The Inside Track takes a closer look at the names and faces behind Racing Louisville — from technical staff to the supporting cast running our city’s top-tier professional women’s soccer club. Click here to read other editions.
Mitch Sowerby’s love for the game was always going to lead him somewhere — these days, that’s the Racing Louisville FC sideline.
Sowerby, a native of northeast England, has served as an assistant on Racing’s coaching staff since the beginning of the 2024 campaign.
Since joining the club alongside head coach Bev Yanez, Sowerby has become a key figure behind the club’s success, adapting to a new environment while helping shape the team’s now-distinct identity within the NWSL.
“Obviously a very fun time so far, very rewarding,” said Sowerby. “[I’ve] been able to grow a lot as a person and as a professional in the role.
“… There’s a lot of hard work that goes in, a lot of work behind the scenes that people don’t see. I think when you’re able to just make it as easy for the players as possible and then, from there, success comes from it — obviously the players being the main reason for that.”
Sowerby’s experience ahead of making the jump to Racing spans multiple collegiate programs in Oklahoma, where he worked solely on the men’s side of the game.
He first moved to the “Sooner State” to play college soccer at Division II Rogers State University. There, he served a prominent on-field role across four seasons. Sowerby still ranks top-five in school history for most minutes played (5,776). He, however, was quite realistic about his chances of going professional, and since he has always had a passion for the game itself, he knew coaching was his way of staying in it.
Ask Sowerby what he does in his downtime, and more often than not, soccer, in addition to his family, is what takes up a good chunk of it. That mindset is part of what eventually pointed him toward coaching.
Sowerby transitioned into an assistant role at RSU for three seasons following his playing career, before earning a shot as the head coach of Mid-America Christian University’s (MACU) men’s side, an NAIA outfit in Oklahoma City. He guided a team that won five games in 2016 to win 20 in 2019, achieving a total of 35 victories in two seasons. A roughly two-year stint at Oklahoma Christian University in Edmond followed before the opportunity in Louisville presented itself.
Learning defined a large part of Sowerby’s first season with the club, as he adjusted to an entirely different environment. He hadn’t worked much on the women’s side of the game prior to 2024 — but a mix of encouragement and good timing changed that.
Collegiately, Sowerby wore multiple hats outside of simply coaching, from mowing the field to upgrading the locker room to also recruiting. It was a stark contrast to what awaited him at the professional level.
“I came here [to Racing] and I personally, even I spent the first year trying to adjust, and trying to understand not just the professional game,” said Sowerby. “I went from college where I was doing a bit of everything … to coming into the pro environment where you have less things to do in the pool, but what you have to do, you have to do with more intention and more focus.”
That growth hasn’t stopped, even as Sowerby has settled into his role as now the club’s head assistant coach. He continues to lean on those around him, crediting the staff for shaping his own development as a coach.
“The staff we have now, [I] continue to learn from them,” said Sowerby. “I think everybody specializes in a little bit of something different, so taking things from different people and understanding why someone does something is so important.”
For as much as Sowerby has grown in his own right since joining Louisville, his attention ultimately remains on the players in front of him, not only just on the field, but off of it as well. It’s that thinking from a member of the coaching staff that has led and continues to lead Racing to historical success in a league that can only be defined as unforgiving.
“I just look forward to seeing the players grow, whether it’s on the field or off the field,” said Sowerby. “Obviously, the sport is not everything; they’re human beings, and they have things outside of here, and they’re working on different things. When they achieve success that they want to achieve, whether it’s success away from the field or whether it’s success on the field, I think that’s cool to see.”
“They (the players) go through ups and downs through a season more than anyone, I think,” Sowerby continued. “… When they accomplish what they want to accomplish, I think that’s probably the most rewarding because ultimately you’ve got a lot of individuals in a team. When they grow as people and mature as well, I think that’s when you know you’re doing something right.”
