American Soccer Club New York Head Coach John Fitzgerald Honored by the United Soccer Coaches
By Michael Lewis/NPSL.com
There are few soccer coaches who are as hard-working and versatile as John Fitzgerald.
One day, he might be coaching the East Region ODP Boys 2009 team in practice or a game.
Or the next day, he could be running a coaching license course for the Long Island Junior Soccer League.
And yet on another day, Fitzgerald could be running a training session for the American Soccer Club New York Fighting Tomcats, who compete in the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL).
Fitzgerald was awarded for his efforts and career by the United Soccer Coaches at its annual convention in Philadelphia, when he received the 2025 Mike Berticelli Excellence in Coaching Education Award “for his outstanding contributions to coaching education and his singular service to the game,” according to United Soccer Coaches.
The award is named in honor of Mike Berticelli, the association’s former vice president of education and men’s coach at the University of Notre Dame who passed away in 2000.
“John embodies what the Berticelli Award is about and is truly deserving of this honor for his passion and dedication to coaching education,” United Soccer Coaches President Paul Payne said in a statement.
Needless to say, Fitzgerald was honored by the award.
“Some of our coursework that we teach soccer coaches is based on what he wrote, and that’s become his mantra,” Fitzgerald said. “When I’m teaching the courses I tell coaches that he was super big time. Notre Dame head coach, Notre Dame men’s team, which was a great program back then. His passion really was working with coaches and young players and teaching coaches. There’s a certain way that we should be teaching young players. I just remember him talking about it back then, and it wasn’t a sales pitch. It was a guy who was at some of the highest levels of the game, and yet he’s talking about dealing with grassroots players long before we had all these other leagues and things that we have now. He really embodied what it was supposed to be about working with young players. He didn’t just say it. He lived it. It means a great deal just to even be in the same conversation.”
NPSL Managing Director Cindy Spera has known Fitzgerald’s worth for decades. He coached her when the Long Island Lady Riders captured the 1995 W League championship.
“Players coached by John will say he was ‘tough, passionate’ and had ‘high expectations,’ ” she said. “What I appreciate most about John’s coaching talent is his ability to stay true to what soccer means to players. Playing at the highest levels is a gift and a joy. John brought people, not players, together. The goofy jokes and elaborate pranks weren’t just fun; they built trust, chemistry, and a culture that gave our team an undefinable edge that won national championships. John is a Long Island coaching legend.”
If we listed Fitzgerald’s coaching resume, it might break the internet, so we’ll give you the proverbial Reader’s Digest version.
Let’s preface that by saying he has coached every level, from youth to high school-age players, amateur, college, men, women and professionally.
* Associate head coach at U.S. Merchant Marine Academy for 20 years, reaching the NCAA Division III tournament on six occasions.
* Director of coaching of the New York Cosmos, when the team returned from a long hiatus.
* Assistant coach of Cosmos B, which captured the NPSL crown in 2015.
* Head coach of Long Island Lady Rough Riders, which captured the 1995 W-League championship.
* Double duty in Eastern New York Youth Soccer Association’s ODP program, as a coach and boys director of coaching.
And coach of the East Region ODP Boys 2009 squad and Fighting Tomcats.
Asked how much he loves coaching, Fitzgerald responded, “It’s right behind my family. Coaching is up there as one of the loves of my life.”
We’ll get to his family in a minute.
That background certainly has given Fitzgerald a unique perspective on the beautiful game, understanding what each level needs and how to deal with various age groups and both sexes.
On Friday, Jan. 16, Fitzgerald received the Berticelli Award, but given his active coaching lifestyle, he wound up on four flights in five days. On Thursday, he flew from New York to Champions Gate, FL to coach the 2009 team. On Friday, he jumped in an Uber to the airport for a flight to Philadelphia. He met up with his wife and two children, who drove in from New York. He took part in the awards ceremony and flew back down to Florida on Saturday. He missed that morning’s game but directed the team in games on Sunday and Monday before returning home later on Monday.
“Got to see a lot of people that night, which was awesome,” Fitzgerald said about Philadelphia.
The East team went 1-1-1 at the Omni Sports Complex in Champions Gate, FL. Fitzgerald stressed winning wasn’t the main objective. It was about showcasing the players.
“Our goal is to try to get as many players into the national pool as possible,” he said. “I’m confident that we’re going to get a good number of our players.
When he returned home, he learned that he had contracted COVID somewhere along the way. That wiped him out for a few days.
Soccer coaching is, more or less, Fitzgerald’s second career.
For some three decades, he was a policeman with the NYPD, Nassau County (detective) and Suffolk County (detective in the District Attorney’s office), the last two on Long Island.
Early on, he started his coaching journey, directing the Under-12 Hicksville Hawks.
“I thought I was helping out the club, getting back to the club where I played,” he said. “They had asked me to help out with the team. I had some free time. I just had a blast. These kids were awesome. Not only were they terrific kids, they’re also good soccer players, which really helped. The parents were terrific. I really hit the trifecta. I got really lucky with my first go around. Maybe I wouldn’t have continued coaching if those things weren’t all in place, but it was just a really good group of people.”
“That gave me the bug,” Fitzgerald continued. “It wasn’t planned but I wound up coaching the team until they went to college, from 11 to 19 years old. Today, almost all of them are friends of mine. Just a couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us got together in the city at one of the guys’ apartments, and we went out to dinner. We meet usually once a year. I can’t tell you how many games we won or lost, but I can tell you about their families. I’ve been to a lot of their weddings. They’ve been to mine. It’s really cool.”
Then again, so is Fitzgerald’s family, which he called “incredibly supportive.”
“My wife is wonderful about these things,” he said. “She did not come from a soccer background.”
A friend introduced John to Elizabeth, who was an elementary teacher.
“It didn’t come up in conversation of age group I coached and the Hawks at that time,” he said. “After we were dating for a little while, she went to her first game with me. She assumed they were little kids. She sees these 15-, 16-year-old young men who were taller than me. She was pretty surprised.”
Fitzgerald’s children played soccer, Erin, and Sean, a midfielder who recently agreed to return to the Fighting Tomcats.
During the past several weeks, the team has been re-signing several players from last year’s inaugural NPSL season.
“It is a testament to the club, as well as those players, the fact that they want to come back to the club and the fact that we want them back,” Fitzgerald said. “It goes both ways. We have a terrific culture. I’m really looking forward to it [the season]. I’m super excited. It’s a nice professional atmosphere.”
The team missed out securing a playoff berth in their final game of the campaign, which is something that Fitzgerald would like to rectify this year. In fact, he would like to do more than reach the postseason.
“The goal is to win a championship,” he said. “I really think with the right players, we could do that. The first big step, I would say, let’s get to the playoffs first, because we didn’t accomplish that last year. We were very close.”
Fitzgerald and his team will embark on that challenge and journey when the NPSL season starts for them in May.
Michael Lewis, the sixth recipient of the Clay Berling Media Career of Excellence Award in 2025, can be followed on X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky at @Soccerwriter. His 10th soccer book, Around the World Cup in 40 Years: An American sportswriter’s perspective, will be published this spring.
Photo Credit: Adam Rubin Media and NPSL.com
