Rivier men's soccer coach Jon Cross celebrates a goal during the Raiders' recent win over Plymouth State. (Courtesy photo by Kyle Prudhomme/Rivier Athletics)

NASHUA – It was during the season last fall when Saint Joseph’s of Maine head coach Will Pike was talking to his top assistant, Jon Cross as they were leaving Rivier University’s Joanne Merrill Field after beating the Raiders.

Cross, 37, a former UMass-Boston and Southern Maine standout, had been actively making the rounds to try to get a head coaching job for the 2024 season, and Pike asked the Pembroke, Mass. native about where he might like to wind up if it were to be a school in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference.

“He was talking and he said, ‘Hey Jon, if you’re not with us next year, I think you’ll get picked up,'” Cross said. “He’s like, ‘If there was a place in the GNAC, where would you coach next year?’ And I was like ‘Riv’.”

A few months later, Cross got his wish. The Raiders job opened up in November when longtime coach and local soccer name Hayden Barbosa stepped down.

That day, Cross was looking at a great facility and potential.

“Right outside that stadium, it was a good location, the academics were good, the field’s brand new,” Cross said, describing his thinking. “The talent’s good, they’re just not performing well, and I think I could win here. … And the job opened just two months later.”

And thus the Cross Era has begun, and it has started pretty well as the Raiders started the season unbeaten in their first four games, a program best. Obviously, there’s a ton of soccer left to be played, and the Raiders are currently 2-2-3.

When Cross was hired, he said he found “the quality of players up close was a lot higher than I expected due to their record,” he said. “The guys were very talented, they were looking for something new – that wasn’t a shot at Hayden or anything like that, they were looking to shake things up.

“As you can see now this year, a lot of the guys who are starting are actually guys who were on the team last year.”

Yes, it wasn’t as if Cross had to start from basically scratch, but the Raiders have struggled in the sport over the years, despite Barbosa’s hard work and that of Bill Lawler before him.

When Cross first took over last winter, he wanted to understand the program’s past as well as the players who were still on campus. He felt Barbosa was “doing a lot of things right, and I didn’t want to shake up things that were going well.”

But as always, a new coach will put his stamp on things. “I just implemented stuff on top of things, and got to know the players on a personal level,” Cross said. “Last year was just to get to know them on a one-on-one level, know that I care about them as individuals and start to build the team culture around that, and expectations at the same time.”

Cross was at Saint Joseph’s for the better part of the last six years. He was on staff from 2017-20, and then again the last two seasons in which he was the head recruiter and also acted as a liaison between the international student-athlete community and the school.

He did leave for two seasons for a position as the associate head coach at the University of Southern Maine (2020-2022), and was part of that program’s first winning season since 2008 after going winless the previous year.

CHANGING RIV’S SOCCER PAST

The face of college soccer – college sports in general – has changed over the years. What in Cross’ mind has hurt Rivier men’s soccer over the years?

He feels it hasn’t been taken seriously on a local level.

“I think what I’ve gathered for a while is that Riv soccer isn’t a place they wanted to go, and was kind of a place where soccer wasn’t taken seriously,” he said. “Now I don’t think that was ever the case, but they had to shake that image.”

So Cross has spent a lot of time with local soccer community bonding, with the help of his players, to change that image, “and for them to know how bought in I am to change it. And fortunately for me, they’ve had a lot of upgrades (at Riv), that a lot of the other coaches haven’t had the opportunity to (take advantage of). They just finished the field, and a new science building.

“So for me, we’re more of a landing spot for guys from all around the country, we’re talking guys in California, and all around the world. There’s the physical component of it, the campus looks beautiful now.”

But Cross is realistic about today’s recruiting.

“Kids want to play in nice facilities, but really what most players are looking for is they want to know how serious you take it,” he said. “For me, they really know I dedicate my entire life to it, trying to get better and understand the game better, plus trying to evolve.

“Someone once told me that at Division III, they rarely go to play for the school, they go to play for you.

“So I took that to heart, where I better be at the top of my game, recruit like crazy, and on top of all that pick the right kids.”

Saint Joes’s has been successful because their talent has been mainly from Maine, and they get that state’s top talent. At Rivier, he feels, being part of the overall Boston area, there’s more competition for talent in the region.

So Cross’ mission is to find the right fit, no matter what level they’ve played at.

“If you’re good enough, you’re good enough; if I found you at the park playing pickup or in an MLS Next event,” he said. “For me, it’s what I see with my eyes, and if I like you, I take you.”

