This afternoon, Chattanooga Football Club announced its new Head Coach and Sporting Director, Rod Underwood. The move came almost two weeks after the club parted ways with Coach Peter Fuller, who had piloted the club since 2020. Fuller had led the team to some success in its early seasons of professional football, but the recent fall season was a disappointing one for the organization, which ended the season with a 7-2-9 record. In late November, the CFC Managing Director Jeremy Alumbaugh announced the break with Fuller and that the club’s focus would shift “to identifying a dynamic leader to carry us into the next phase, continue to build our culture and bring more championships to Finley Stadium.”

Underwood’s soccer career is a quarter-decade in length. He played with the New Mexico Chilies, Albuquerque Geckos, and the South Carolina Shamrocks. As a coach, he’s spent time with the Portland Timbers, Cleveland City, North East Stars, Mount Aureol, Montego Bay FC, and, most recently, fellow NISA side, Stumptown AC. Underwood spoke about what drew him to CFC in the club’s press release - “For me I saw Chattanooga as a big club in a league trying to develop and I wanted to be part of it. Supporters groups like the Chattahooligans are paramount. They set soccer apart from any other sport in the world. Finley is a great stadium. It has a lot of character in a fantastic downtown location.”

Chattanooga FC is hoping the move will provide a shot in the arm for the club. While CFC finished mid-table, attendance sagged in the Fall. Whether that was connected to COVID, the level of play on the field, or their USL1 neighbor, it’s hard to say. What was clear was that Fuller struggled to find the right mix on the field to make the club more competitive. It’s expected that Underwood will bring a new perspective to a talented, but underperforming roster. He made Stumptown competitive on a shoestring budget, so I’d certainly be in that camp.

Coach Underwood led Stumptown to a 4-8-6 record in the fall.

From a league perspective, the move highlights one of the most promising aspects of NISA. It’s another minority candidate getting a head coaching opportunity in the league. Just last season, the roster of NISA head coaches included Underwood (Stumptown), CJ Brown (Chicago), Samuel Okpodu (Maryland), and Bouna Coundoul (New Amsterdam). That’s four out of nine available head coaching positions, and doesn’t include the fact that the league is awash with assistant coaches of color, who are putting in the necessary work on their resumes to make the jump to the top. The league is serving the purpose of being an incubator for future coaching talent, which will benefit every soccer league in the country.

While Underwood was already a head coach, the move to Chattanooga is clearly a step up in both opportunity and profile, and is a deserving chance for a coach who has consistently shown his quality throughout his coaching career. Chattanooga’s win, of course, comes at the expense of Stumptown AC, who must now begin the search for a new head coach. In a press release from Stumptown, club President Alex Kantor was gracious about Underwood’s departure. “Stumptown AC was fortunate to work with coach Underwood for the 2021 NISA Spring and Fall seasons, accomplishing a number of our goals both on the field and in the community.” Kantor added “we wish coach Underwood the best of luck in his future endeavors, unless it’s the games against us of course, and we are grateful for the time he spent here in Matthews.”

- Dan Vaughn