New UAB Soccer Coach David Lilly Sees “Great Potential” In Program

Photo by East Tennessee State University.

By Charles Vaughan

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - April 25, 2024

Last December, former East Tennessee State men’s soccer coach David Lilly left behind the Buccaneers, the team he led to an 80% conference win rate over the course of two seasons. His destination: a UAB program which hasn’t recorded a victory since October 14th, 2022, a fact of which Lilly is well-aware. 

What brought the coach to Birmingham? Lilly, a veteran program rebuilder, sees “great potential” in UAB.

A native of the United Kingdom, Lilly spent his childhood in Scotland harboring dreams of being a soccer player. A late bloomer, he wasn’t able to take the traditional route to the professional ranks and decided to spend his college years across the pond.

“I really wanted to be a professional back home, but realized it might not be going the way I had wanted,” said Lilly. “I kind of developed a little bit later. And then the option to go to America came up where you can kind of try to pursue professional goals while getting a degree.”

With the help of a search firm, Lilly decided he would play soccer at Milligan College, an NAIA school located in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean to attend a school of fewer than 1,000 students would be a daunting task for many, but for Lilly, it was “the best option for a number of different reasons.” Although he “didn't know a whole lot about what he was getting into,” Lilly excelled in his four years with the Buffs, earning two conference player of the year awards and an NAIA All-American honorable mention.

Lilly entertained a brief professional career after graduating, playing for a number of USL-level teams across the eastern United States, but retired in 2010. Coaching was the obvious next step for the soccer lifer.

“I started coaching at a young age,” said Lilly. “I started coaching with the Scottish governing body of football when I was about 16, 17 years old. It was always something that interested me, but I'd be lying if I said that that's what I wanted to do originally. My goal at that time was to be a professional. I wanted to play as long as I possibly could at the highest level I could.”

“But then I realized that I wasn't going to be able to play at the levels that I really wanted to. I think I was about 22 years old, and I was kind of seeing the writing on the wall that I wasn't going to do what I wanted in a professional capacity,” Lilly added. “That's when it was really natural to step into the coaching world. I really wanted to stay connected in the game and I built up some good connections and I wanted to try and kickstart a career in coaching at that point.”

While playing for the Carolina Railhawks (now known as North Carolina FC), Lilly volunteered on the Milligan staff to gain experience. After briefly returning to Scotland after the end of his playing career, Lilly returned to the US in 2010 to serve as an assistant at East Tennessee State. He stayed at ETSU until 2017.

“I spent eight years [at ETSU] as an assistant,” said Lilly. “I spent four years working under Scott Calabrese, who's at UCF now, and then four years working under Bo Oshoniyi, who's at Dartmouth now. And then I took my first head coaching job after that.”

That job was back where it all started: Milligan. Lilly’s former team had fallen on hard times by the year he returned, posting one of the worst records in school history during the 2017-2018 season.

“At Milligan, they had one win the year before we got there,” said Lilly. “The project was getting gradual improvements over the course of time. We were able to win, get them back to conference championships, and get them back to being nationally recognized.”

Lilly led a reclamation project during his tenure at his alma mater, boasting an overall record of 42-26-3 over four seasons. In his final year at Milligan, the Buffs won a school-record 15 games and were ranked as high as ninth in the country.

In 2022, Lilly made another grand return, this time as the head coach at ETSU, a program entrenched in mediocrity at the time of his arrival. By his second year in Johnson City, the Buccaneers were champions of the Southern Conference.

“Taking the ETSU job, again it was the same thing,” said Lilly. “They'd gone through a spell where they hadn't been reaching their heights and it was the same kind of goal going in there trying to get them back to championship level. We got that done by year two.”

On December 8th, 2023, Lilly became the sixth head coach in UAB history.

The move was a leap of faith. For the first time in his 15-year career, Lilly is coaching at a school other than Milligan or ETSU, and he’s once again taking over a program that needs a rebuild. Despite the Blazers’ proud past, the team hasn’t recorded a winning season since 2014. The 2023 campaign saw them post a dismal record of 0-11-4.

However, Lilly isn’t daunted. He’s orchestrated significant turnarounds at each of his last two stops and believes the glory UAB once enjoyed is still attainable.

“It’s a program that has won conference championships, that has been ranked nationally,” said Lilly. “I just know because of the standard of the conference -- the American -- and what this program is capable of, if we get it right, we could be onto something pretty special here.”

Lilly hadn’t spent much time in Birmingham at the time of his hiring, but was familiar with the program through visits as an opposing coach. He led his Milligan team against the Blazers in a 2019 exhibition game -- in fact, it was UAB’s first game at the renovated PNC Field -- and was impressed by the facilities.

“I got to see the stadium firsthand during that time and saw how beautiful it was, one of the premier locations in the country,” said Lilly.

