Hello! My name is Jordan (Daloisio) Johnson and I am the founder of On the Ball Training PGH! I have over a decade of experience coaching soccer players of all ages, from toddlers to collegiate and amateur athletes. The majority of my time as a team coach has been spent working with middle school and high school aged girls in a competitive club setting.

My playing career included four years of collegiate soccer at Clarion University, a stint in the Scottish Women’s Premier League for the Hamilton Academicals F.C., and several seasons in the WPSL with Steel City FC.

In addition to my on-the-field experience, I have also earned the following credentials over the years:

• MSc. in Sports Coaching from the University of the West of Scotland

• United States Soccer Federation C-License

• NASM Speed, Agility and Quickness Training Certification

• NASM Corrective Exercise Specialist Certification

I started OBT because during my time as a team coach I felt that there were not enough hours in the day to focus on each player’s athletic development in a holistic way. The fitness side of soccer has always been important to me, but after my playing career was cut short due to injuries that I believe were preventable had I been able to access knowledge about how a woman’s body should train and move, I feel an obligation to help the next generation of girls prepare their bodies for the demands of the game.

Right now, female athletes are 6x more likely than male athletes to suffer an ACL tear. We cannot accept this statistic as normal. Women and girls need training that is designed for the way their body functions, for the way their body plays the game. Research focused specifically on training female athletes (vs. applying research performed on male athletes to the women’s game) is finally starting to garner more attention and funding. OBT is committed to keeping up with these emerging trends in the female game so that we can provide our athletes with every possible physical advantage in order to minimize their risk of injury while improving their performance.

Our sessions accomplish this while at the same time helping players improve their technical savviness, soccer IQ, field vision and awareness, creativity and mental toughness.

Anyone can instruct a player to pass a ball off of a wall a certain number of times, or take them through a workout similar to what you can find for free on YouTube.  OBT is different from other private training options because our objective is to guide girls and young women towards taking ownership of their development by teaching them how to train, how to identify work-on areas, how to take care of their bodies, and how to set realistic goals in order to become more well-rounded athletes and people.

The truth about training is that you don’t need to be with a coach every single day in order to become a great player. The best athletes in the world know how to push themselves, even when no one else is around to see it. They have a game plan and they train deliberately. They don’t only work on the things they like, or the things they’re already good at. They watch the best players in the world and try to emulate what they do. They are focused on finding small ways to improve every aspect of their game– from mental toughness and coachability; to physical fitness, technical prowess and creativity; to becoming a more confident, impactful leader for their team and their community.

I believe that a good coach can help athletes with all of these things, but they can’t do it for them. This is where the concept of owning your training comes into play. We regularly touch base with our players to help them learn the skills they need in order to have autonomy over their soccer careers and over their lives. Coaches, teammates, and parents are all necessary components in the web of support that athletes need in order to succeed; but, at the end of the day, the athlete is the only one who can put in the work that is necessary to become a master of their craft.