Sasho Cirovski studies the picture and remembers.
He remembers the poor, 7-year-old Macedonian boy in the picture is worlds from where Cirovski now stands, poised for a College Cup appearance outside Los Angeles.
He remembers that boy had no running water or refrigeration, no heat or bathrooms. And with the Macedonian economy so poor, the boy had the luxury of a hospital birth only because his mother had complications during pregnancy.
His wealth was his family – and his soccer ball.
Cirovski, the Terrapin men’s soccer coach, said the picture is one of several grounding factors in his life, one in which Cirovski took the Terps to four College Cups, soccer’s version of the Final Four. And while he still stresses winning – wanting to grab the elusive national championship – Cirovski keeps soccer in perspective in a way he didn’t during his volatile years as a young player and coach.
“Whenever I think I’m important,” Cirovski said, “I look at that and realize where I’ve come from.”
With one television in his village of Vratnica, Cirovski knew little of life beyond Macedonia’s border. That is, until his father, who left the village to find work and move his family out of Macedonia, sent word he had settled in Germany at a factory across from dozens of soccer fields. Cirovski, then five years old, received an adidas World Cup soccer ball, the first he had ever seen.
“I thought we were moving to heaven,” Cirovski said. “I think it took us three weeks before I busted [the ball] because we played every waking moment with it in the neighborhood.”
Three years later, his family moved to a small, immigrant-heavy community in Windsor, Ontario – a hockey town with soccer trailing close behind.
As Cirovski grew, so did his love for soccer. While playing on the under-18 city travel team, Cirovski coached the under-15 team, bumming rides off his players’ parents because he didn’t have a car. By then, the fiery and technically sound Cirovski drew interest from nearby University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he earned four varsity letters between 1981 and 1984 as well as 27 total assists, fourth best in program history.
But Cirovski’s passion became too intense during his junior season, irking the next year’s new head coach, Bob Gansler.
“He was always a little too volatile,” said Gansler, now coach of the MLS Kansas City Wizards. “He had a very good year as a player but not a very good year as a sportsman. There were a lot of yellow cards, a lot of red cards, being shown in his direction.”
Upon his arrival, Gansler asked his team captain to settle down. He made a rule: Any time Cirovski drew a yellow yard, Cirovski would sit the next game.
“To his credit, he never got a yellow,” Gansler said.
Cirovski’s volatility decreased, but he retained his passion for the game. He asked Gansler to hire him as an assistant. Gansler thought he wasn’t ready and told Cirovski to “experience the world a little bit.”
In his first year out of college, Cirovski coached the local under-17 and under-15 teams to Wisconsin state titles. In 1987, after three seasons as a player and coach, he asked to go back to the Wisconsin-Milwaukee sidelines, later earning a master’s degree in business administration from the school.
But Cirovski said his love for coaching was too strong to do anything else. At that point, Gansler was eager to bring him on.
Cirovski’s three seasons as an assistant coach developed his teaching skills. By the time he took the University of Hartford head coaching position in 1991, he realized the importance of developing a trusting relationship with his players.
“Sometimes there’s hard love,” Cirovski said. “I think my players understand that when I get on them, it’s because I care about them. There’s a saying that I learned early in my coaching career that applies. It’s that ‘young people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.'”
Cirovski re-energized Hartford in his two years there, posting back-to-back 13-win seasons and giving the program its first consecutive NCAA tournament appearances. The Terps, looking to restore their program, called him.
The Terps had been dominant decades earlier. Former coach Doyle Royal led the program to 16-straight ACC titles between 1953 and 1968, including a co-national title with Michigan State in 1968. But the Terps made the NCAA tournament once in the previous 16 seasons before they called on Cirovski.
Cirovski’s first year at the university did not bring flashbacks to Royal’s years. The Terps finished 3-14-1 in 1993, ending the season on an eight-game winless streak. They reached the NCAA second round the next four seasons, but went no further. The losses, which kept Cirovski from his national title, began to take toll.
“It was harder for him back then because we didn’t win quite so many games,” said former Terp Leo Cullen. “We struggled to kind of turn the program around, so it was probably a little more frequent, some of the opportunities he had to get angry with us. And that was our fault, not his.”
But by then, Cirovski began to experience life outside soccer. In 1993, the dark-haired coach married Shannon Higgins, the blonde North Carolina soccer star from Kent, Wash., who later became the Terp women’s soccer coach. Soon after, he began raising two daughters, Hailey, now 10, and Karli, now 8. The intensity he had for the game – and the stress he suffered after each loss – began to take a back seat. His daughters reminded him of things beyond the end lines, like one ride home with Hailey after a tough loss.