Lilly also faced off against the Blazers during his first stint at ETSU.

“I remember being an assistant at ETSU and playing against UAB,” said Lilly. “At the time, they were either top 25 or top 10 in the country. They were really, really good. So I already had it in my head that UAB was a really top program that had a lot of potential.”

After their arrival, the first challenge for Lilly and his new staff, which consists of former ETSU assistant Kyle Findlay and former Wofford assistant Adam Reakes, was meeting the team. The process was complicated by the awkward timing of Lilly’s hiring, which fell just before the winter holidays.

“[Our first meeting] was on Zoom,” Lilly recalled. “I was on the road at the time, so when I accepted the job and met with the team, the first one was on Zoom. Then just with the timing of everything, it happened to be winter break. So everyone was about to go their separate ways and we had that whole Christmas period, winter period when the guys aren't on campus.”

“I never got to actually have our first in-person meeting until mid-January,” he said. “That first meeting -- it was obviously really nice to finally get to work with the guys. There's been a lot of movement. A lot of guys graduated, a lot of guys moved on before I got the job. It was a small squad size we had this spring.”

Despite the major roster churn, which was catalyzed by the coaching change, Lilly is confident in UAB’s core. He spotlighted several returning players that have excelled during the spring season.

"Tony Kim is one who didn't get a ton of playing time last year, but since we've been working together this spring, he's been one of the best players,” said Lilly. “He's been very good, he scored a hat-trick in the first spring game of the season. He's really worked very, very hard and he's got some good ability. He’s going to be one who will be keeping an eye on in the fall for sure. 

Analysis website Top Drawer Soccer recently spotlighted Kim as an “AAC player who could break out as a prominent figure within the conference in 2024.”

Lilly also praised Humphrey Doh, a sophomore forward who received all-conference recognition last season, and Alan Melendez, a Spain Park High School alumnus who signed with UAB in 2022.

“Humphrey is a very talented kid that we're looking forward to watching this fall as well. He got more playing time last season and he got named to the [AAC’s] all-rookie team,” said Lilly. “So some of the conference guys recognized him for the work that he had done. So he's another one that's got a lot of potential for the upcoming fall.”

“Alan Melendez is a local guy from Birmingham,” Lilly added. “He impressed us this spring. He's been here a couple of years now and he’s had a good spring.”

The returning players, while full of potential, are not numerous. UAB faces several roster holes. The staff is spending much of their time on the upcoming recruiting class, which already numbers double-digits. Lilly said the Blazers have been purposeful in choosing which players to sign, following a philosophy that emphasizes mixing young talent with veteran leadership.

“We like to have a blend of players, of student-athletes coming in,” said Lilly. “We’ve got some local players that will just be seeing college soccer for the first time. I really think it's important to have guys representing Alabama and the local region who are passionate about representing UAB and want to be a part of the program and drive it forward. And it means a lot to them. So that's something we want to do. We want to try and get the best in-state kids we possibly can.”

“We've got some other kids from surrounding areas, surrounding states, and we've got some internationals,” he said. “We've got some kids coming in with some experience, some international one-year kids as well that bring different experiences from their academies back home or from the universities that they've worked with.”

“We want to work for the future, get kids that have three or four years of eligibility remaining, and then blend them with some kids that have one or two years remaining, that have been around the block a little bit and also want to come in and make an impact with UAB,” added Lilly. “So that's kind of our philosophy. Mixing that local talent and the kids that are going to be the future of the program with the kids that can help them out a little bit with experience.”

Lilly has been encouraged by the Blazers’ mindset and said the team is already starting to develop an identity.

“I think the guys are bought into working very, very hard and trying to improve on what happened last year,” said Lilly. “They don't feel good about what happened last year. They want to improve on it. We started the process of being more disciplined, and we started getting across parts of the way we want to play.”

“We want to play with a lot of energy and intensity,” he added. “We want to press teams, we want to get at teams, and we want to make games uncomfortable for teams. We want to be very good with our own game as well. We want to be dangerous going forward and score goals. Above all else, the thing that we really want is to have a strong mindset and a strong mentality.”

With the spring season’s conclusion, UAB now turns its attention to preparing for the preseason, which begins in August. Although the team displayed both positives and negatives in his first few months on the job, Lilly believes the Blazers are set up for success.

“The semester had its ups and downs for sure,” Lilly said. “There were moments where it was not good, but there were a lot of learning moments. The guys have some focal points that they can look to as inspiration for the fall. There's a couple of games especially that I think the guys performed well in and showed a good mentality.”

“They want to be successful, they want to take a step forward, and they want to be playing meaningful games at the end of the year. I think we took a step forward this spring, so we're excited to see how they come into preseason ready to get to work.”