Opening day is over two months away, but Utah Freezz general manager Ted Roberts is reassured he's found the right man for his team's coaching job every time he sees his players and new player-coach interact.
"When the opportunity came up to get Jeff for this position, we jumped at it," said Roberts, who officially announced the signing of Jeff Betts as the Freezz's new coach on Wednesday. "Not only is Jeff one of the top five players in this league, but he is a proven leader who is passionate about teaching the skills of indoor soccer to younger players." And that's something the Freezz had an abundance of last year -- youth. With a year's increase in experience, and Betts' tutelage, the 30 year old is confident the upcoming season will a be promising one for Utah."This whole team works hard, is fast and is skilled. What they don't have his experience," said Betts. "That's what I do best is to teach the game." Looking at Betts' resume, it's no wonder he can teach. His coach at the University of Portland was Clive Charles, now the U.S. men's Olympic coach. And even though this is the Seattle native's first professional coaching stint, he's coached plenty of youth teams and also served as an unofficial assistant coach in Portland last year.
The entire reason Betts is even in Utah is because that Portland franchise went belly up.
While Roberts contemplated which player he wanted to pursue in the WISL dispersal draft, Betts made his decision an easy one.
"He called me before I could call him," said Roberts.
Betts knew the Freezz needed a new coach, so he proposed the idea of becoming the league's fourth player-coach to Roberts. It was a pretty easy sell.
"I called about 20 to 25 different people about Jeff, and no one could say anything bad about him," said Roberts.
Even though the details of Betts' coaching contract were just recently finalized, in reality he's been a Freezz player since February when the league allocated him to Utah.
Betts is replacing Dave Poggi, who guided Utah to the WISL playoffs last year in its inaugural season. However, the option on Poggi's contract was not renewed.
Betts is a seven-year veteran of indoor soccer, a career in which he's scored 197 goals in 199 games. He's played for Portland all seven of those years, and last year while serving as the captain, he recorded 24 goals and 14 assists in 19 games.
He becomes the fourth player-coach in the seven-team WISL for the upcoming season, joining Tatu (Dallas), Iain Fraser (Sacramento) and Darryl Doran (St. Louis).
Betts is married to Tina and has an 18-month-old son, Dominic. "I'll be here year round," said Betts. "Ideally I'd like to be a coach here for 20 years. Utah looks like a great place to raise a family."
You can reach James Edward by e-mail at jedward@desnews.com