Get to Know: Logan Erb

Logan Erb is a part of NC State’s renaissance in men's soccer. The program, which had not been to the Sweet Sixteen in 30 years before last seaspn’s tournament run, seeks its first Elite Appearance since 1992 on Sunday with a postseason matchup against UNCG.

The senior goalkeeper from Houston, who began his college career at San Diego State, recently sat down with Inside Pack Sports to talk about his soccer life, his goals at NC State and beyond, along with his gratitude to Wolfpack Nation.

When did soccer become a thing in your life?

I grew up primarily in Houston, Texas. Soccer became a thing for me with my older brother. I have an older half-brother with whom I grew up about half my life. He played soccer growing up, and especially in high school. I kind of just took after him, and I remember there'd be times when he would threaten not to play with me anymore if I didn't try to learn actual techniques and stuff.

I guess just that part kept me coming back and wanting to learn more. As far as growing up in Texas, I feel like it's kind of like what people think of Texas. It's rough, tumble, hot weather, just a lot of raw talent and a lot of development pieces. I think there's so much talent in Houston, and especially Texas as a whole, that can get skipped over at times, and honestly, what a hub for soccer it is, and what it's becoming.

Was the Houston Dynamo around when you were a kid, or did they come later?

They were around when I was a kid. I joined their academy when I was 14. Their academy goalkeeper coach at the time brought me over after scouting me out of what used to be the Texans, which eventually I think got bought out by Rise.

I played with almost like a rec team. It was called Texans East. I got scouted to their academy team. I joined the Texans for two years, and then from there, right as I turned 14, I got invited to come to a training session with Dynamo's Academy, and then later joined their team.

Was goalkeeping a thing initially, or did you play the outfield? 

No, I was a striker up until I was 10, and then I got thrown in goal once. I liked having all the gloves. I thought it was fun and became good at it, especially since my height has helped me a lot in developing it.

When did you think you could potentially take soccer to another level, such as college?

I would say my second year in Dynamo's Academy, so I was 15. We were playing in cups and the regular season. So in my U14 year, we won the conference outright. We didn't lose a game, and I was performing really well. I would get called up to the older team, and then I got called up to the U17s when I was 15, and I performed really well. I was like, okay, this is where I need to be.

Just from there on, I would always just keep playing up and up. When I was 15, about to turn 16, so I think a month before I turned 16, I got called up to this camp that Dynamo's first team used to run called the Pro Camp, where they would bring in all the top goalkeepers across the country. So George Marks was there, who's at Philly now. They brought in all the top goalkeepers and did like a week-long camp to kind of scout the talent. I got invited to that, and I performed really well. Then, a month later got called into the first-team preseason and was like, ‘Okay, like we got something going here.’

Explain how the soccer academies work. When did college become the best decision for you?

I got called into the first team at 16 and was there pretty much a part of every year until I was 18.

In full honesty, going to college was never the goal. If we're being fully honest here, I was upset about having to go to college. That's how much I strived for more and more.

Looking back on it now, it was probably the greatest decision for me to develop as a human. It's been unbelievable. It's like a shoot for the stars and for the moon kind of thing, where maybe you didn't sign an MLS contract at 18, but you landed in a D1 program and did the most you could there. You then transfer, and you sit here. 

I started my recruitment very late in college. I was 18, and college preseason started in August. I committed in April.

I went on two visits, to San Diego State and to Pitt in March, and had my commitment by April. It was all very last-minute because preseason with the Dynamo, I was banking on hopefully getting a homegrown contract. It didn't work out. I wasn't very diligent.

I wasn't very proactive in my college recruitment. I really put it off, and do I regret it? No, because it worked out, but it was really silly the way I went about it. I'm just glad everything didn't shake itself out.

It sounds like you sort of blundered your way into the place that you needed to be.

Yeah, schools didn't have the money for me. I'm not a guy who can just pay his way through college. My parents do very well, but also do not fund everything to go to the top universities. That cost a lot, so I landed at San Diego State, which took me in with open arms, and I am very grateful for what they've done for me. What a blessing they were.

Describe your time at San Diego State.

