Welcome to Edgewater
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
We’re right by Foster Beach. The sun is out, and it’s not as windy as it usually is.
Yet another dog has approached Edgewater Castle founder, president, and general manager Andrew Swanson, and yet another dog is getting lots of love and lots of pets. The weather is remarkably nice by the lake considering it’s the start of March, and everyone’s trying to make the most of the lovely temperature.
Castle’s staff and media are posted near the iconic “Welcome to Edgewater” tunnel. Neither Swanson nor the dogs are who everyone’s waiting for. She arrives shortly after.
The woman of the hour is Duygu Erdoğan, the newest head coach of the Edgewater Castle women's team.
Big Business
This is a massive acquisition.
Erdoğan is an incredibly experienced coach, both locally and abroad. She started out her coaching career in Turkey, working with Galatasaray and Beşiktaş. Then came a move to Germany, where she was an assistant with Elazığspor, SG Wattenscheid, and Rot-Weiß Oberhausen. Her most recent gig was in Chicago, where she came in as an assistant for the Chicago House ahead of their season in NISA.
“We had some conversations, and it very quickly turned into a situation where we felt really good about going all in on her and making sure that our women's team and our men's team both had wildly overqualified coaches,” said Swanson. “She was the only candidate who hit that mark for us as she's one of the most qualified coaches in the city, period, at any level. We're really lucky to have her, and the more we talked to her about the club and our goals the more she was on board. It took a while and it got kind of complicated, but we're super happy and excited about her.”
So how did Edgewater manage to land a coach like Erdoğan? Well, just like most things in lower-league soccer, it’s all about connections.
“It was a long process. We started looking in November, honestly, and we spent the first month sort of just looking around town and seeing who's around. I got to know (former House head coach) C.J. Brown a little bit from working with the Fire, and then we connected when we were donating a jersey to his foundation,” said Swanson. “We met up and talked for a moment and I mentioned that we were on the search for a women's coach, and he told us to reach out to Erdoğan and see what she's up to. Told us how she's amazing. I couldn’t believe I didn't think of that already. We reached out and she said she was still in the area and was interested.”
Chicago House club managing partner, president, and CEO Peter Wilt helped bring her to that club, and he still has plenty of respect for the work she did.
“Duygu is a knowledgeable and effective coach. She is a student of the game, diligent in her preparation and will be a great addition to Edgewater Castle,” said Wilt.
Someone else who knows all about Erdoğan is one of her new assistant coaches at Edgewater, John Cappuccitti, and he’s stoked to go from playing for her to working with her.
“She is so qualified and just awesome. I actually got the privilege to be coached by her when I was a player at the House, and I loved everything she did. She was able to do the technical warmups with us and I had a blast. I loved coming in the morning,” said Cappuccitti. “She's very personable. She loves to hang out and talk. It's so promising with her here just because of what she's been through with different teams, professional teams, men and women, I'm going to learn so much. It's going to help me a lot.”
It didn’t take too long to convince Erdoğan of the project.
“A new beginning where goals converge and we support each other is crucial. Andrew and Tom believing in me and supporting me are significant factors that will facilitate reaching these goals,” said Erdoğan. “By working together and trusting each other, I believe we have established a solid foundation for a fresh start. Creating a good team and motivating each other are powerful factors that will enable us to achieve our goals. That's why I'm here.”
Building the Castle
Bringing her in is clearly a big deal, but the aforementioned Cappuccitti is a shrewd pickup as well. He has a ton of experience at the collegiate level, and that could be key since plenty of Edgewater players will be in that sort of age group.
“It's going to be a big boost to them, especially with my experience coaching winning teams. I coached at Knox and we won our conference and went to the NCAA tournament. I coached at VMI, which is a military school in Virginia, which was an awesome experience. I’ve coached both division one and division three, and I’ve also played division one and division three. I know the training aspect and I know the coaching aspect,” said Cappuccitti. “I know how to treat players, and I know what they're going through in school. I can pitch Edgewater to the players who just graduated, or I can help the players that are still in college in terms of their journey.”
All these moves are made with the intention of further growing Edgewater’s women’s team.
“It's huge. I think for us, our women's team has grown way faster than our men's team, but it started way later. For us the game is the most important thing, and being able to create opportunities for top players, especially in our neighborhood, is super important,” said Swanson. “Being able to say that we're putting equal effort and time and energy into our women's program as our men's program is everything. Being able to provide a professional level elite coach to these players at the club is the most important thing for us.”
Erdoğan’s ready to get the show on the road.
“I have expectations, I have goals. We will see them all together during our matches,” said Erdoğan. “I want people to enjoy watching our team play, and of course I want our players to enjoy it too.”
- Adnan Bašić