Coach Mark Darce

  I grew up in Louisiana in the 80s/90s, which was not known as a soccer hotbed. But soccer has always been in my blood. I began playing club soccer at age 10 and didn’t begin playing goalkeeper until I was 14. Goalkeeping was really my first love. I played high school soccer at St. Louis Catholic High School in Lake Charles, LA and graduated there in 1992.  I was named team MVP my senior year and All-District my junior and senior years. 

In 1993, I attended McNeese State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing & Management in 1998. During my time at McNeese, I continued training goalkeepers at my former high school. In 1996, when McNeese established an NCAA women's team, I was also asked to assist with their goalkeeper training, all while attending classes, working, and training at St. Louis Catholic. In the summer of 2000, I moved to DFW. 

  In 2013 I started helping a club that my son was playing for. In 2016 I was asked to be the goalkeeper instructor of a small club team out of Frisco called FC Frisco Storm. When FC Frisco Storm folded at the end of the 2019 season, I transitioned with one of our girls' teams to Solar, serving as an Assistant Coach and Goalkeeper Instructor for that team.

Between 2016 and 2023, my work encompassed several roles: I offered private lessons and trained youth players from numerous DFW club teams, maintained my duties with FC Frisco Storm/Solar, and collaborated with two FC Dallas coaches to support their teams' goalkeepers. At the conclusion of the 2023 season, my Solar team graduated, prompting me to take a much-needed break from coaching. By then, six of the players I'd coached over the years had committed to play in college, with an additional one earning 6A All-State honors in Texas.

Starting this new chapter with StrikerZ, I'm thrilled to guide these goalkeepers and their parents toward a comprehensive understanding of the position while also hoping to ignite the same love I found for it when I was 14 years old.