It was good. It was a big learning experience, especially my fall semester. I had a lot of outside things going on in my life that made it really hard to be me. Those guys took me in like family and really showed me the ropes.

I was the backup to Jacob Castro, who is now at the Sounders, and took a lot off of him and would go in every day and try to compete as much as I could with him to fight for a starting spot. I blew my redshirt year for one game. To me, I was more than happy to do that, to make a statement for myself and to prove that, you know, all I need is one chance.

Then, in the fall, I got subbed in the first game against Denver, away after the keeper went down, kept a clean sheet, and then ended up becoming the last keeper in the last team in the country to concede a goal. I was, was cooking with fire there.

And that would not be the last time that you took a goalless streak further than anyone in the nation. You did the same thing this season with the Pack.

Exactly.

Was it a culture shock to go from Houston to San Diego?

Culture shock is a great way to put it. A lot more traffic. Houston traffic is terrible, but California traffic is a very interesting dog to deal with. Everything's busy. Everything's expensive. Even the way that people act, I'm used to Southern hospitality. There, it's a little different. People are nice, but they do things at their own time and in their own way, which is to be expected on the West Coast. It's like a big adjustment for that, and I felt like an alien probably for the first two, three months of trying to adjust to it.

Why did you decide to transfer?

Our coach had called us in after our last game, I wanna say against UCLA. He was like, ‘Hey, I wanna let you guys know that the PAC-12 is disbanding. I'm sure you guys saw it because we were seeing it in the news, the football PAC-12 is disbanding.’

So we didn't know where that was gonna sit with us. Then the next thing we know, Stanford and Cal are going to the ACC, Oregon State's going to the WCC, UCLA's going Big 10, and we're like, where are we gonna sit here?

He was like, We don't know. I was like, I'll stick around, so we'll see what we have. This was back at the end of the fall. We get to the spring, and then we finally get the answer. We ended up joining the WAC.

I was more than happy with staying, but there was a, I wouldn't say a dispute, but you have to earn your spot wherever you go. Our coach at the time was saying we're rebuilding the full team and there will be no guarantees. What you did in the fall is gonna not going to have weight with the team that we build coming up, so it's up to you. I was like, nah. It's fair. I respect that, having the year that I had and coming off of some of the accolades I had, maybe I'll try a different challenge here.

Who contacted you in the portal?

I got contacted by SMU, Pitt, Washington, and most of the Ivy League schools. Virginia Tech, small talks with some schools here and there, and Wisconsin a little bit. High Point was really adamant about me.

When did you thin it down and make your decision?

I remember the final five in no order were Pitt, NC State, obviously SMU, Washington, and there was a Big 10 school. We'll throw in Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was one of them. I wanted to go to the ACC. It was my number one thing. I wanted to be in the ACC. And if it wasn't gonna be ACC, then the Big Ten. 

Why the ACC?

Talking with my old goalkeeper coach, who's now the pro goalkeeper coach for San Diego FC, I was texting with him a lot, and I was like, Hey, like what do you think is the best path for me here?

He said, ‘Hey, I wanna be honest. It is the ACC. That's the real competition. That's where you set yourself apart and really make a name for yourself. You did well in the Pac-12, but you also had four teams to play against in that conference. You play everyone twice, versus you play eight different people home and away.

What led NC State to be the one?

There was something in the way Hubs talked about this team that I felt really good about. NC State wasn't established as a soccer school, and it wasn't like this glorified team, but he told me what it was, and he said it's gonna be a rebuild. It's gonna be our first year here. We need a keeper, and then he told me about the team. He told me a dream, and I love being on rebuilds. I love getting programs where they need to be. It's what kind of San Diego State was like; it wasn't a soccer school, and we kept building and building. We did really well that season. I was more than happy to do it again for two years.

What are your thoughts on Raleigh?

Honestly, it is a lot like home. Being near the South, I know I'm not a cold-weather person. I've never been. Coming up here, you're seeing a lot of the same things as in Texas. A lot of the same feel and the same hospitality.

Honestly, I feel like I do a lot better in a small town than I do when I feel like a little ant in a giant place. I just feel like I came in here and everyone's treated me really well. I felt important, and, yes, it's home. This is family to me.

