T&T’s Leslie “Tiger” Fitz­patrick con­tin­ues to make a name for him­self in the USA where he is now at­tached to one of the top Ma­jor League Soc­cer (MLS) clubs.

The for­mer St Mary’s Col­lege, Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, and T&T se­nior na­tion­al team mid­field­er was ap­point­ed Head of Tal­ent Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion & Re­cruit­ment for the New York Red Bulls, a role that con­sists of find­ing young tal­ent for the pro­fes­sion­al club.

Fitz­patrick, 44, came in­to George Brown with a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence, hav­ing spent years with Toron­to Skil­lz FC of League 1, hold­ing the ti­tle of Gen­er­al Man­ag­er/Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor for all five sea­sons and Head Coach for some years as well. He al­so played pro­fes­sion­al­ly with Re­al Salt Lake and Colum­bus Crew of the MLS, and his ex­pe­ri­ence shone through in his first sea­son as bench boss.

His new ap­point­ment comes on the heels of a sea­son that saw for­mer T&T in­ter­na­tion­al Fitz­patrick lead his Huskies team to a 4-4-2 record in the out­door sea­son with one play­er be­ing se­lect­ed as an On­tario Col­lege Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (OCAA) 1st Team All-Star, while the OCAA In­door Cham­pi­onship tour­na­ment saw a 2-0-1 re­sult and fourth place fin­ish af­ter a penal­ty shootout, with one play­er get­ting the nod as a Tour­na­ment All-Star.

“Les brought so much ex­pe­ri­ence and pas­sion to our Women’s Soc­cer team, he will def­i­nite­ly be missed in a pro­gram that is on a big up­swing thanks to his con­tri­bu­tions and com­mit­ment to build­ing from the ground up,” said Melanie Gerin-La­joie, Man­ag­er of Ath­let­ics & Recre­ation.

Gerin-La­joie said, “He was pre­sent­ed with an in­cred­i­ble op­por­tu­ni­ty to keep do­ing what he loves —young play­er skill and peo­ple de­vel­op­ment—on one of the biggest North Amer­i­can stages with the New York Red Bulls, and we wish him all the best in his next chap­ter.”

The 2018 OCAA Coach of the Year leaves the Huskies team in a bet­ter place than he found it, with a .666-win per­cent­age in his five years with the team. In the same time frame, the of­fen­sive out­put al­so im­proved, see­ing a mark of 1.6 goals per game. Fitz­patrick al­so coached a to­tal of six league All-Stars in his time with the Huskies.

Fitz­patrick be­came the head coach of the Huskies women’s foot­ball pro­gramme ahead of the 2018-2019 sea­son and over­saw an in­cred­i­ble trans­for­ma­tion dur­ing his first year head­ing up the pro­gramme, lead­ing the Huskies to a crossover play game for the first time since the pro­gramme was rein­tro­duced in 2013-14 and a much-im­proved 3-5-2 reg­u­lar-sea­son record.

The out­door foot­ball pro­gramme has built on that suc­cess, such as in 2019, they tal­lied five wins in nine match­es in 2019, which was the most vic­to­ries by the pro­gramme in the last eight years.

They fol­lowed that suc­cess in 2021 as the team won the pro­gramme’s first crossover play­off match since re­join­ing the OCAA in 2013 by tak­ing down the Cen­ten­ni­al Colts 2-1.

Un­der his watch, the in­door foot­ball team has qual­i­fied for the four three OCAA in­door foot­ball Cham­pi­onships be­tween 2017-2021.

“The ho­n­our and priv­i­lege to have led this pro­gramme is a bless­ing that I can nev­er do jus­tice to with words. Be­ing the head coach of the GBC Huskies women’s pro­gramme al­lowed me to blend my pas­sion for soc­cer and im­pact­ing young lives,” said Fitz­patrick.

He added, “The de­sire to con­tin­ue build­ing is strong, but the op­por­tu­ni­ty I’ve been pre­sent­ed with is one that I couldn’t pass up at this time. Hope­ful­ly, the foun­da­tions laid will be the cat­a­lyst for even greater suc­cess, but rest as­sured I’ll be still there root­ing for, as­sist­ing, and push­ing the pro­gramme for­ward a bit more in the back­ground.”

Be­fore land­ing his lat­est po­si­tion, Fitz­patrick split du­ties be­tween the Huskies and the pros as he was al­so among coach­es in­volved in the MLS Ad­vance Pro­gramme 2022, an in­vi­ta­tion-on­ly pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment se­ries for di­verse coach­es and tech­ni­cal can­di­dates.

Fitz­patrick said, “I am ex­cit­ed to be em­bark­ing on this chal­lenge and to con­tin­ue to pos­i­tive­ly im­pact lives through a game that has pro­vid­ed me with so much joy.”