A Day in The Life of a Major League Soccer Player: Ben Sippola

To start off this post, I would first like to congratulate Jake Gibbons on being offered a professional contract in Europe. I have known and played with Jake for a good part of the last decade and he is very deserving of such an honor and accomplishment. It is great to see other Minnesotan's getting a shot at the next level. Congrats to Jake and his family.

So, I thought since most youth soccer players in Minnesota rarely get the chance to interact with professional soccer players (at least I was rarely given this opportunity), I would give a sort of run down of what my average day consists of as a professional footballer. I have been with the Columbus Crew for the past five months and my daily routine has been fairly consistent for the majority of that time, excluding the first two months of preseason where I lived out of a suitcase in various hotels across the country. Here is how I employ the twenty-four hours of a natural day.

7:45 am- Wake up and eat breakfast. Breakfast usually consists of something high in carbohydrates with some protein. My favorite choice is oatmeal with fruit and yogurt. Most of my teammates eat a small breakfast. The guy I carpool with eats a bag of fruit snacks and two granola bars on the road. I like to eat something hearty to sustain my energy for practice.

8:45 am- Report to the training facility. Practices usually begin at 10:00 am and the standard time for all players to report is 9:15 am, however I like to get to practice early. This allows me to get in any treatment that I might need and some extra ball work before the organized practice begins.

9:30 am-10:00 am- By this time most players are out on the field and ready to practice. Common activities during this time are soccer tennis and 5 v 2.

10:00 am-11:30 am- Coaches report to the field and official practice begins. Practices are usually about 75 to 90 minutes in length and consist of a dynamic warm up intermixed with passing drills, moving to small sided possession with goals in tight, and ending with a large field game and crossing and finishing.

11:30 am-11:45 am- During this time, I like to stay after practice and do some extra work, shooting, passing, dribbling, etc.

12:00 pm-12:45 pm- Team Video Session with coaching staff. During this time we watch video of ourselves and our opponents. The club usually provides lunch for the players at this time from Subway, City BBQ, and KING GYRO. On days where we do not watch video this time is usually allocated for a team lifting session run by the training staff.

1:00 pm- Team obligations are terminated and players can go home. This is also the time to get any extra treatment. I usually hang around to do some final stretching.

2:00pm-5:00pm- Down time. I like to go fly fishing or take a nap. Today I did both.

6:00 pm- Dinner. I eat Chipotle too much.

7:00 pm-8:00pm- Second work out. About 4 times a week I like to do a second work out outside of training. This workout is very light and usually consists of injury prevention exercises like stretching and yoga.

8:00 pm- Bedtime- Sometimes I go fishing again, haha. However most of the time, I like to just hang out watch TV, blog, call home to Minnesota, hang out with friends etc.

So, that is an average day in the life of Ben Sippola. As you can see professional athletes have a lot of downtime. The challenge is finding something productive to do during this time and to not fall into a monotonous lifestyle. I am definitely working on that aspect of my life, lately I have been coaching a soccer team made up of refugee children in the Columbus area and I have also been coaching Ohio ODP. I have also been perfecting my fly fishing cast.

Thanks for tuning in and for those of you lucky enough to be living and fishing in the Land O' 10 Thousand Lakes,

Tight Lines,

Sip

Ben Sippola Introduction

Dear MN Futbol Blog Follower,

My name is Ben Sippola and I play for the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer. My family currently resides in Northfield, Minnesota and I happily call The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes home. I began playing soccer in the 2nd grade when my family moved from Brainerd, Minnesota to Fort Collins, Colorado. I always tell people "If it were not for the move to Colorado, I would have most likely ended up a hockey player." I simply started playing soccer because there was little, if any, organized youth hockey in Fort Collins, however there was tons of youth soccer and everyone played on the school playground. Naturally, I drifted with my friends outside of the frozen arena and onto the pitch of the beautiful game and have not been far from a soccer field since.

After a three year stint in Colorado, my family returned to Minnesota however this time to the suburbs of Minneapolis St. Paul where soccer was undoubtedly a growing and popular sport. I played most of my youth soccer with Mahtomedi Soccer Association and the rest with Bangu Tsunami. Throughout junior high and high school, I also played for a number of ODP state and regional teams.

After my sophomore year at Mahtomedi high school, my family moved to Northfield midway between my mom's new job in Prior Lake and Faribault's college preparatory school, Shattuck St. Mary's. I spent my junior and senior years at Shattuck and was part of the first ever boy's soccer team coached by Tim Carter and David Linenberger. My time spent at Shattuck was invaluable in my progression as a soccer player and undoubtedly prepared me for the demands of the collegiate level on and off the field. I graduated in 2007 and in August moved to Indianapolis, Indiana to attend Butler University.

For those of you unfamiliar with Butler, it is the school whose basketball team makes the final four every year. Since Brad Stevens would not accept me as a walk on for the basketball team, I took my talents to the Men's Soccer team, playing all four years under head coach Kelly Findley. I loved nearly every minute that I spent at Butler and could not have chosen a better university to earn an education from and play soccer for.

After my senior year in which my Butler team held an undefeated regular season record of 16-0-3 and an at large bid into the second round of the NCAA tournament, I was drafted to the Columbus Crew. Being only three hours from Indianapolis, I could not have been happier to be headed to Columbus to begin my pursuit and long time dream of playing professional soccer. After a three week trial in the months of January and February, I was offered a contract and signed in early February with the team.

As of now, I am working hard to earn a spot in the first team lineup and could not be more thankful for the opportunity to kick balls around for a living, at least for the meantime.

In my free time I enjoy fly-fishing and although I do love soccer, my real passion revolves around cold rivers and trout. I look forward to interacting with all of you Up North via MN Futbol Blog and for now I will sign out with the common fly fishing phrase,

Tight Lines,

Sip