Skillability’s New Director of Coaching
Here’s His Story.
(Coach Assane, second from left, celebrates with his players from the Centre College men's soccer team in 2018)
The Skillability family is delighted to welcome our newest member, Coach Assane Ndiaye. Coach Assane will serve as Director of Coaching, and he brings more than a decade of experience at both the collegiate and high school levels.
Why are we excited he’s here? It could be…
- Multiple “Coaching Staff of the Year” awards at the Junior College and D3 levels.
- He’s coached college teams in Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina, and Oklahoma.
- A former D1 coach, he brings an incredible network within the college soccer community.
- He’s led teams to division finals, regional championships, and the NCAA D3 tournament.
These are all true. But we’re Skillability. We’re about players, people, and the lion mentality.
So of course, there’s more to the story.
We asked Assane what led him to coach with Skillability. We want to share his soccer journey.
The short answer:
“I spent the last decade coaching at the college level and it was time for me to move into something where I could get back to the love of the game of soccer and impact kids long-term in a positive way.”
The meaningful story, as Assane tells it:
Born and raised in Senegal. Soccer is everything for us. I started playing when I was four years old and never looked back. I started playing for Academie teams, France has several Academie teams in Senegal and I played for Olympique de Marseilles. I was 10 years old. At 16, I went to France to officially play with Olympique de Marseilles. I look back at it, and I’m not sure I was ready. It was so overwhelming. It was growing up quickly. It helped me shape the rest of my life because now I was comfortable with being uncomfortable. I could take risks in life. It was a big deal, the first opportunity I got. The one thing I knew, even at an early age, those around me told me I had people skills, and that I was good with people. That can mean so much.
As it turned out, it meant everything.
Once I was there, I started playing, but I started to have a few injuries, and the biggest issue became the fact I didn’t know how to take care of my injuries. I was playing through pain. I wasn’t showing them my truest potential.
At one point, I could see bone through the back of my foot. The medical team and coaches advised me to stay away from soccer, but I was so close to my dream. So…I left Marseilles for Senegal.
When I came back to Senegal, I graduated high school. At that point, I thought my soccer career was over.
I thank God the doctors told me at the right time how to heal it. I believe everything happens for a reason. My parents wanted me to go back to France, but I thought I never wanted to touch a soccer ball again. I tried to stay away, I thought I just wanted to try and be a regular college student in the United States.
Two things happened at Tennessee Tech University:
- In my sophomore year, my Sports Management professor, Dr. LaNise Rosemond, told me I needed an internship, and I should do it at the local high school as a coach. She told me coaching might be “my thing”. I was reluctant, but agreed. After three months with Cookeville High School, the coach asked if I was interested in joining their staff. He said, “the players love you, your knowledge is rich”, and we went to the State Championship for the first time that year. I was also helping the JV players level up, and I think it was then, that sense of developing people, that I fell back in love with the game of soccer.
- I also met my wife at Tennesee Tech, and she dreamed of becoming a high school teacher. She was from Albany, Kentucky, so after I spent two years with the high school, Albany had an opening for a head coach. She applied without telling me, and two weeks later I received a phone call from the superintendent of the high school. She said she wanted someone to breathe new life into the program. I was unsure, but when I called my wife, she said, “I don’t care what you say, you’re going to take this job. You’re starting next month, take this job!” She’s always believed in me.
Yet I was with Cookeville High School, and I wanted to finish the season…those were my kids and they were about to graduate. I’m glad I did. For the first time in school history, we went back again to the state championship – we were district champions and made it to the regional semifinals. Now my players were being recruited at the college level, and that’s how I was introduced to the world of college coaching. At the time, as a coach, that’s when I started believing, “I think this might be for me.”
“Why I know relationships matter”
One of the top scorers from Cookeville High School was recruited from many schools, including Centre College. He told the Centre College coach at that time, ‘There is a coach named Assane, I think you should meet him…” That’s how the first conversation with men’s soccer coach Jeb Burch at Centre College started. So after I finished the season, I joined the Centre College staff as an assistant coach.
Centre wasn’t too far from Albany, Kentucky, so I drove back and forth. The year I was there, we won the conference championship, and then the NCAA Division 3 tournament.
With Coach Burch’s blessing, I took a job at a D1 school – Gardner-Webb College – where I was responsible for the development of their second team, to get players to the first team mid-season. I became a confidante for the players…I understood early in my life that my success would be tied to the relationships I built in my life.
