Landon Donovan puts mental health at the heart of his coaching approach

Since retiring from soccer nearly a decade ago, Landon Donovan has played nine games for the Galaxy, spent six months in the Mexican league with León, played eight games in the Major Arena Soccer League, helped found a team in the second division of the USL Championship and coached the team to two play-off appearances, become a part-owner of a team in Wales and a strategic advisor to a third division team in England, and has done soccer commentary for Fox and ESPN.

For many athletes, retirement means the end of a career; for the peripatetic Donovan, it’s become a chance to try a whole lot of new ones. His latest pick may be the most surprising, as nine days ago Donovan, widely regarded as the best male player in American soccer history, was named interim coach of a women’s team, the San Diego Wave.

“I’m pretty surprised myself,” Donovan said.

But the most interesting part of the story is not so much That Donovan got the job. It’s How He got it. When Wave President Jill Ellis approached him earlier this month seeking recommendations for an interim coach to replace the fired Casey Stoney, Donovan recommended himself.

“He and I had a conversation and he was like, ‘You know, I miss coaching. I’d love to be considered for this,'” Ellis said. “And I was like, ‘Wow. Okay.’

“So we went ahead with it. And I think it was a great move.”

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So far, the results have been mixed, with Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat to Angel City following a 2-0 CONCACAF W Champions Cup win in Panama. That hasn’t shaken Ellis’ confidence, though. Of course, Donovan has had no connection to the women’s game in his long career. But he wasn’t hired to coach women. He was hired to coach soccer players.

“It’s not about coaching men or women. It’s about coaching a person,” said Ellis, who coached the women’s national team to back-to-back World Cup titles. “Landon Donovan has the most astute emotional intelligence I’ve ever seen. He’s going to connect with people and players.”

It’s a trait Donovan, 42, earned the hard way. Despite his unparalleled success, the six-time MLS Cup champion struggled with depression so badly that he had to take a five-month break from soccer at the height of his career. Since returning, he’s become an outspoken advocate for the importance of mental health.

“I’ve been there. I wanted compassion and grace, so I’m going to give them that,” Donovan said of his players. “That doesn’t mean I’m not tough on them. I hold them accountable.

“(But) if you can take five minutes to show empathy for something they’re going through, it will help them get better. I really care about them as people.”

This is evident in his manner. While many coaches shout to get their point across, Donovan speaks so softly that listeners often have to strain to hear him. With Donovan, it is not only the message that is important, but also the way it is delivered.

That approach is already making a difference at the Wave.

“He’s very determined to control people,” defenseman Kennedy Wesley said. “He’s done a very good job of managing us individually.”

Wesley, like most NWSL players, has played for multiple male coaches in her career. Only three of the league’s 14 teams have female managers, and at the collegiate level, more than two-thirds of women’s soccer teams are coached by men.

For Donovan, coaching women is new, but the transition has been smooth.

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“At the end of the day, they’re people and they’re footballers,” he said. “There are subtle differences. I could name 10. But they’re not big, crazy differences. The biggest difference so far for me is how quickly they’ve picked up information, processed it and implemented it.”

During practice Friday at the Wave’s sprawling training facility, tucked away at the end of a gravel road about three miles off Interstate 5 in Del Mar, the new coach mostly watched, letting his assistants direct traffic and organize drills. But the ideas were all his.

Donovan was cerebral as a player and he’s no less so as a coach. If the X’s and O’s aren’t his greatest strength, he doesn’t ignore them. After all, he retired as the all-time leading scorer in both MLS and the national team, and he didn’t set those records by being passive. So the Wave won’t be either.

“It’s changed a lot,” Wesley said of the team’s style of play. “We want to get the ball forward, keep the ball in their half as much as possible.

“We trust and believe everything he says because he clearly knows what he is doing.”

Wesley, an NWSL rookie, grew up a Galaxy fan and remembers going to games with her family with cutouts of Donovan’s face stapled to a stick. So she wasn’t sure how to react when Ellis told the team that her favorite player would be its new coach.

“I thought that was pretty funny,” she said. “It was honestly a huge shock; a really surreal moment.”

How long that moment lasts could be determined over the next two months. With Saturday’s loss, which extends the Wave’s winless streak to 10 games in NWSL play, San Diego (3-8-6) sits 11th in the league table, three points out of the eighth and final playoff spot with nine games remaining. As interim coach, Donovan has been tasked with getting the Waves into both the NWSL postseason and out of the group stage of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup.

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And he’ll have to do it with an injury-plagued roster that was missing seven players Saturday, including Olympic gold medalists Jaedyn Shaw and Naomi Girma, forcing Donovan to give 16-year-old midfielder Melanie Barcenas her first NWSL start.

Whether he succeeds or fails, Ellis said newly appointed athletic director Camille Ashton and new owners Lauren Leichtman and Arthur Levine will wait until the offseason to discuss candidates for the full-time coaching position. And if Donovan is asked for a recommendation again, his answer will be the same as the first time Ellis asked.

“It feels like the most natural thing, by far, of all the things I’ve done since I retired,” he said. “I can’t put my finger on why. I wish I could.

“I just feel like I’m supposed to be here.”

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.