New York City FC players Kwame Watson-Siriboe and Kwadwo Poku ride with equipment manager Dan Laroche, right, a Lewiston native who works in New York City for the football club, in 2015.
Three years and a few months into his run as the equipment manager for New York City FC of Major League Soccer, Lewiston High School graduate Dan Laroche is winning some pretty nice awards.
Most recently, on Thursday, Laroche was honored as the MLS equipment manager of the year.
A 2004 graduate, Laroche took his time after high school deciding what he wanted to do, and where he wanted to go. In a 2015 interview with the Sun Journal, Laroche said it was an unpaid volunteer job with Real Salt Lake, also an MLS franchise, that hooked him on working in pro soccer.
“I really started to jump in with the equipment side of it,” said Laroche, who at the time was far more invested in massage therapy and athletic training than managing equipment. “My theory was, I learned this from a friend of mine, that you need to make yourself as valuable as possible and learn whatever you can. So you can do more than just one job.
“I gained an understanding of the job and I did that for a full season,” he added. “While most kids in their 20s were partying and having a good time, I was working Friday and Saturday nights.”
He was eventually hired by Real Salt Lake and finally had a paid position in his chosen field.
“I had been there three years,” Laroche said. “So they offered me the position to be the head massage therapist, which is what I’d been working for and everything. I was really excited and I enjoyed it.”
In 2014, much of the Real Salt Lake staff had moved to New York City FC, and Laroche saw an opening to rejoin them as the team’s equipment manager.
“I enjoyed working with them so much that I wanted to go with them,” Laroche said. “I was open to the challenge of coming out here and being with people I knew and enjoyed being around. Not a lot of people get that opportunity to work with people they enjoy being around.”
During the interview process, they flew him into New York late one night and interviewed him the next day in a whirlwind of 24 hours. It proved to be an awesome and almost overwhelming experience.
“They brought me in immediately and over to Yankee Stadium to meet the stadium ops team and go over game-day procedures,” Laroche said. “I was touring Yankee Stadium, and that’s when it hit me.”
He was ultimately hired for the job and has been with the New York City FC ever since.
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