Pacific FC’s identity of being for the people of Vancouver Island, by the people of Vancouver Island, was further underlined recently when the club hired Trevor Stiles to be its new goalkeeping coach.

Stiles, who was born in Vancouver before moving to California as a child before returning to Victoria a few years later, calls the Island capital home. He grew up playing on provincial teams with club founders Josh Simpson and Rob Friend, and has known head coach James Merriman as well since they were all teenagers.

It’s that familiarity and trust in one another that has helped Stiles transition seamlessly into his new job.

“The first year I kind of helped assist (then-Pacific FC goalkeeper coach) Marius [Røvde], and now five years later I’m back here at the helm,” Stiles said with a smile in an interview with CanPL.ca. “Selfishly it’s really fun, it’s exciting and light. When Jamie spoke to me and we tried last year to make it work we couldn’t, this year I was able to talk with my wife and say, ‘Hey, selfishly I really want this job’.

“It’s nice to have people who are from the Island representing the Island who understand what the Island’s about, understand that Island is a bit of a different place to be, and kind of bringing those core values of what we have over here with the football club. You need to trust your staff and you’ll have James’ back for everything, right? That’s a big part of it, it’s really cool and it makes me integrate into the team really easily — right from day one, walked in, boom, boom, boom. It’s like I’ve always been here.”

Stiles has spent the last decade-plus developing the next generation of goalkeepers, after his playing career was twice cut short due to long-term injuries.

After winning a U SPORTS national title with the University of Victoria Vikes in 2004, Stiles played for the Los Angeles Galaxy’s reserve team, Miami FC of the USL Championship, and Ventura County Fusion in the PDL, as well as a brief stint overseas with Sydney FC of Australia’s A-League.

In 2010 he signed with his hometown Victoria Highlanders in the PDL. During a game against Portland Timbers U-23 for the Highlanders in 2010, Stiles dived for the ball and was kicked in the head. He was sent off after getting back to his feet, which in the end was a blessing in disguise.

When he was kicked he suffered a serious concussion that would eventually bring an end to his professional playing career. If he had received one more blow to the head that day, he might not have lived to tell the tale.

“Learning later on if I would have stayed in the game and got hit in the head again, it could have been quite a catastrophe and life-altering or ending experience, it was really tough to try to figure that out and how to come back from that,” Stiles said. “When I tried to come back the next year to USL I had a few good days of training, [and] a few bad days. I remember sitting there talking to (Highlanders head coach) Ian Bridge, [and saying] ‘Bridgy, I can’t play today, like I’m in a fog’.”

Stiles’ time with the Highlanders was over, but it wasn’t the end of his career on the pitch. Due to the severity of the concussion, Stiles was eligible to compete as a Para athlete, rated Cerebral Palsy 8. An opportunity came up to play for the Canadian Para soccer national team, led by B.C. Soccer Hall of Famer and former Canada international Drew Ferguson.

He became a key player for the Para national team, scoring 29 goals in 25 international matches between 2011 and 2015. He featured as both a goalkeeper and a striker over the four years, and in 2015 was named the Canadian Para Soccer Player of the Year after several standout performances at the CP-ISRA World Championship.

“At first it was a bit shocking, it was a bit like, ‘Okay, right, do I qualify for this? Am I part of this? What’s going on?’, but when I look back at it now, it’s with just complete fondness and a wonderful experience,” Stiles said. “It was one of those second doors that opened for you that you might never think of, and it was life-changing. That exposed me to a different side of football, a different side of life. People are dealing with different diversity issues and difficulties, and it just was a really eye-opening experience and it really gave me a kind of second chance on it.

“I’m really glad that that opportunity was there because it helped me process what happened to me, it helped me deal with the grieving of not being able to play first team ball again, and it just gave me a different experience on life that otherwise I wouldn’t have. It took some time to accept it, but now I look back and go, ‘I’m incredibly happy with where I am, I wouldn’t change a thing’.”

One of those opportunities included playing for Canada at the 2015 Parapan American Games on Canadian soil, in Toronto in 2015.

“It was great, I mean, I ended up blowing my knee at the Parapan Ams, but it was cool,” Stiles said with a chuckle, referencing the anterior and medial cruciate ligament tears that would bring his playing days to an end for the second and final time.

That playing career had some tough moments, to put it lightly, ones that led to doubt about his future and what that entailed, but it also had some highs, and opportunities he never knew he’d have. The opportunity to wear the maple leaf, he added, was something he doesn’t take for granted.

