Brandon Gilliam continues to guide BYU men's soccer to success – The Daily Universe – Universe.byu.edu

Three national championships. A team with a legacy of success. Leadership that evolved from the players. A coach that came from the players to lead the team to victory over and over again. This is that coach’s story.
“Coach Gilliam is someone who lives and breathes the games,” assistant coach Tanner Whitworth said. “He has an ability to read the field and make adjustments as needed and form a personal connection with every player”
Brandon Gilliam is the current BYU men’s soccer head coach. Since taking the position in 2016 he has helped BYU become the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA) champions three times: 2017, 2019, and 2021.
Gilliam started his journey in soccer from an early age. “I grew up in Texas, just outside of Dallas and Arlington, and we were a sports junkie family playing lots of different sports.
Gilliam started soccer when he was around 4 years old, while his older brother started at 5. The two spent a lot of time on soccer and basketball.
“It was the 1994 World Cup when I was able to see the US playing in the Cup and being able to watch the competition in a sport that I was actually playing instilled a deep passion in me for soccer” Gilliam said.
“A large part of me really wanted to go professional, and so I put all of my objectives towards that goal.”
“I always have said that the Lord picked me to be able to come to BYU, with other options not working out my senior year of high school,” Gilliam said.
Gilliam had the opportunity to be remarkably successful as a player. During his time as a player BYU was playing semiprofessional and he was one of the tope goalkeepers in the league 2 years in a row.
“Things changed my senior year at BYU. I realized that as much as I loved playing it was the environment: helping people to grow, find great passion and desire and just become better people through playing the sport,” Gilliam said.
Gilliam transitioned immediately from player to assistant coach after he finished college in 2008. During that time, he had to work two jobs on top of his responsibilities as assistant coach to help make ends meet since the assistant coach position is not paid for club teams. He was working as a system manager for a soccer store and the other job was doing trainings with youth soccer.
There came a point after a few years doing this where Gilliam need to pick between soccer and retail. “I took that leap of faith into coaching,” said Gilliam.
“I feel that the Lord had a big hand in where I ended up,” Gilliam said.
“I had a great mentor stepping into the role with Chris Watkins”, said Gilliam, speaking about the former head coach.
“I had the joys as assistant coach of being able to watch someone else make the big decisions, and see how they go, . I would watch Chris and be detailed in my analysis what he was doing. I would ask myself what I would change, what would I implement, how would I do it differently, what did I love about what he was doing,” said Gilliam
He had eight years of experience as an assistant coach before becoming the head coach.
“In my first two years as head coach I tried to have a hold on everything that was done. I quickly realized that the best power in coaching is to allow others to make great decisions, not to make the decisions for them” said Gilliam.
Today the coach leads an incredibly successful club team for BYU.
“He is extremely organized. It’s like reading a book every season where he may change individual activities but there is a plan for the entire season,” said Max Magelby, one of the current players on the team.
“Every season we make a plan of where we want the team to be at peak performance during the season, which is around nationals or during November,” Gilliam said.
Today, Gilliam runs three businesses alongside being the head coach for the team. One is a goalkeeper academy that usually has training on a daily basis, a goalkeeper gloves business, and he is still doing youth training.
While the coach focuses on helping make the team better at soccer, that is not his sole focus in coaching. “My goal is to make sure that every player that we have leaves this program a better person than when they arrived,” he said.
“My kids are my number one,” said Gilliam.
“I could easily go coach at another school but being here and being around these players and building this culture matters. If my kids can see their dad do something meaningful and purposeful, then it doesn’t matter about the finances, I’m successful,” said Gilliam.
Complete audio of coaches interview:

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