As ‘soccer city’ grows, Charlotte Independence begins Year 10 with coach who never left
Charlotte Independence coach Mike Jeffries has always wondered what it’s like to be a boxer: to train your body into oblivion for 10 to 12 weeks, to take as many beatings as you give along the way, all for the main event to potentially be over in three minutes or less, win or lose.
In a figurative sense, he doesn’t have to contemplate a puncher’s life. Ten years ago, Jeffries was the man in the proverbial ring, hired to bring a professional soccer team back to the Queen City. It required brutal training with no guarantee of a payoff. He had coaches to hire and a roster to assemble in two months. Where his team trained was a regular question. Which one of the four fields they’d host home matches in was a recurring one, too.
And all this layered into an understood existentialism: Just as Charlotte had seen pro soccer franchises surge into and fade from the city’s soccer scene — from the legendary Carolina Lightnin’ of the 80s to the Charlotte Eagles of the 90s — would all this effort result in a mere three minutes inside the rubber ropes?
The short answer?
A proud “no.”
The Independence, the city’s USL League One team, will begin its 10th season in club history when it hosts Knoxville SC at 7 p.m. March 16 at American Legion Memorial Stadium — and the team will be doing so with its coach who never left. All 10 Independence seasons have come with Jeffries at the top, either as head coach or as general manager or as both, which is what he does now.
Reaching this 10-year milestone is special to Jeffries, he said.
“I think it’s been a great journey for me,” Jeffries told reporters at the club’s media day last week. “I really enjoy being a part of the Independence, and being a part of it, watching it, working with it to grow. To go through some of the difficulties we had at the beginning, and now I think we’re an established club. We have a way of doing things. We have a good set-up.
“We come in with expectations every year of being a top club in whatever league that we’re in. And so it’s been good. I’ve been proud and happy to be a part of it.”
Jeffries grew up in Lynwood, Mass., before embarking on a college soccer career at Duke from 1980-83. There he won a Hermann Trophy, the equivalent of a Heisman in college football, and worked his way around America’s pro leagues and even the U.S. Men’s National Team before delving into coaching. He’s coached at virtually every level in American soccer since, including as the head coach for a Major League Soccer team.
In 2015, he built up Charlotte Independence. And in his 10 years with the club, Jeffries has been the constant amid a bunch of change.
Most profoundly, he’s seen how Charlotte and his club has transformed since the arrival of Charlotte FC, which played its inaugural season in 2022. Charlotte, using CLTFC vernacular, has turned into a “soccer city.” That can be seen in the fan base that turns out to Bank of America Stadium on most weekends throughout the year, including one that turned 62,000 fans for Charlotte FC’s home opener last month. Jeffries called CLTFC’s arrival “a rising tide that lifts all ships.”
The coach has also seen steady success. In 2024, the Independence hopes to capitalize on a good season a year ago, when the team was one win away from the USL League One championship — their first final appearance in club history. That marked the sixth non-losing season in nine years. Last season’s strength stemmed from a strong defense that saw 10 clean sheets and that espoused the philosophy “whatever it takes.”
“When we get clean sheets, we’re just as happy as scoring a goal,” said defender Nick Spielman.
Speaking of its players: Charlotte Independence’s roster is replete with stories that make it difficult not to root for them. The players reporters spoke to on media day make that clear.
One was Shalom Dutey, a center back who moved to Charlotte when he was 12 and grew up here after seeking asylum from Togo. Another was Spielman, a defender who has a build (and beard) like Travis Kelce and who coaches soccer at Butler High School in Matthews. Another was Clay Dimic, who sustained a spinal cord injury that called into question if he’d be able to walk again last year and whose impending return to the field will be equal parts stunning and emotional.
Dutey and Dimic have each been with the club for five or more years, just like a lot of their teammates. They give that praise to Jeffries.
“Ever since I’ve been here, six years ago, he takes pride in obviously developing players,” Dimic said of his coach. “To get me where I am now, he’s had a huge part in that. But also, he takes pride in the club and the city as a whole, and he wants it to be successful for the fans and the owners and everybody involved, so it’s pretty special to play for a coach like that.”
Said Dutey: “This has been the only professional club that I’ve been in. And I feel another reason why I stay for the years I have is the culture of the locker room. Again, we come from different places, but just the way we treat each other, the way we act, it’s something that every club wants to have.”
When asked how he imagines he might feel when he steps foot on the field in a few weeks, the long days of training behind him, Jeffries said that in the offseason, he “thinks about it quite frequently, in a good way.”
“But when it comes to the game, no,” he said.
“I’ll be there, this is it, this is 2024,” he added — doing what he’s done for 10 years, hanging tough in the ring for another round.
This story was originally published March 4, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
