The Swope Park Rangers have announced two additions to the club’s technical staff, welcoming Goalkeeper Coach Ross Cain and Strength and Conditioning Coach Mike Steidle ahead of the 2019 USL Championship season. Cain and Steidle round out the Rangers technical staff alongside second-year head coach Paulo Nagamura and second-year assistant coach Chris Martinez.
Cain, 35, enjoyed a four-year collegiate career as a goalkeeper at the University of Illinois-Chicago from 2002-2005 before joining the program’s staff as an assistant and director of soccer operations for four seasons. He returned to UIC as a goalkeeper coach for three seasons from 2015-2017. Prior to arriving to Kansas City, he served as the goalkeeper coach at Northern Illinois University in 2018.
Away from the college game, Cain was a staff coach at youth club Chicago United FC from 2006-2010 and launched the Chicago Goalkeeping Academy in 2010. As the academy’s owner and operator, he trained several professional goalkeepers including Real Salt Lake’s Andrew Putna, Chicago Fire duo Stefan Cleveland and Richard Sanchez, Charlie Lyon, Mitch Hildebrandt, Tim Dobrowolski and former SPR keeper Zac Lubin.
Steidle, 25, earned a master’s degree in Strength and Conditioning from Springfield College in Massachusetts in 2018. From 2016-2017, he gained experience with the University of Connecticut Sport Performance staff and also interned under Mike Curtis, the head strength and conditioning coach of the University of Virginia men’s basketball team.
After serving as a graduate assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Springfield College baseball program, Steidle moved to Kansas City in January 2018 to become the Sporting KC Academy Strength and Conditioning Coach. He held the position for over a year before moving to his current role with the Rangers.
SPR will kick off the 2019 regular season at New York Red Bulls II on Saturday at noon CT before hosting Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC in their home opener on March 23 at 4 p.m. CT. Both games will stream live on ESPN+.
For the second straight year, the Rangers will host their USL Championship home matches at world-class Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas. Single-game tickets for all 17 home fixtures are now on sale at SeatGeek.com, and SPR season tickets are available by calling 888-4KC-GOAL.
