LAWRENCE — When Oscar Rodriguez Jr. spoke with Kansas soccer coach Lance Leipold at a coaches conference in San Antonio after the 2021 season, Rodriguez stated Leipold didn’t have any openings accessible for him.

So Rodriguez, who completed this previous season as Akron’s interim head coach, traveled to Los Angeles — the place his spouse is from. As a result of she reminded him she had a visit deliberate with associates, he determined to spend a while along with his mother and father again in his hometown of Liberal, Kansas.

However upon returning to Liberal, Rodriguez stated he obtained a textual content message from Leipold about his potential curiosity ready on Leipold’s employees. After some correspondence, Rodriguez went on to interview with Jayhawks defensive coordinator Brian Borland. And, in accordance with Rodriguez’s bio on Kansas’ web site, that led to Rodriguez becoming a member of this system as an analyst in February.

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“That’s type of the way it all transpired, man, like you may’t make it up,” Rodriguez stated just lately. “… I used to be simply again in Kansas, and it simply labored out for the each of us.”

Rodriguez stated he frolicked with totally different positions on the defensive aspect of the ball all through spring ball, studying the system and constructing relationships with fellow coaches. He in contrast his place to that of a advisor, and highlighted his perspective that there aren’t any egos on the employees. He’s wanting so as to add worth any method he can, whether or not that’s from his expertise on the junior faculty degree or simply the very fact he has ties as somebody from the state.

“Any method I could be an asset, or add worth, to this group is simply actually what I’m making an attempt to do,” stated Rodriguez, who’s 40 years outdated. “If I’m in conferences, I maintain my mouth shut. I’m old-fashioned. I’m all about etiquette, converse when spoken to, as a result of on the finish of the day these guys have performed a very good job to get the place they’re at they usually’re all actually, actually, actually gifted. And I’m studying lots, too, on the identical time.”

It’s a transfer that each brings Rodriguez to a place again inside his residence state, and provides a person to the Jayhawks’ employees whose life expertise in and of itself has the potential to offer such worth to a crew that’s approaching its second season with Leipold on the helm. Rodriguez, whose expertise as a coach has spanned so many ranges of soccer, particularly inside the faculty ranks, has needed to persevere via a lot in his life. Rodriguez tells individuals on a regular basis he has three levels, and considered one of them is “a doctorate in life.”

How Oscar Rodriguez Jr. grew up

Rodriguez stated his mother and father immigrated to the US from Mexico within the Nineteen Seventies, with nothing however a dream to offer their youngsters a greater life. He stated they moved to Liberal due to the agricultural alternatives. And Rodriguez, born in 1981, stated they grew up with nothing, too.

Rodriguez remembers cleansing homes along with his mom, rising up. He’d be 8 years outdated, making an attempt to assist put meals on the desk. They’d store at storage gross sales, and generally he wore the identical garments a number of days in a row.

However Rodriguez, who simply so occurred to develop up in a city the place soccer was essential, by no means felt like he wasn’t liked. He stated his mother and father put an significance on how he and his siblings performed themselves, their schooling and their religion, with Rodriguez noting his dad’s time as a deacon within the Catholic church. Rodriguez takes satisfaction within the reality he and his sisters, in an immigrant household, all progressed of their schooling to the purpose they every earned a grasp’s diploma.

“We all the time had meals on the desk,” stated Rodriguez, who earned his grasp’s diploma from Washburn. “My dad stated, ‘We’ve received beans, rice and tortillas. We’re OK.’ And we didn’t know any higher, as a result of the truth was the love that my mother and pa crammed us with, and my dad significantly. I’ve received three sisters. I used to be the one boy. I used to be junior.”

Possibly there have been occasions Rodriguez didn’t like his dad, occasions his dad was laborious on him. However Rodriguez grew to educate the identical method his dad handled him. There’s a whole lot of love, and generally that love is hard love.

Rodriguez, propelled partly by that love, went on to play soccer in faculty at Emporia State, Coffeyville Neighborhood Faculty and Fort Hays State after being part of one of many storied highschool applications of that period in Kansas. Jeff Leiker and Dickie Rolls, who coached Rodriguez at Coffeyville and who Rodriguez considers mentors, bear in mind Rodriguez being pushed and a pacesetter even then. Rodriguez started his teaching profession as an assistant at the highschool degree in Texas, earlier than incomes a job on Washburn’s employees again in Kansas that began him on a collegiate path that led him to Akron’s employees just a few years in the past.

Rodriguez can’t bear in mind his dad ever crying, aside from perhaps when his dad’s mom died. Then got here a follow at Akron in 2021, after Rodriguez had been named the interim head coach. Rodriguez might see his dad crying, as Rodriguez spoke with the crew, and Rodriguez believes it was as a result of his dad was watching a son reside out a dream.

What soccer means to Oscar Rodriguez Jr.