A LIFE OF COACHING AND RECOVERY

That was certainly the approach the Raiders took in hiring Cross, who has seen and done a lot in his 32 years, filled with many twists and turns.

His other passion in life has been working in drug and alcohol recovery – of which he has undergone himself – and he is a Certified Drug and Alcohol Counselor and also founded his own venture called Cross Wellness.

It’s that work that he feels will resonate with his players in terms of being authentic.

“I’ve worked in drug and alcohol treatment, worked with young kids, and thinking about the whole person,” he said. “I try to make it apparent and as authentic as possible that they are better people and good people in the community. What I try to do as a coach and demand the best out of them but after a game be friendly and more of a players coach.”

He ran a lot of group homes, sober homes, and there’s always a set of rules and repercussions “if you don’t follow the rules and rise to the occasion. At the same time, if people don’t, I won’t play them – I won’t have them on my team.”

But Cross learned a lot about life in his social work.

“People are complicated, man,” he said. “People are complicated, people can reach higher heights than they initially will talk to you (about) in the first conversation you have.

“And I’ve learned people are resilient. I think nowadays we have a hard time thinking kids are resilient, and I think we kind of reinforce that sometime. I’ve learned that through treatment and working with young kids that if you push them a little bit – not too hard to the point of being unhealthy – they tend to rise to the occasion and get better because of it.”

No one knows that better than Cross, who has been in addiction recovery for 10 years, and he is always “up front with it.”

“I’m an advocate for it,” he said. “I’m an advocate for helping people.. (Soccer) has probably been more of an emphasis, it’s (treatment, counseling) not my day-to-day work anymore. So it’s probably more of my personal life and kind of how I operate, helping out my community in different ways than it be my fulltime job.

“You can be a noble person who has a really cool job but still be in recovery.”

When playing at the University of Southern Maine, Cross was the first player in NCAA history to get eligibility back due to drug addiction, that happening in 2015.

That has to add with the respect factor with his players; he’s told his story to his players last year and will tell some of the newcomers (his recruits) soon.

“I kind of talk about the lessons I’ve learned in my own life,” he said, “and how precious these moments are, for me and prioritizing the game. … I bring up (his past) when needed.”

Of course, soccer is in the Cross family; his brother had played for Boston University and his sister, Nicole, was an All-American and played professionally for the National Women’s Soccer League. Coaching hadn’t been the plan. But it was while he was at an indoor game in Gorham, Me., several years ago when someone jogged by him and said “You’re Jon Cross, I’ve been trying to reach out to you. No one loves playing soccer more than you, how would you like to coach college soccer for the rest of your life?”

And that was Adrian DuBois, the coach at Saint Joseph’s and a former University of New Hampshire standout. Cross was convinced, joined his staff, quit his job at the time and a coach was born. DuBois turned Saint Joseph’s into a power and is now at San Diego State as an assistant and the two remain close.

He had more of a feeling when he started coaching that he almost wanted to be a player. But then things shifted, when he realized “It was more about the guys than myself. That was a good shift for me to have.”

Rivier men’s soccer coach Jon Cross, second from right, shares a light moment with his staff and Rivier athletic director Jonathan Harper after a recent win. (Courtesy photo by Kyle Prudhomme/Rivier Athletics)

Rivier men’s soccer coach Jon Cross, second from right, shares a light moment with his staff and Rivier athletic director Jonathan Harper after a recent win. (Courtesy photo by Kyle Prudhomme/Rivier Athletics)

ROSTER BUILDING

Cross had finished the Saint Joe’s recruiting class days before he was hired at Rivier, and the recruiting period was fairly far along. Before he had even completed all his HR paperwork he jumped on a plane to Toronto to grab two recruits, then searched locally and also grabbed some players off the transfer portal. He hit up some connections, and found some players but also passed on others “due to culture reasons, attitude problems.” He ended up bringing in 10 new players.

He feels the hard work and preparation has gotten the Raiders some early wins, and 10 days ago they played Saint Joseph’s of Connecticut to a 0-0 draw at Merrill Field – the first non-loss against the Blue Jays the program has had.

The Raiders were picked for 10th in the GNAC, but Cross had the Raiders in 14th to plant the seed of motivation.

“I tell the guys even though we’re off to a good start, you have to earn every game,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what we started, or where people ranked us in the preseason,” he said. “I like that underdog mentality of people have been looking over you for quite a while, and people aren’t going to give you anything until you earn the way and earn the results.”

What kind of coach is Cross? He demands a lot, but he’s passionate about it. That has to rub off.

“It’s the best job in the world,” Cross said. “I feel I haven’t worked since the day I took the job, so it’s been pretty crazy.”