Since he began coaching in 2005 at the Naval Academy Prep School, Ryan Moran has learned from head coaches such as Furman's Richie Meade, Maryland's John Tillman and Loyola Maryland's Charley Toomey.
Now that Moran has assumed the helm at UMBC, here is what the 34-year-old former Maryland midfielder has taken from each of those mentors.
**Richie Meade promoted Moran to join his staff at Navy after the 2005 campaign and Moran remained there from 2006-08. The program captured Patriot League titles in 2006 and 2007 and qualified for the NCAA tournament in all three years.
"From Coach Meade, I felt like he gave me a great blueprint on how to be a CEO and really have a business-like approach to it in terms of meetings, duty allocations, and making sure that the people understood their responsibilities and their role within the organization," Moran said. "And he was constantly mentoring them to reach the highest levels of success in each of those duties. I just felt like he gave me a great blueprint on how to manage, how to be a leader, and how to be a CEO in terms of assembling a staff that is highly organized and knows exactly what they're doing."
**John Tillman inherited Moran when he succeeded Dave Cottle after the 2010 season. As the offensive coordinator, Moran directed the Terps to a 10.9 goals-per-game rate in six years.
"The greatest lesson I learned from Coach Tillman was the ability to recruit and how to recruit and how to really identify young men who will be good culture guys for your program and how to organize visits to really showcase your university and truly help them achieve what their academic and athletic goals are," Moran said. "I also have to comment on Coach Tillman's in-game coaching, which is just phenomenal. His ability, his poise, his calmness, his ability to teach on the fly and be very clear and articulate – I know as a coach when I was at Loyola, there were times when I would think back and go, 'All right, what would Coach Tillman do right now? How would he handle this?'"
**Charley Toomey hired Moran to replace Dave Metzbower after he left for North Carolina after the 2014 campaign. Under Moran in 2015 and 2016, the Greyhounds averaged 11.1 goals in 33 games.
"The X's and O's, he knows his stuff, but his ability to connect with his players is just phenomenal," Moran said of Toomey. "He does a better job of any coach that I've been around in terms of really connecting with the players. The players love him. ... It's his ability to find what makes each individual tick and then understand how to get to him.... Everyone always says, 'Those kids play hard and will go through a wall for him.' That's because they love him and they trust him. I always go back to how we always had peanut butter-and-jellies in Coach Toomey's room the day before games when we were on the road, and we'd have 20 kids crammed into the hotel room eating PB&J's because they just wanted to spend time with Coach Toomey and hang out with him. He's just great in that capacity. I look forward to doing that at UMBC. I hope they like peanut butter and jelly."