Upon entering the office of soccer head coach Jim DeRose, it’s almost impossible to believe that he’s been at Bradley for nearly two decades.
His small square office is strewn with boxes of old memorabilia, gifts from players since graduated, and Philadelphia Eagles apparel, which he claims is his favorite team.
All this, his small office and 19 years of building a soccer program from the ground up came as a prayer.
DeRose, a Philadelphia native, hails from Johnson State College, a small Division III school in Vermont. He was the starting goalkeeper for their soccer team, which he eventually turned into a professional career.
“As a player, I really developed much later physically,” said DeRose. “[Johnson State was] probably the only place I could play college soccer, but I knew I loved college soccer, and I wanted to do it.”
In his senior year as goalkeeper for the Badgers, DeRose earned NAIA first team All-American honors, and MVP honors in the Senior Bowl.
Following his senior year, DeRose signed on as goalkeeper for the New Mexico Chiles for the American Professional Soccer League (APSL) in 1990. He played for the Chiles for a year before the team folded in 1991.
Here is where DeRose found himself at a fork in the road.
“It was great back then, you’re 22, 23. As a kid, you make three to four thousand dollars a month,” said DeRose. “I loved soccer, but I didn’t feel that in the country, soccer was stable enough.”
Two years before being hired at Bradley, DeRose was an assistant coach for three years at Illinois State University from 1992 to 1994. Much like the New Mexico Chiles, however, the Redbirds soccer program folded in 1995.
“[It was] a very difficult time,” said DeRose. “I was married, we had a baby and we had our first house. It was at a time when that was happening around the country.”
DeRose got back on his feet as an assistant coach at the University of Richmond, but the feeling was still there.
“I didn’t have a great taste in my mouth after Illinois State,” said DeRose. “I figured the Midwest was in my rearview mirror.”
However, Bradley was in need of a soccer coach, and former athletic director Ron Ferguson was led in DeRose’s direction.
“My name had come up from some people through the valley,” said DeRose. “Opportunity seldom knocks. I came out not expecting a job or wanting the job to be quite honest.”
For DeRose, there was an abundance of opportunities. He could have signed with another APSL team or stuck on with the University of Richmond, where he had been the top assistant.
But DeRose saw a chance to do something big, with almost no risk.
“[I had] the chance to build something on my own,” he said. “Bradley had been down. They had not been successful, so I wasn’t going to hurt the program. Coming here was a leap of faith.”
That leap of faith has resulted in one of the most successful tenures in Bradley athletic history.
DeRose’s résumé consists of seven NCAA tournament appearances, which includes an Elite Eight appearance, four MVC regular seasons, three MVC tournament titles and 80 percent of all Bradley soccer victories.
The culture DeRose has created has been his own, and he largely attributes his success to the people he’s met on the Hilltop.
“The one thing I’ve always said is that the people here are the most genuine people I’ve ever been around,” he said. “That’s been the thing that kept me at Bradley for a very long time.”
Nineteen years is a long time. And in that time, DeRose has found that his winning culture comes from being able to consistently be near the top.
“Goals are good, but people get paralyzed by goals,” he said. “I think here, we can develop each year.”
Note: The print version of this story contained information that was incorrect. Coach Jim DeRose has had seven NCAA tournament appearances and three MVC tournament titles. The post has been updated to reflect this. The Scout regrets this error.
