PASC Announces Co-Director of Coaching Appointment

It is a great pleasure to announce the appointment of Rodrigo Baptista as Co-Director of Coaching for the Palo Alto Soccer Club where he will focus on strengthening the PASC Girls program. Please join the Board in congratulating Rodrigo in his new role. The PASC board unanimously concluded Rodrigo, together with Ian our existing co-DOC, will provide the ideal combination of talent, experience, local knowledge, and stability to guide the PASC board in the changing landscape of our local youth soccer.

As Co-Directors, Rodrigo and Ian will work together on defining and rolling out Club processes such as curriculums, coaching and player development, coaching and player evaluations and assist the PASC board in strategy. At the same time they will take the lead in the management and rollout of various PASC programs. Ian will continue to lead the Director of Coaching efforts across all of the boy teams while Rodrigo will lead the same across the girl teams. Together, Ian and Rodrigo will drive the efforts of other PASC programs.

As mentioned, Rodrigo provides an ideal combination of talent, experience, local knowledge, and stability as exemplified in his 10 years of coaching within PASC.

Rodrigo is an experienced and successful coach at the youth level. He has coached several girls and boys local players and clubs. Under his guidance, Rodrigo has led many of his youth players to top collegiate soccer programs. He currently coaches our Palo Alto 03G Blue team and also coaches U15 ECNL team at MVLA.

At the collegiate level, Rodrigo works as an assistant coach for the San Jose State Women’s Soccer Program. He serves primarily as the program’s assistant coach in addition to his scouting and recruiting duties.

At the professional level, Baptista worked as an assistant coach for FC Gold Pride in the Women’s Professional League (WPS) from 2009-2010, coaching the team’s to league national championship in 2010.
He is also very involved with the game of Futsal at both national and international levels. Baptista has participated in a number of U.S. National Futsal competitions, as well as several international competitions, such as FIFA Clubs Futsal World Cup and Intercontinental Futsal Cup.

Rodrigo holds a NSCAA Premier National Diploma and USSF National B License. A native of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil he played for the Brazilian home team Fluminense Football club and at the collegiate level he played for SJSU and Foothill College. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in Kinesiology, with an emphasis in Sport Management, from San José State.