“She’s got no idea that we lost, and all she wants is a hug and a kiss and my time. And I remember that was the greatest medicine I could have had,” Cirovski said. “In ’98, when we’re winning our first trip to the final four, the press conference has to wait because Karli, who’s two years old, wants her diaper changed, and only daddy can change her diaper. Nobody else. And now I’ve got a young one with Ellie. I think I’ve matured and grown a lot as a coach.”
Cirovski’s family-man aura is evident after games. Following the Terps’ 4-1 home loss to Penn State, when Cirovski chastised his players for nearly 20 minutes afterward, Cirovski’s daughters waited outside the Terps’ trailer, asking Shannon why their father was upset. Cirovski conducted the postgame interview soon after, holding 2-year-old Ellie in his arms as she devoured a package of Scooby-Doo fruit snacks.
That family extends on the field as well, contributing to the Terps’ success.
“He has three daughters, so all of us are his sons, basically,” junior defender Michael Dello-Russo said. “He loves us like we were – we are his sons. And his passion for the game just shows in us.”
Passion drives Cirovski. The volatility doesn’t emerge as often.
“My freshman year, he was about as strict and crazy as they come,” Dello-Russo said. “Since then, he’s just understood us as players. But it’s never in a negative way. It’s always to make people better and whatever he does, he’ll explain it. He’ll explain what he’s doing, and it’s not bad in any way.”
“When I first got here, we weren’t too successful,” senior forward Abe Thompson said. “And he would get angry pretty quickly. But now he doesn’t get angry as much. I think we’ve helped calm him down a little bit. Just let him know that even though things don’t always go our way, we’re going to fight through it.”
That was evident in the middle of this season, with the Terps suffering their first four-game winless streak since Cirovski’s first year. After a disappointing tie at N.C. State, the Terps – then No. 1 – lost on the road to William & Mary, at home to Duke and at Wake Forest. Cirovski said perhaps his players had too much confidence, that he wasn’t reaching them. But he still pushed them, holding individual private meetings to talk about their struggles.
“He didn’t take shortcuts or cut corners or anything like that now that he has success and better players and probably a little bit of room to slack off a little bit,” said Cullen, who joined the Terps as an assistant this year. “And I’m impressed by that. He just hasn’t taken his foot off the pedal at all.”
Cirovski returned the Terps to national prominence, compiling a 151-78-10 record that includes two ACC tournament titles and 10 NCAA appearances. The Terps are one of eight teams to have made three consecutive College Cups, including tomorrow’s opponent, Indiana, which did it twice.
“If you do it once, it’s well, ‘OK, perhaps the gods smiled on you,'” Gansler said. “But for him to consistently bring his teams to that final four is an indication that he knows what he’s doing, not only in terms of picking good players – because players are the vehicle – but also having a very good way of bringing them together and making them work as a unit.”
With the recent success, Cirovski has lured increased fan support. He meets regularly with The Crew, the Terps’ loyal student section, thanking the students for their support. Cirovski beams when Ludwig Field’s seats are filled, believing it a sign of respect and growth for the sport, not just his team.
“He transfers his energy and enthusiasm to the fans,” Athletics Director Debbie Yow said. “When you find the right person, you hang on to them.”
Not that Yow had to sway Cirovski to stay. The coach turned down offers from other high-quality programs to stay, saying, “There’s a certain number of things I want to accomplish here, and I don’t feel I’ve accomplished them yet.”
One of those things is a national championship.
“One thing I can honestly say I know is always on his mind, even in the offseason, is that he wants to win a national championship more than just about anyone I know,” Thompson said. “Probably more than any other coach in the country, I would think. It’s what he talks about constantly. So it would be nice for us to be able to get him one in my last season.”
Thompson speaks of getting Cirovski a championship like a son speaks of buying his father that long-wanted Christmas present. The family atmosphere has helped the Terps through a season that began with outsiders doubting they could replace players lost from the last two College Cup teams.
Cirovski believed in his players – the “extension of my family” – saying the winless streak was one of the best things that could have happened to his team. And one thinks: Cirovski said this? The man who used to get so upset with the media after a loss? The coach who still occasionally argues with officials over calls that, in retrospect, were not vital at the time?
“I still have had moments every year that I’m not proud of. That’s a part of what you have to understand and learn in athletics,” Cirovski said. “In the heat of the moment, winning and losing is important. But I’ve become smart enough to know that those are still relatively insignificant factors in this life. It’s about growing and developing. It’s about nurturing people. It’s about having an impact on people’s lives, whether it’s your kids or your players. That’s what I want to do. I think I’ve made the transition from just a pure coach to a teacher and from a guy who’s focused.”
Cirovski trailed off.
“I think that’s probably the best way to say it.”
