We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mark Girard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mark below.

Mark, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I’ve been in the coaching arena for over 25 years and have coached at many levels from youth to professional. However, my passion has always been coaching youth and helping them achieve their goals & dreams. So, with that in mind, I decided to open EDGE Soccer Programs to help as many youth players as I can. Watching them believe in their self, gain confidence, and try new skills & master them is the best thing ever. It’s not just about soccer though, it’s also about helping the kids with life skills and the soccer ball is just the tool we use. We want Edge to be a safe place kids can come to, where they know we’re all proud of them, we believe in them, we want to hear about their great days, we want to hear about days that aren’t so great, we cheer when they get good grades or when they get their drivers license, or try a new skill on the field they’ve been working on so hard during our training sessions. When I created Edge, my vision was for this to not just be a business, but a family and I think we’ve done that. EDGE has been the best thing I’ve done and I’m so proud of it, the staff, the coaches, and all the EDGE kids & families.

Mark, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Mark Girard and I am the founder, owner, and head coach of EDGE Soccer Programs. I’ve been in the soccer coaching arena for over 25 years and have trained players that have advanced to the top-level clubs, colleges, and professional teams. I’ve also coached and trained teams for CASL (now called NCFC – including their U23s), TFC, Cary Clarets PDL team, Raleigh Elite, and was an Assistant Coach for the Carolina Railhawks professional team. However, my passion has always been coaching youth athletes and helping them work towards their goals. After many years of coaching in various clubs and working in different businesses and arenas, I decided to open my own company, EDGE Soccer Programs. I’m proud to walk in every day and to know that we’re making a difference in the lives of children.

We offer soccer training classes and we also offer camp (track out camp, summer camp, camp on teacher workdays/holidays).

Our soccer training sessions supplement a player’s outdoor/club team training sessions. Their outdoor/club team training focuses on the games and our sessions provide the technical training, footwork skills, and technique that they use in their games which separate them from other players on their team and allow them to excel. Our training sessions are designed to enhance each player’s skill level so that they may maximize their opportunities to perform in recreation, club, academy, and scholastic competition. Our team is committed to providing training sessions that encourage, and positively reinforce every player’s efforts while promoting friendship and fun. We push them to challenge themselves to become better each week so they can achieve their goals & dreams.

Our Camp program is fantastic too! Our camp is activity based so campers participate in a variety of activities all day every day. Some of these activities are cross the ocean, capture the flag, the floor is lava, kick ball, wall ball, soccer, relay races, EDGE Olympics, making slime, and MORE! The campers have a blast every day and leave tired! We offer the flexibility for parents to register for a full week or individual days – whatever fits their schedule best. We offer camp for track out, teacher workdays/school holidays, and summer.

One of the things that sets up apart from anyone else is our facility. Our indoor facility is like no other! Designed to building confidence, promote creativity, and inspire our players at any age. We have a parent viewing room, state of the art on field video, sound system – and, just like the pros, a ‘players only’ boot room. Our 9,200 square foot facility is kept the perfect temperature throughout the year and has top of the line turf with no rubber infill. The positive energy of our facility greets you as soon as you walk in the door. We also have small group sizes and an abundance of coaches which allows us to have a great coach to player ratio on the field and enables us to be able to focus on each child.

Another thing that sets us apart is our coaches, camp counselors, and staff. All of the kids adore them and look forward to seeing them when they’re here! They’re fun, funny, tough, smart, push players to challenge themselves, participate in the games the campers are playing, and lend an ear if a player needs to talk or wants advice on how to play a specific position, etc.

One of the best things about Edge is that we are a family. We’re known for that and encourage that. Everyone at Edge (players, campers, parents, grandparents, coaches & staff) are all one big family and we support each other! The atmosphere and positive environment at Edge is unmatchable anywhere else.

In addition to the above items, there are also many on the field aspects that set us apart. Our training sessions are a total experience – from the time the players & parents walk in the front door and are greeted every time to a field where every detail has been carefully though out from the session planning, session detail & goals, to a specific boot room (locker room) for the players, to the parent room where parents can watch their child and get to know other parents, to the coach to player ratio on the field, to the music, to the graffiti street art wall, tot he coaches we carefully select to work with our players.

We also put this much thought into our camp program too. Our camp counselors are like no other – they bring tons of energy, fun games to play and play with the campers, they greet our campers & parents when they walk in the door and when they arrive at pick up time, they eat snack & lunch with the campers and get to know them. Our campers & their parents always talk about how much fun our camp is, that it’s their favorite place to come for track out or for summer and they return over and over. They also bring their friends with them -what’s more fun than spending a day or week at camp with your friends (and making new friends)!

As we tell the kids, every detail matters and every detail matters with all of the staff at Edge. Nothing goes with out great thought & consideration with children in mind every time. We hope you get to enjoy the EDGE experience with our camp or soccer programs. We have modernized the approach to soccer and camp! We are excited about every day here at Edge and everything we do!

Our website is www.edgesoccerprograms.com and our office number is 984-439-0999. If you prefer to send an email, please direct it to [email protected]

We are conveniently located in the Brier Creek area so we’re close to every city in the triangle area (Raleigh, Morrisville, Cary, Apex, Durham, Wake Forest, Chapel Hill, etc) and very easy to get to. We’re near the RDU airport and access from highways 540, 70, 40, and 440.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The biggest time we had pivot was during COVID. Like a lot of businesses, we were completely shut down for weeks so that meant the kids couldn’t come to us for training, so we decided to take the training to them and put our sessions online so they kids could continue getting their weekly training sessions, work on their skills, stay fit, see & interact with the coaches. Then when the Governor allowed businesses to open up moderately, we pivoted again and opened our doors to small group training sessions. This allowed the kids to come in, but keep the groups small to prevent the spread of COVID. Then when the Governor allowed businesses to open completely, we pivoted once again and opened back fully to the training sessions the kids & parents had come to expect before COVID. We also were able to provide summer & track out camp. The parents were so appreciative and thankful for us being there for the kids and offering programs as we were able to and having a safe space for them to come and train or spend a day of camp, get to be with their friends, and have fun.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We keep in touch with our clients through phone calls – we answer the phone every time it rings in the office. There are many businesses in our industry that don’t answer the phone or don’t return phone calls. We also respond to emails the same day they arrive (usually within 2-3 hours at the most). The customer service we provide is outstanding.

We also send emails to our parent base frequently and ask for their input on things. We engage with our parents, talk with them, hang out with them, etc.

We also use social media heavily as well to post what’s going on at Edge, upcoming events, or just pics about awesome things that happened in soccer training, or camp.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.edgesoccerprograms.com
• Instagram: the_edge_raleigh
• Facebook: The Edge Soccer Programs-Brier Creek
• Other: Address: 201 Kitty Hawk Drive Suite 107 Morrisville, NC 27560