Blair Gerlach on building club culture and success with Northern Steel
On the newest episode of this podcast, Pittsburgh Soccer Now's John Krysinsky is joined by Blair Gerlach, who many in soccer circles in Western PA will know from his successful and ongoing tenure as Head Coach of Mars girls' soccer program.
What you may not know, is that Gerlach is also Director of Coaching and coaches a number of teams for Northern Steel, which has become an excellent club-based North of Pittsburgh. In addition, Northern Steel began a women's U23 squad under Gerlach’s leadership. Since that time, in the Ohio Valley Premier League, Northern Steel has become a dynasty, winning back-to-back OVPL titles in 2024 and 2025.
In this interview, Gerlach talks about the journey of building a club culture at Northern Steel, the challenges of the ever-changing landscape of youth soccer, the tremendous growth of girls/women's soccer, progression and path of US Club Soccer National Championship winning squad (2011 Blue) and he also takes a few moments at the end of the interview to talk about Mars girls program and challenges of playing in one of the most competitive Classifications in all of high school soccer in Western PA (Girls 3A).
