'Coach K,' North Georgia Soccer Academy help mold youth into next Soccertown stars

Sep. 29—To the wider world, the nickname "Coach K" might first conjure up thoughts of legendary and recently-retired Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Kryzewski.

Around North Georgia, Coach K means coach Kerem Daser, the former director of soccer at Dalton State College and founder and CEO of Dalton-based North Georgia Soccer Academy.

Just ask former Dalton High School soccer star Fabian Rodriguez. He and his brother, Damian, both spent years under the tutelage of Daser at North Georgia Soccer Academy, an organization that provides soccer training and travel teams to local youth.

Fabian and Damian both helped Dalton High win state championships, and now both are playing professionally for Chattanooga Football Club.

"Without Coach K, none of this would have happened," Fabian Rodriguez said when he signed his contract with Chattanooga FC last year. "It helps you build up your talent to travel around and play against good competition."

Since arriving in Dalton in 2014, Daser has spent hundreds of hours on the soccer fields with kids as young as six, helping develop the next stars of the town that's becoming known as Soccertown, USA.

"Before I came, soccer was already amazing here, but now, I try to make it a little more organized," Daser said. "We start training at six years old, and we're even going to start an under-four program soon."

Daser — a longtime collegiate soccer coach who spent a few years as an assistant for the University of North Carolina and 13 years as the head coach at Georgia State — first came to Dalton in 2014 to start the Dalton State College soccer programs.

When the college made the decision to bring back athletics and start a men's and women's soccer program, Daser was tabbed by then-athletic director Derek Waugh to be the director of soccer for DSC and coach both teams.

But starting a program from scratch takes time.

"My first year, there were no teams, so I was just recruiting," Daser said. "And nights that I wasn't recruiting, I was just at Lakeshore (Park) holding clinics and working with kids."

The DSC men's team began play in the fall of 2015, with the women's team joining them the next year.

Daser continued to work with younger kids during his free time and soccer's off-season, and, in 2016, started Correcaminos Futbol Academy, the first iteration of NGSA. Correcaminos is the Spanish word for Roadrunners, the mascot of the Dalton State teams.

"Our first year that we started, we probably had 100 kids, and we've just added to that every year," Daser said. "Now, we have over 400 travel players."

"About 75%" of the kids come from the Dalton area, Daser estimates, and there is also a branch in Calhoun and Rome.

In 2018, after four men's seasons and three women's seasons, Daser resigned from Dalton State. Correcaminos then became North Georgia Soccer Academy.

"We decided we weren't going to be a Roadrunner that runs away, we decided we were going to be a Lion that's fierce and has a lot of courage, and I think that's a good symbol for young kids," Daser said.

NGSA offers travel soccer teams all the way up through an under-19 squad. The club has won several Georgia state championships in its seven years of existence.

This summer, an under-13, under-14 and under-19 team for NGSA all reached a national travel tournament in Denver, Colorado. The year before, the under-19 squad reached the national semifinal round.

There have been 16 NGSA players that have spent time with the academy of Atlanta United, a Major League Soccer franchise.

"It's kind of neat, with 30 or 40 thousand people, we're going up against cities with millions of people," Daser said.

Even without Dalton State duties to worry about, Daser still has plenty of help running the organizations, between volunteer coaches leading several of the travel squads.

"We have a lot of amazing soccer dads and moms. They really volunteer to help the teams grow," Daser said. "And then, with our sponsors, it's probably the best sponsorship for a sports academy in the country. We wouldn't be where we are without them."

NGSA's older squads are stacked with some of the players from around high schools in Whitfield County. All six boys high school soccer programs in Whitfield have won state championships since 2018, and many of the best players on those teams crossed paths with Coach K and NGSA.

"When they hit high school, we work on their profiles and I follow up with college programs," Daser said.

Daser said that 22 former members of NGSA have signed with collegiate programs through the organization's first seven years, and more should join them in the next couple of years.

"When I look around and see former players of ours signing with top college programs, we're really excited," Daser said.

One of those signees is Peter Pridgen, who helped Christian Heritage School to its first Georgia High School Association state title in 2023.

Pridgen, who had been with the organization since 2016, is now a freshman at NCAA Division I Winthrop University.

Winthrop head coach Daniel Ridenhour is a former assistant under Daser at Georgia State.

"He introduced me to the head coach from Winthrop," Pridgen told the Daily Citizen earlier this year. "He and Coach K are very good friends."

Soccer is always growing in Soccertown, USA, Daser said, but he foresees the surrounding areas starting to catch up.

The United States Soccer Federation announced recently announced that a new "National Training Center," which will serve as the Federation's headquarters, will be built in Atlanta. The 2026 Men's World Cup will be held in North America. Lionel Messi, considered one of the top soccer players of all time, joined Inter Miami of Major League Soccer this summer after a lengthy and successful career with European teams.

"I think the state of Georgia will explode for soccer in the next few years," Daser said.