My coaching philosophy is my guide: I don’t want to coach you until I know you. Trust is more important to me than anything else. I will challenge you, but I want to earn the right to challenge you.
We went to the conference final for the first time in school history. That’s when the head coach told me, “It’s time for you to get a head coaching job now.” I’ve been blessed with people who look out for me and mentor me.
He reached out for me to a number of schools, including a junior college called Northern Oklahoma College. That seemed like an ideal opportunity to help form players and then send them on their journey to D1, NAIA, etc.
What happened? I coached the men and women. Yup…we had almost 70 players. One head coach for both teams and one assistant coach for both teams. But you know what? We ranked in the Top 10 the entire time I was there, and at one point we were the only program to have both men's and women's teams in the Top 10.
The Calls Start Coming…
This was when I started getting called by programs around the nation. But it’s not just about me, this is the value of trust and what it can do – on the men’s team, we had both the #1 scorer and the #1 assists player in the nation at the Junior College level. We recruited both guys from Jamaica, and we trusted each other. They came to my office. They asked me to tell them where to go, “and wherever you tell us to go, we will go, because we trust you.”
I knew these kids and their families, and I felt the weight of their trust. So I knew I needed to recommend them somewhere where I trusted the coaches. And let me tell you, full athletic scholarships are rare…they both accepted full scholarships to Gardner-Webb.
It’s about trust.
What would I do? I would send all the college coaches I knew a freshman video of highlights. I’d say, “In two years this will be one of the best players in the nation, so keep watching him.” They learned to trust me, and they knew who to look for.
One of the reasons I was hired at the junior college was to help their players – that was the first time in school history they had two players get full scholarships to a D1 school. I stayed with my players for two years…so I now had seven years of coaching at the college level, and I was ready to work on my own destiny. Every single coach I worked with told me, “Yes, it’s time to go, you’re ready for the next level.”
Next Stop: Kansas
I received an offer to be a head coach at Bethany College in Kansas. They hadn’t been in a playoff in four years, and only four wins in the last 4 or 5 years. They needed someone to turn around the program on and off the field. I jumped at the chance, because I also value education – I am a few months removed from having my own doctoral degree in Sports Management and Leadership. My wife is on the same timeline with her doctorate, she’s incredible, it’s taken us five years, but we are doing it together.
In the year I was at Bethany, we went to the playoffs for the first time since 2017. At one point, we played Kansas Wesleyan and hadn’t beaten them in 21 years, and we beat them 6-2.
I would have stayed. The only reason why I left Bethany was my family…during this entire coaching experience, my family stayed in Albany, Kentucky. I would finish work at Northern Oklahoma and drive 12 hours to be home for the weekend, then drive back Sunday night to arrive in the morning and go to work.
It had always been like this: Danville was 2 hours round trip. Gardner-Webb was 5.5 hours. Then just under 6 from Kansas. But you see, I have a 9-year-old boy and a 1-year-old daughter, and I did not want them to move just for jobs. I wanted my kids to grow up in a stable environment.
But then, a family event happened, and I knew I was needed.
So in March 2023, it was time to go home.
Enter Skillability.
My players understood, they agreed, and the entire Bethany came to my office in support. The day I moved, the players showed up and moved all my things and supported me.
I was back in Albany. It was time to take time off from soccer, and be together. A year later we had our daughter. The Bethany players and parents cheered and sent the best messages.
So now we looked close to home.
I’m fortunate to say I’ve received multiple offers since then, but I wanted the right fit, and I needed to truly focus on soccer again.
On the United States Soccer Coaches site, they list a number of jobs for soccer coaches across the country. I saw Thuto was looking for a full-time coach. I was interested, and I liked what I saw. Then, on a Zoom call with Thuto, I told him I wasn’t chasing a job, I was chasing the right organization. We took time to get to know each other, and after a few conversations, I told him, “Man, I’m ready. I’m ready anytime. I’m ready to join.”
Skillability? These are some of the most genuine people I have ever met.
Such positive vibes, you can feel it. I kept telling my wife, “I am going to really love this place.”
I realized this was the perfect job, I would get to see players grow. I met a player recently who has been with SST for 8 years, or 9 years. To be a part of that…this is everything. And I can bring my college relationships to the program, because I’d love to connect these players to D1 colleges, or programs that fit their goals.
We asked one more question.
Advice for a young coach?
“Be yourself first. Love the game. Get to know people, and how they respond to you. Some of the great coaches, they are teachers at heart. They will remember you as a person, more than they remember you as a coach. That matters.”