post our score updates online, a picture now and then, and start to build out our social accounts.

Flash forward another year and I kept saying yes to more and more things. More photography, building a brand, starting to build some operations into what we were doing. It was getting to the point where I'd get to the stadium on one of our UPSL gamedays, set up the stadium, take some photos, make sure to post, then get warmed up and either play or take my spot on the bench. Heading into Fall 2019 (the season we won the UPSL National Championship with an undefeated season) I tore my achilles right before preseason and to be honest, think it was a blessing in disguise. I was able to start doing more "front office" work and not have to worry about actually suiting up for the games (even though we had MUCH more talented players than me on the team).

Flash forward another year and we've won the UPSL National Championship and I've continued to do the "off the field" things, supported by Idrissa Sesay who did and still does fantastic work for us behind the scenes, especially with sorting out fields for training and at the time, games. We were gearing up to join NISA prior to our announcement and our owners basically gave me the position I have now (a couple of title changes) prior to kicking off in NISA. I think the owners put a lot of faith in a 26-year-old kid that had not run a pro sports team prior to this and every day I try to work as hard as I can to repay them for the opportunity. That takes us to today, where if you've interacted with us at all in person, online, at matches, in the community, or with our Youth program, I was probably there telling you how great this club has become.

Second season in NISA, what's the report card so far?
Last season we learned a lot. A LOT. We also kicked off about 6 months earlier than originally expected, so even the timeline we had got moved up. We didn't just learn what we needed and could improve on the field player and staff-wise, but also off the field as well. Obviously we're undefeated as of now in the league, sitting top of the East, and have scored many more goals than the same time last year. It's a testament to what myself, our owners, and staff have been able to do finding and bringing in new players, keeping players we knew would be key, and learning from the mistakes of last year. It's still very early - we've got 22 more matches to go - but it's a positive start and I'm really hopeful we can keep up the momentum. I'm proud of the work we did in the offseason and I'm even more proud of how hard our players and staff are doing so far implementing game plans, playing for each other, and really embracing the community aspect of the club so far this year.

What's the level of play in the league, compared to other leagues you've played in?
There's no doubt top to bottom it's much harder (as we learned last year). To me, the games aren't the "hard" part of being a pro, especially at this level. It's the grind of training every day, hopping on a bus for 8 or 10 hours, playing a match, riding the bus home 8 or 10 hours, then getting up and doing it all over again. Lots of players can play in a game, but it takes a lot of dedication, energy, and mental strength to train at a high level, travel, and perform on the weekends each and every week for 10 months straight. That's what I've seen that separates players from amateur to an average pro to a high level pro: the day in, day out training and keeping the same intensity, drive, and hunger for an entire season.

Who are some stars for the Bobcats this season?
To be honest, we've built a really deep roster this year, which is what we wanted. We didn't just want 12 or 14 players that could play on a given day, but 20, 22, 24 players that, given the opportunity, can slot right in, and I think we've gotten pretty close to that. That being said, Darwin Espinal has performed great for us so far this year, and could probably have another goal or two already had the ball bounced a little kinder. Elijah Amo is still really young, but is really hungry and super humble, just wanting to do the work and show what he can do come game time. Plus, I'm not sure anyone is catching him on a ball in behind the defense. Brandon Clegg was a big pickup for us, and he's been rock solid at the back both in defense and starting the attack from the back. There's about 10 more guys I could talk about, and it's because of the work we've done building out an entire roster.

The MDB kit game is known to be strong, any new merch ideas you're working on?
We're always thinking of new things to do. We just released our gameday warmup shirts last week (which are 2 of my favorite we've ever dropped) and have a few more things to release in the coming weeks. As a lower league club, it's a balance between having stock on hand and making good, quality merch that people will embrace and like, and not getting stuck with a ton of stock that you're sitting on. It's a delicate balance, but we'll release a few more things soon.

How does the club grow supporter culture?
If someone knows a foolproof answer, let me know, and then let me go in with you and sell it, because that's the big question. It has to be organic. The club can help in different ways, and I think we've shown we're putting an emphasis on that this year doing a ton of community events with our partner Jimmy's Seafood (including a meet and greet and holding our Media Day there) and with True Respite Brewing Company who collaborated with us on our first-ever beer. We want to be visible in the community, not just on game days. At our Beer Release party, we had tons of people come out, be able to sit down and have a drink with our players and staff, and even had a county councilmember come out. It's the small things that, over time, build up and we want to show that we're here to be an asset to the community in more ways than just playing soccer.

All images courtesy of Maryland Bobcats’ Facebook Page

Best memory with the club so far, personally?
There are so many to choose from, honestly. This whole ride with the club has been a wild one for me. I think there's 2 for me: the first has to be the UPSL National Championship. Some will say it's "only amateur soccer", but to is it was proof that all the blood, sweat, and tears were with it. To see our guys celebrate with each other and to know that they are now in Maryland - and national - history books was really special. The second has to be our first game as a professional team as pros. To have 900+ people in the stadium on a gorgeous night cheering for the boys was something I won't forget. It finally felt like we had "made it" and had achieved a goal that many of us thought was a dream. To see the players take the field, hear the crowd, and get to see many of our players celebrate with friends and family afterwards was so rewarding.

Anything else we should know?
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL! We hope that's us, but if it's not, find one closer to you or that you connect with. There's great people all over the country doing great things with soccer and in their communities. They may have big dreams or they may just want to keep building where they're at. But I can tell everyone that one more person coming to a game, sharing a post, buying some merch, means so much to everyone involved at these clubs. Other than that, we hope that what we're building people are connecting with and want to follow along with our journey. We've learned a lot, but there's still a long way to go and we want people's feedback - good and bad. If we aren't doing right by our community and fans, we aren't doing it right.

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