Scott Arnold takes over Franklin Regional girls soccer program

By: Bill Hartlep
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 | 5:24 PM

Scott Arnold has spent parts of the past 20-plus years coaching various levels of club soccer.

Now, he is getting a chance to coach at the high school level.

Arnold was hired Monday night to lead the Franklin Regional girls soccer program.

“I knew it was a really good fit for me personally,” he said. “I want to get started as soon as possible, but, unfortunately, (because of the coronavirus) we have to be patient for now. I’m excited.”

Arnold replaces Rich Garland, who had 211 wins and six section titles over the past 19 seasons with the Panthers. He left the Panthers to coach the Mt. Pleasant girls soccer team.

Franklin Regional finished 8-9 overall and 7-7 in Section 1-3A last season, losing to West Allegheny in the opening round of the WPIAL playoffs.

“They have good players. I think they have room to grow,” Arnold said. “I think if I brought a new style of play, a different way (to play), I think they would really enjoy it and do very well. I think it was a good fit for them and a good fit for me.”

Arnold is a youth development phase coach with Pittsburgh Hot Spurs. He also has coached with Norwin Soccer Club, Premier Football Academy and Century United.

He helped to coach and train his daughters: Emily Arnold, a 2018 Norwin grad now playing at Slippery Rock, and Kylie Arnold, a Norwin captain who will graduate this spring.

“Now that both my daughters will be out of the house, it was a good time (to get into high school coaching),” he said.

Arnold is planning a controlled approach on the pitch, emphasizing crisp passing.

He wants to reduce the number of tackles and aerial challenges and be able to move the ball through defenders and generate more scoring chances.

“At first, it will be a lot of change in the way they’ve done things,” Arnold said. “We’ll try and establish a new way of training, a new way of playing.”

He also said he is looking forward to a different type of coaching at the high school level, where he can interact with the players more often than the two days a week club soccer teams play and practice.

“When I first started on the club side when I was young, what I enjoyed was the soccer, the sport, the competitiveness of it, developing skills in the player and seeing them grow,” he said. “As I got older, I kept that part of it but started really valuing developing the whole player more, seeing them become complete human beings.”

Though the coronavirus pandemic has rendered team workouts impossible, Arnold is hoping to still connect with his new players.

He sent them an introductory letter and development questionnaire Tuesday and hopes to have some sort of offseason program this summer.

He also realizes the players’ various club teams could end up playing deep into the summer months.

“It will help their fitness to keep playing over the summer, but it might limit what they can do for their high school team over the summer,” he said. “It will be a plus and a minus. I just want to get back to playing wherever and whenever.”

Bill Hartlep is the TribLive sports editor. A Pittsburgh native and Point Park graduate, he joined the Trib in 2004, covering high school sports. He held various editing roles before assuming his current position in 2019. He can be reached at bhartlep@triblive.com.

Tags: Franklin Regional