Gould good at multi-tasking

The circus could use guys like Chris Gould, who knows how to juggle with the best of them. But Gould doesn't juggle flaming sticks, or knives, or anything like that — it only seems that way.

Gould juggles his time, a challenge for anybody in this day and age, but particularly for a soccer coach who coaches two college teams — at the same time.

Gould, 30, is Concordia University's "director of soccer," which means he heads both the men's and women's teams for the school. Practice times and game times between the two teams are constantly at war with each other, but Gould is making it work.

Going into the weekend, the men's and women's teams were a combined 6-1, the women at 4-0 and the men 2-1.

"It's tough," Gould admitted. "Making this a one-person job is not very realistic. It comes down to having a good coaching staff, guys you depend on and rely on. The guys we have here are awesome."

Cheyne Gordon and Mike Oseguera are Gould's assistant coaches for both teams.

Gould did say that more and more schools are going to the one-coach model, which helps with scheduling. Teams can line up games with opposing schools on back-to-back days, one day the men playing and the other day the women playing.

Gould and his assistants are in their third season coaching both teams, and they have been able to make it work — each team has had a winning record each season. The women were 8-4-5 in 2009 and 11-6-3 in 2010. The men were 9-7-2 in both seasons.

The women are off to a fast start this season, going 4-0 in their first four games, outscoring their opponents 16-2. And that's a big deal considering how they finished last season.

The women lost their top three scorers from last season in Sasha Hudson, Hayley Partridge and Alyssa McDonald. They did have three returning All-Golden State Athletic Conference defenders in Audrey McKay, Kyleen Button and Tamara Chagas, so the off-season goal for Gould, Gordon and Oseguera was obvious.

"We said at the end of last year we had to recruit attacking players," Gould said. "Last year defense was our core and the strength of our team. We knew we'd have our whole back, six players, back again. We focused on getting good attack players."

Gould brought in Bri Lopez from Santiago Canyon College, and Arianna Vaughn from South Hills High in West Covina.