Nine years ago this week, FC Cincinnati kicked off their first home game in club history, where, in the 53rd minute, one Austin Berry headed in a cross from Jimmy McLaughlin to give The Orange and Blue a 2-0 lead and would ultimately stand as the game-winner – marking Berry down in club history as the team's first captain as well as the owner of the first home game-winning goal.

A historic moment for the club and the first of many that Cincinnati native Austin Berry has seen with FC Cincinnati. First joining the club as a player after over 50 appearances for The Orange and Blue, Berry transitioned to a role with the technical staff in 2018 and there he has stayed ever since. Now the Strength and Conditioning Coach, the role he's held since his playing retirement, Berry has been a key part of every playing moment in the club's history – helping players reach their peak physically so they can perform at their peak on the field.

But that moment still lives in Berry's memory nine years later. Well…most of it does. He can recite a nearly moment-by-moment perfect description of how the goal was built and why he did what he did to get to that position. But in the jubilation of the moment, certain details elude him.

"They're kind of going forward, and I just read a ball that they played, so I stepped in and then passed it out with a little touch to Jimmy," Berry reflects. With the anniversary of the home win on the horizon, Berry sat down for an exclusive interview with FC Cincinnati.com on not only that game but everything that has come since. "With Jimmy playing on the left. You know he's gonna attack, but nine times out of 10, it's coming back on your right eventually. I just felt like going forward, and when he swung it back to his right, I tried to find a little pocket between the center backs.

"So, you know, he swung a good ball in with a pace that you don't have to do much with and just try to get contact on it. So I put my head on it, see it went in…and that's where I black out," Berry remembers with a laugh. "I just black out after that, there's a nice fun celebration and I just can't remember any of it because of how exciting it was."

The game is held in especially high memory for the Cincinnati native as it was the first time in his professional career that his extended family and friends had the ability to come to see him play. A standout defender at the University of Louisville, Berry was drafted in the first round of the 2012 MLS SuperDraft by the Chicago Fire, going seventh overall in the then 19-team first round. He would go on to win the 2012 MLS Rookie of the Year for his performance with Chicago before joining the Philadelphia Union in 2014, and he went on loan to the Korean side FC Anyang in 2015. In 2016, he returned to Cincy to join the newly formed USL side FC Cincinnati, where he and a collection of old friends came together to create the first roster in club history.

"My parents and direct family had come to see me play in Chicago and Philadelphia and stuff but all of my High School friends and some of my extended family had never really seen me play," Berry explained. "So I made the decision to come home and play in Cincinnati and like… and that was first time cousins and friends and those people who weren't going to travel to like Philly, Chicago, South Korea could be there and like, at the end of the day it was a really cool crowd, a fun opening night, they got to see me score and everything has just grown from there. So it's definitely up there for moments in my career – to come back home and do that."

Berry remembers the lead-up to his joining FCC and how it all came to be mostly prompted by a handful of people all committing to join the club and his agreement to participate if they did first. Still seeking out professional opportunities after being out of contract after his stint in South Korea and Philadelphia, Berry remembers sitting at his family home in Cincinnati over the Christmas holiday and hearing all his friends and family ask him what he thought of the new upstart project.

Unsure of exactly what the situation with the team was going to be, he says he spoke with club leaders before signing. They laid out a full roadmap for the club to him, not only for the immediate future of that season but also for the long term, including how it was going to grow and be a part of the city. It was in that meeting that he was sold on coming home to not only play for his hometown team but also lay the foundation for that future laid out for him.

"When I left for college in 2007, there was no The Banks, or OTR. Everything that we know now as Cincinnati is a completely different city. So it's fun coming home. It was fun to be at the beginning of something that we grew up in, and that was kind of what they put in front of me," Berry remembers. "It's easy to say 'we all saw this and that coming back’ in the day. But they really sold it; this is what they sold me on," he said, gesturing to the breadth of the facilities and growth FC Cincinnati has had to this day.

"I don't think it's luck. All the people, the ownership group, and Jeff Berding and everyone that's been a part of this club, and that's what they've been striving for since day one and they've done it right every single step of the way," Berry continued. "It was easy to see back then too that it was going to be the club that it is today, the plan was there, but that doesn't mean it still isn't surreal. Sometimes looking around, or when I get new friends or family to come down to TQL Stadium and see that, I still get kind of awestruck. But that was what we were talking about in 2016. So, I feel privileged to be a part of it from the very beginning. But that was always the selling point; be part of the cornerstone of the foundation."

After hearing that pitch, Berry says he got on the phone with guys like Corben Bone and Jimmy McLaughlin to talk about the possibility of joining. Each of the group essentially held each other to join and once one committed, the dominoes fell for them all. Creating part of a core of players who remain with FCC in varying capacities to this day.

Transition to the Staff

Berry would go on to play the first two seasons of USL action for FCC, contributing to the 2017 US Open Cup Semifinal run that helped put the club on the map before injuries began to play a more significant part in his life and he decided to hang the boots up and make the jump to the technical staff. He would go straight from the field to the weight room to take over as the Strength and Conditioning coach, joining then-Head Coach Alan Koch's staff after completing some certifications needed to join the staff.

The move, in concept, is one that makes sense. A player transitioning to a field they participated in for most of their career while remaining in a team-oriented space they're comfortable with and already ingrained in.