Rodriguez understands how the teaching occupation can take its toll on individuals and their households, due to how usually they are often on the transfer. Rodriguez, who famous he’s additionally interned on the skilled degree within the NFL for the Chicago Bears, has spent various quantities of time as an assistant at totally different ranges of school soccer at totally different stops — together with Baker, Hutchinson Neighborhood Faculty, Emporia State, Backyard Metropolis Neighborhood Faculty, La Verne and Chattanooga. However what retains Rodriguez going is he views it as a ministry, the place he is ready to serve younger males and different coaches in any method he can.

Rodriguez values being weak round his gamers, in order that they see him as a human being. He makes use of that doctorate in life, as he calls it, to assist impart knowledge. There are powerful occasions he’s been via in his personal life, and if something occurs with the athletes he’s working with he will help train them life classes via their very own errors.

“With the best way the panorama is now, and the stress there’s to win, coaches come and go,” stated Rodriguez, who’ll usually go off on tangents about life whereas educating or teaching. “But when you may make an influence on an individual, on the way you made them really feel or the way you make them behave of their new life, I feel that’s going to stick with them eternally and that’s what I take a whole lot of satisfaction in.”

Jason Thoren, who coached with Rodriguez at Baker a little bit greater than a decade in the past and stays associates with him, nonetheless remembers how a lot the gamers there liked being round Rodriguez. Thoren stated they’d come see Rodriguez in the course of the day, outdoors of follow. Rodriguez might coach them laborious, and Thoren stated they nonetheless revered him.

That’s why Thoren believes Rodriguez has been in a position to get pleasure from success all through his profession. Thoren pointed to Rodriguez’s persona, how he’s somebody who enjoys each a part of the job — even the 6 a.m. exercises. Thoren stated Rodriguez isn’t afraid to snort, cry or work with gamers, and Rolls added that Rodriguez takes an curiosity in a prospect’s life whereas recruiting them regardless of how good that participant finally ends up changing into.

“Three large issues in Oscar’s life are — I imply, his dad’s labored within the Catholic church eternally. His faith’s large to him,” stated Thoren, who enjoys speaking trash with Rodriguez about the highschool soccer in Lawrence and Liberal. “His household and prolonged household have been large to him. After which, I feel, there’s soccer … I feel, with him, he loves the sport. He loves recruiting. He loves teaching. He loves being round it. He loves studying.”

Rodriguez’s time because the interim head coach at Akron could have needed to include the truth that he was changing a pricey good friend of his in Tom Arth, who he stated present him with numerous alternatives and empowered him as a pacesetter throughout their time working collectively. The expertise of being the interim head coach was like profitable the lottery, Rodriguez stated, as a result of it felt like a blessing and a curse on the identical time. He’d be mendacity if he stated it wasn’t powerful, and if there weren’t days the place he didn’t need that position.

However Rodriguez, who needs to be a head coach once more in some unspecified time in the future, additionally stated that he’s realized issues that’ll make issues simpler for him the following time he’s a head coach. He talked with satisfaction about how the gamers and coaches at Akron caught collectively via the top of the season, though the potential is there for coaches to start out worrying about their subsequent job and athletes to wish to begin exploring switch choices straight away. And it meant lots to Rodriguez that Arth gave him a hug, informed him he earned that likelihood to be the interim head coach and can be supporting him when the change occurred.

As an analyst with Kansas, Rodriguez is aiming for development. Batting most cancers as he did and surviving, twice, led to him having the mindset the place he’s chasing individuals — not jobs. He needs to work with the precise individuals, and whereas he’s with the Jayhawks he needs to study other ways of doing issues from Leipold and others so he can enhance as a coach and individual.

How Oscar Rodriguez Jr. goals to help these battling most cancers

Rodriguez, the founding father of the Coaches In opposition to Most cancers Basis, stated there isn’t a day that goes by the place he doesn’t take into consideration wanting to assist people who find themselves battling most cancers as he did. By his basis he stated he seems to help individuals who “are down on the bottom and battling their butt off and having to take off work,” who’ve prices they need assistance overlaying. And it’s a mission that finds its motivation, at the very least partly, in what he noticed throughout one of many occasions he needed to obtain chemotherapy.

Rodriguez stated, as a coach, one tends to have a assist system with its basis in household, gamers and the higher neighborhood. What he noticed saddened him, as a result of there have been different individuals who didn’t have anybody. Each time he began to really feel sorry for himself, he would remind himself he at the very least had individuals round him who liked him.

Rodriguez stated the second time he battled most cancers he was solely given a 7-to-15% likelihood of surviving. He considers it a miracle he lived via it. He believes he was spared by God.

“In soccer you discuss digging down, and the highs and lows of soccer, and the highs and lows of life,” stated Thoren, who felt his friendship with Rodriguez grew via Rodriguez’s battles with most cancers. “He needed to actually look himself within the mirror and consider that he might beat it, and he did, and he beat it twice. And I can bear in mind these conversations early on, and I simply stated, ‘Oh, Oscar … that ain’t going to mess with you, bud.’”

Jordan Guskey covers College of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.