What is your major?

Communications

Do you plan on becoming a soccer pundit?

I did it for me. It was more of a personal benefit than me doing it for a job.

I thought about MLS goalkeeper coaching. In our off-season, you get about two months off, and I have a big background in working on cars. I may end up wanting to run a business. I thought about being a drone mechanic because all my boys back home are very big drone pilots, very crafty, very handy. They talked about how drone mechanics can charge whatever they want, and I thought, That sounds like a fun, untapped business. That can't be any harder than working on cars.

Take me through the joys of last season’s Sweet Sixteen experience.

We do decently well in the ACC. We did well enough, not as well as we wanted to, but we got by with what we were trying to do. We play a UVA game that doesn't go how we intended to, you sit for a week and a half, two weeks, and you're hoping and praying that your season isn't over, that you did enough in the season to get that tournament chance, and something a lot of us haven't experienced.

Hubs and the guys you brought in from UNH, of course, but like me, this is unheard of, and so you hear your name get called, and you pull Charlotte. You think this is great. Let's see what we can do, get to Charlotte. You win in overtime, and it was a gritty game. It was a battle, but you know, it was fun.

What's next? You hear that you pull top-eight Georgetown, and you think, I guess this is really what's gonna make or break this team here. We got there, we went up two-zero.

I think that's when everyone started shifting from maybe Charlotte was a one-off to, we have something here that's really special.

I will take it to my grave, the full responsibility for what happened at Marshall. I know I should have been a lot better. The fact that the team could strive for that, then Hubs brings in all these new personnel, and we just make the team even stronger. It gets us really excited, especially for this year. 

A couple of players I spoke with said that, based on the Marshall game, they felt like NC State could play with anyone. Do you agree?

A hundred percent.

Tell me about Marc Hubbard.

Mark Hubbard is a big character. A great character.

He is just like every head coach that has these quirks about him, that just makes him extremely unique. Hubs and I have really formed this unbelievable bond where, especially this year, we just really go hand in hand with our decisions and how we feel about things.

I got lucky enough to be put on the leadership group for this team, and I get to bounce ideas off of him. He truly listens to us.  

He lets it be a player-led team instead of just being the coach. He makes the decisions, literally from the design of the locker room to the style of play. He is like, ‘What do you guys feel about when we're in this situation?’ We tell him, and he listens. When things work out, we adjust accordingly. He's a guy who genuinely wants to make pros, and he wants to make great people. It's all you can ask for in a head coach.

Am I wrong to think the defensive front you work with is as good as it gets?

No. We're working with a back four of pros, straight up pros. 

Riley is an unbelievable player, especially coming in as a freshman, you know, the discipline he has and his ability, Nico's leadership, and Nico's ability on the ball and off the ball in defense, he works ridiculously.

I'd say the same for Hef. I love Isaac to death, and what a hard worker he is. A guy who will never truly get beaten.

And then you have my roommate, Cal. One of my best friends on the team. A guy who doesn't even know how good he is and what a big part he's been in this program. 

I tell these guys every day because they're my back four. I love these guys to death, best friends with all of them. These guys don't understand how unbelievable they are. The work they do for me is ridiculous. It's all you can ask for.

Can this team go all the way?

Long-term doesn't come unless we handle the short-term.

Is there anything you'd want to say directly to the NC State fans?

First and foremost, I'd want to thank them for taking me in, for taking the chance on me, and for really backing a program that, to be honest, they really had no reason to back to begin with. Obviously, results come, and that's what draws in people, but what happens when you start taking the little dips like we've had this season? What happens when we lose that game against UVA, because we play 10 men? It's so easy for everyone to disperse and call it a one-off or say like, ‘Oh, like now the team's going back to what it was.’ 

The fact that people stick around, they still show up, and we still have near sellout games. That really is a testament to the loyalty that this place has. You can't teach loyalty. I feel like you're genuinely born with it, and it's the people you surround yourself with. These are the people I want to surround myself with.

We appreciate it. It's about our time to this school, or not even the school, but this program started giving back to the community and really giving them the show that they've been needing for years. This school used to be great at soccer, and it's about time we bring it back.