The only problem is, for those who knew Austin Berry, the switch was more than a little surprising.

"I never really did the gym or anything," Berry admits, fully conscious of how that may sound in retrospect. "Garrison (Draper) can attest to that. I used to tell him to, kindly, 'leave me alone.' And I wouldn't do any work."

Berry would then send his boss, FC Cincinnati Vice President of Sports Performance and Health Garrison Draper, to attest to this fact after finishing the interview, where the club's top sports scientist would unveil:

"He was one of the worst players I have ever had to deal with in my career, to this day, when it came to any kind of gym or recovery work," Draper told FCCincinnati.com. "I was the last person who'd imagine this is where he's at today, but he is."

Draper was hired to lead the club's sports science department this winter, moving from Inter Miami CF to lead the department. But Draper and Berry crossed paths in both Chicago and Philadelphia, where Draper served as a Sports Scientist for the Fire (dealing with Berry more directly) and again in Philadelphia, though there Draper worked primarily with the Academy.

It was, according to Berry, this mindset that ultimately ended his playing career at 29 years old and limited his ability to excel in his time as a player.

As he got closer to the end of his career, though, the value of sports-specific training more heavily impacted him, given the perspective he had gathered as a player. So when thoughts of his next career aspiration after professional soccer began to crop up after a lifetime of only imagining himself as a pro, the opportunity to continue to work in a competitive environment while taking the lessons he had learned and passing them on was an exciting opportunity.

"I started to see the other sides of it and the benefits from it, so like half of this whole thing was like 'Hey, don't do what I did,' right? Don't be treating your body like however (I did); treat yourself like a 24/7 athlete," Berry explained pitchside at MHTC in an explanation of the belief behind his methodology. "Instead of just the few hours that you're (in the facility), let's learn about all the different benefits for your game that come off the pitch. "Work in the gym, work in the recovery room, work on nutrition, your sleep habits, all that other side of it."

"So just being able to use some of my experiences to talk with guys going through all different stages of being an athlete; whether it's a starter, or on the bench. A young guy who is injured, a veteran who's injured – really just all kinds of injured – being able to kind of connect with guys on different stages of their career, and then trying to educate them to just get that little percentage better. That's what started this interest and path for me. I liked that aspect of the game."

Now, close to eight years later, new players to the squad have no idea of the background of their Strength and Conditioning Coach when he's on the field with them. Having been turned on to the concepts of sports-specific training from coaches in his past, he often works with players on an individual basis and brings his work to the training pitch whenever the need calls for it to work with them in dynamic ways beyond your typical "lifting."

Players who have worked with him in the past or have been around the club long enough know that the 2012 MLS Rookie of the Year still has some serious game with a soccer ball and can work ball drills with the best of them, but newcomers or youngsters tend to have no idea. In the sitdown, Berry explained a recent interaction with U22 center-back Gilberto Flores where, during a warm-up drill, pinged a few passes to the Paraguayan defender, which shocked him.

"He doesn't know and I prefer it that way," Berry explained with a smile. "The only way these new guys ever find out who I am like that is if they're injured. So if they're never injured, they never find out. I think that's best."

At this point in his career, Austin Berry has found a path that works for him, and that allows him to continue to pursue his competitive spirit. But part of that is remembering exactly why he got started. As the conversation came to a close with Berry, he allowed himself to remember back far enough and share that he wished he had done things differently and followed the lessons he tries to help impart to players now. That you "won't be 22 forever and if you think you are, one day you'll be 29 and pulling your hammy every couple of weeks."

But day-to-day, Berry is more concerned with the players on the field and is working with the entirety of the Sports Science staff to find ways to help FC Cincinnati win in the present.

"It's still a win-based atmosphere for me," Berry shared. "The goal for all of us now is how close to 100% and how healthy we can keep guys so that the coaches have their pick of players. So that they have accessibility to as many players as they can have at their disposal."

So from the first game-winning goal scored at home, in a Nippert Stadium with 12,000 people, to being on stage as FC Cincinnati was presented the 2023 Supporters' Shield at TQL Stadium in front of a sold-out 25,513, Austin Berry has been there for every moment in club history. The ups and the downs. But still, like any young man who set out from childhood to be a professional athlete, his mind is set on winning championships. And doing so for his hometown team.

"Winning is really all that matters," Berry states in a manner that suggests this is obvious and universal. "It's a lot more fun around this job when you're winning games than when you're losing. Part of that is, you know, for championship teams, it's very hard to win a championship when guys aren't healthy. So, it's professional sports and injuries do happen. But I'm working so we can mitigate those issues, so we can win championships."

As Berry stood up to leave, I thanked him generously for his time as this story was only intended to speak on the history of that Game Winning Goal on April 9, 2016, and expanded into the conversation that played out in the story above. But Berry had one parting memory of that game at Nippert Stadium 9 years ago:

"Everyone kind of forgets that they scored about three or four minutes after that," Berry said with a snicker. "Like, things got real close after that. So then it was kind of stressful for the last 20 odd minutes of the game…so it was a game winning goal, but it certainly didn't feel that way until the very end."

History is funny like that sometimes. But the record book lives on, and Austin Berry's name is etched in it forever.