“I think a big part of it was getting to represent Canada, getting to put on that badge, getting to put on that jersey, what it meant for those players and for myself in the moment,” Stiles recalled. “We were over at St. George’s Park outside Manchester, which is the England national training centre — I never would have gone there to that place if it wasn’t with the Para team. Playing [in the] World Championship with them, playing some really good players at that level, and just being able to also [do the] same things I’m doing here and use my experience and my level of play to help push other players there to build it up.

“When (current Para national team captain) Sammy Charron came on he was a 15-year-old, scrawny little guy, and then ended up being a four-year university athlete at [St. Francis Xavier University], and probably the best Para player in the world right now. I watched him from a young teenager become a man and just being a part of that process, that was really cool, and that was a big part for me.”

Experiences like these are priceless, and have only helped his coaching career in the years since. Stiles is the founder of Victoria-based goalkeeper academy Keeper Culture, and for years has spent time developing goalkeepers on Vancouver Island. Now he gets to continue to do so at the professional level, something that he has been wanting to do for a long time.

He says that since no two goalkeepers have the exact same frame or same skillset, it takes an experienced coach to pick out what works for each of them.

This year, Stiles will be working primarily with returning starter Emil Gazdov and newcomer Sean Melvin, who joined his hometown club this offseason after two years with Atlético Ottawa. Both are capable of being the starter for Pacific FC this season, and have come into preseason in a healthy competition for the job.

Having two goalkeepers of that calibre is a luxury in the CPL, and makes Stiles’ job easier in some ways.

“For me, when I heard Sean was going to come back and we’ll have Emil with us this year too, it’s nice,” he said. “A lot of CPL teams have a really distinctive starter and then a backup. We went with a different approach this year, we went with what I’ll call a 1A and a 1B, we have both goalkeepers that can be starters, or at certain places you have one who’s playing league and one who’s playing all the cup games.

“It really pushes both keepers. Emil is coming in as a starter last year, but he knows now with Sean here that he’s got to be at the top of his game, he’s got to push the top of his game, because otherwise Sean can step in and take those reins. I think the best thing for me with them is that they’ve developed a great bond already. Realizing there’s only one spot, at the end of the day the person is going to have the best chance of playing the best and supporting our run to the championship is going to be who’s playing, and having those two top keepers I feel really pushed each other.”

Gazdov in particular piques Stiles’ interest.

A fellow British Columbia native, Gazdov spent time on loan overseas in Germany before returning to Pacific FC, and in 2023 was the starter for the majority of the club’s games aged just 19. While clearly very talented, his inexperience also showed at times, so having a ten-year veteran like Sean Melvin come in will help him both on and off the field.

Stiles, acknowledging that the CPL is a developmental league, believes that Gazdov, now 20, has incredibly high potential and can make a move to bigger and better things in the not-so-distant future.

“I’ve known him for a couple years now,” Stiles said. “Seeing him now day in, day out and seeing him training, [I told him his] ceiling is even higher than I thought it was. Watching him day in, day out, watching how explosive he is, watching how detailed he is for a young man, and also just eager to learn his craft, that brings excitement.”

Stiles describes his coaching style as “loud”, “fun”, and “passionate”.

Communication, just like it is for any good goalkeeper on the pitch, is vital to him off the pitch. Intensity can rub some people the wrong way sometimes, but if done properly it can foster a winning culture that Stiles hopes will bring silverware to his hometown in 2024.

“I was trying to explain to the boys that it’s hard to balance intensity with being really positive, and it’s taken a long time for me to learn that, but I come across as described as an infectious person. If something goes wrong, we’re gonna talk about it, we’re gonna get into it, maybe even a little ripping here to get you going, and that’s what I try to build.”

That’s something that he, Merriman, and the rest of the Pacific FC coaching staff want to instill throughout their squad.

“There’s some new guys in, but it’s nice for everyone I feel because we’re really trying to work on that culture of the team,” Stiles said. “One of the things when James spoke to me about this year was he wanted to get back to just a really good vibe, a really good culture, a really good changing room.

“Like anything else, this is work, this is a job and not everyone loves their coworkers. That’s unfortunate life doesn’t go that way, but right now the vibe is great that people are getting together, everything’s happening. It’s been really good, and I think the biggest thing we’ve noticed is everyone’s vibe together shows on the field, our training sessions have been really good.”

Most of all, Stiles is excited to make new connections, and add new memories that will last a lifetime. Bringing the championship back to the Island is top of his list of goals for 2024.

“One of my favourite things of being back [with Pacific] is being back with the boys, the banter, the talk, the locker room,” he said. “I think those are some of the best experiences and getting to relive that, getting to bring that here hopefully, bring those experiences with me, and using that the best I can with the boys here.”