Free time is a rare commodity when you’re a coach for a professional soccer team. So when an off-day does arrive, Seattle Sounders Director of Goalkeeping Tom Dutra makes the most of it.
Like his passion for goalkeeping, Dutra shares a deep bond with the outdoors. When he’s not coaching, he’s embracing the Northwest landscape, no matter the weather.
“I love skiing, climbing, fly fishing, and mountain biking,” said Dutra. “I'm outside as much as I can.”
It is a way for him to decompress after a long work week of coaching, and all the emotions that come with it.
“The job is stressful…. I hurt for the guys,” said Dutra. “I always want them to do so well, and when they don't have the performance they're looking for, it wears on me, because I want them to have it so bad.”
“It's been a way for me to really balance, for sure.”
Unwinding is necessary in a taxing job like Dutra’s, but slowing down is not in his repertoire. While goalkeepers like Stefan Frei find balance through art, Dutra takes a different approach, engaging in physically demanding activities outside of his job.
“I think Tommy can only do things 100%,” said goalkeeper Stefan Frei. “He's very dedicated to whatever he does.”
Whether it be summiting and skiing down Mount Rainier, Baker, Adams, St. Helens, Hood, or the sisters down in Bend, to spending days up and down the Cascades, Dutra has done it all in the PNW region.
He’s even expanded his adventures to Europe, but with the strenuous soccer schedule, Dutra typically settles for the spectacular terrain that sits right outside his backyard.
“I love the Northwest so much and I love everything it brings, and so I feel lucky already,” said Dutra. “I feel so fortunate just to be able to come in and do my job and get to do it again the next day, and if I have a day off, then I get to experience whatever the outdoors might give me on that day.”
The quick turnaround that is required as Director of Goalkeeping offers him little time to train for any difficult course he sets out for. But given that his job requires him to “be fit,” it alleviates any stressors in relation to lack of preparation.
“From hiking until the sun goes down and he doesn't know where he's at and exiling himself without any cell service, to literally, having an off day and deciding to climb up Mount Rainier, it takes people months and months of training and he just does it in one day,” said Frei.
Dutra added, “If I have a day off, I'm going to go do it, if the weather sets up right, and everything else, then I'm going to just go do it.”
His approach as Director of Goalkeeping for the club goes hand-in-hand with his mentality every time he gears up for an off-day in the mountains.
“Goalkeeping is so difficult anyhow, and a lot of times it's so grueling and grinding,” said Dutra. “And when you're spending 14, 15 hours a day in the mountains climbing and doing some of those things, you kind of have to suck it up.”
“So, [my job] has helped me from that [perspective] of just kind of like, ‘okay, let's get after it.’”
On the contrary, being in nature gives a different space for the long-time keeper coach to separate himself from his goalkeeping endeavors completely.
“It's been very, very important for me to get away from the game and kind of just think freely,” said Dutra. “It allows me to think freely without having to get on my phone or do something like that…It allows my brain to just go somewhere else.”
It is an indispensable routine for Dutra, and he recommends every one of his keepers do the same, whatever activity that might be.
“I've always told goalkeepers that I think it's important to get away from the game and have something else,” said Dutra. “The position is so mentally tiring that you're always thinking, ‘okay, what can I do better,’ especially after you give up a goal or a bad goal, so you have to be able to [separate] from it mentally.”
