Coach Andy’s Bio:
My name is Andrew Leavitt. I started playing soccer in Aviano Italy at the age of 11. I lived in Italy for 3 years.
I first started coaching soccer when I was 15 with a soccer club organization called the Strikers in Provo Utah. I was one of three High School soccer players on a men's “A” team that at the time, would have been considered Semi-Pro. It was the highest level of play in the United States at that time because the old National American Soccer League (NASL) with Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, George Best, Gerd Mueller, Eusebio, Bobby Moore, Carlos Alberto and Johan Cruyff…to name several, went bankrupt the year before I graduated high school. My dream of playing pro soccer was gone.
In 1982 Americans were not exporting to play soccer outside the US.
The strikers organization was a european style club and during the summer the players would coach younger players in camps that would stretch throughout the summer. When I was 16 I was coaching the 6 to 8 year olds.
“That was my first taste of coaching and I loved it.”
After serving a Spanish-speaking LDS mission to Los Angeles in 82-84, I came back to Utah and tried out for the BYU varsity soccer team as a walk-on. I was one of two freshmen to make the varsity team, but fate would step in and crack me upside the head. A week before our first game I separated my shoulder and I was sidelined. That ended my soccer career and I swore I would never have anything to do with soccer again. Later in life, my wife would convince me to coach a team for our daughter, Devin. We named the team the Krush. I'll talk about the Krush later.
In the ensuing years I got married. I had two kids. I went into the military and became a Special Forces Green Beret Weapons Sergeant and later a Special Forces Warrant Officer. I also became a Utah County Deputy Sheriff and I would retire from the Sheriff's Office in 2010.
Now back to the Krush.
When I coached the Krush there were only maybe four videos online that talked about coaching soccer. To say that nobody knew anything about soccer in the U.S. or knew even less in Utah, would be a severe understatement because of this fact and the fact that I had played with world class teammates on the men's Striker team, we did exceptionally well. (I have to give all the credit to the kids.) They trusted me and I trusted them.
We played for 3 years. We started in a county league and we destroyed the other teams. We had an almost perfect record. We won all our games except one and that game we tied. More than that we scored around 78 goals while only allowing 4 goals to be scored against us.
The next year we moved up to state level competition. There were only three levels in the state at that time. The third Division being the lowest. We had a perfect record in the Third Division. 13 wins. 0 loses. It was a fairytale season.
The next year we moved up to Division Two. We lost two. Tied two and won 9. Overall Krush's record was about 72 wins, two losses and three ties.If we had continued the next year we would have moved up to division 1, the highest level at that time but, I walked away from soccer again until 2024. My Daughter convinced me to help coach my granddaughters.
In terms of coaching licenses, I earned a permanent “National D” license in 2002, which is the highest amateur license here in the US. It means I can coach ANY Amatuer team in the US up to but not including the professional teams.