I was born and raised in Flensburg, Germany. Flensburg is the northest town in Germany with a harbor on the Baltic Sea and only five minutes away from the Danish border.

It was pretty apparent to my parents from the start that soccer would be a gigantic part of my life.
At the age of three I was waiting for my dad to come home from work, with a soccer ball ready to play. I could not read the clock, but knew in which way the hands had to be positioned for my dad to be back. Before he could pass the hallway, he had to play goalkeeper for a couple of minutes first, otherwise leaving a very cranky me behind.

I started playing competitive soccer at my home team, ETSV Weiche Flensburg, at the age of five. I was very fortunate to have a lot of friends around me that were very talented. Many friends of my friends from kindergarten also played on my team. There always have been plenty of requests from other, bigger teams in the area for some of our players to switch clubs, but we managed to stay together all the way up to the U18s and from there went on to play for the club’s adult team.

In our first season as adults we won the Bezirksliga (7th division) title undefeated with the youngest team in the league. After promotion, now playing in the Bezirksoberliga (6th division), we finished 4th in the first year and won the league the next year. We didn’t make it through the promotion playoffs though.

By then I had graduated from the highest German school system (Gymnasium) and started to study Business Informatics at the University of Applied Sciences in Flensburg.

My desire to play soccer at a higher level was growing and I decided to leave my home team after 16 years of playing for them. I moved on to another local team, TSB Flensburg, who then just won promotion to the Oberliga, Germany’s 4th division.

The switch was not an easy one. After 16 years of playing the attacking center midfield position surrounded by friends I knew since kindergarten, I was now in a much more competitive environment. The whole game was much faster.
Although I had to learn a new position as a left midfielder, I started every game in that season. We got relegated as last in the table after just one year, but the experience from this year has helped me tremendously in my career.

While playing there I also met my future college assistant coach from UNCP (University of North Carolina-Pembroke), who eventually brought me to the USA. I was not looking to go oversees. I was not even looking into leaving the country. I was horrible in English in High School! When I was able to choose in 12th grade, I picked Latin over English, mistakenly thinking I would probably do not need English in my later life.

But once confronted with this opportunity and the choice to either stay in Flensburg, finish the studies and start working or delaying all of the previous, go to a different continent, experience a different culture, broaden my horizons and play soccer in a professional environment, the decision was pretty easy to me.

Originally I had planned to come to UNCP as an exchange student for one semester and then return to finish my studies in Germany, but I enjoyed the fall season so much, that I decided to come back. I stayed enrolled at UNCP and officially transferred. However, I went back to Germany during the spring of 2004 to finish off the last classes for my German studies. At the same time I was enrolled as an online student at UNCP.

I came back to Pembroke in Fall 2004 and had a very successful season with the Braves.
We managed to go all the way to the Final Four tournament, something that a UNCP soccer team had never done before. I was also able to graduate from UNCP in the spring of 2005 with a Bachelor in Business Management.

Then again, like my decision to study at UNCP, a non-expected opportunity shaped my life. Of course I dreamed about becoming a professional soccer player. I had my heroes and I wished I could have played in the same stadiums that they did, but the idea of me getting enough money paid to cover my living expenses just by playing soccer, something I loved so much, always seemed unrealistic. I never seriously considered the idea of becoming a professional soccer player.

This changed when the Richmond Kickers of the then USL-1 drafted me and invited me to their annual tryout. The coaching staff was happy with my performance and they offered me a three year contract.

The USL playing time in summer would even allow me to write my thesis during the off-season and finally get my Diploma from my German university.

For two off-seasons (2005, 2006), I was traveling back to Germany to work on my thesis, while working as a Project Manager with Prologis AG, an airline consulting company, supporting clients in the migration of their booking system. I finally finished my thesis early 2007 and received my Diploma in Business Informatics.

Despite a great offer to become a full-time consultant for Prologis AG, I decided to return to Richmond and keep playing soccer. Now with my studies completed, I could finally concentrate 100 % on soccer.

While playing for the Kickers I started to coach for the Richmond Kicker Youth Club. I took over two youth teams in the first year, as well as working with the Super Y development pool and several other programs the Kickers offer.

Now entering my fifth season with the Kickers, I spend most of my days coaching. Currently, I’m the coach of three Richmond Kickers youth teams (U9 Boys, U11 Boys, U14 Girls) and involved with several other programs the Richmond Kickers offer.

For a couple of years now, I am also coaching several players individually, who want to concentrate on their technical skills, in small groups or on a one-on-one basis. The skill level of these players range from Recreation over Travel all the way to College.