The answer to his Riddle

In 2005, men's head soccer coach Stu Riddle was playing professional soccer in Australia at 29 years old.

Since he left his native New Zealand a decade earlier, he had lived all over the world. He had spent time in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and England, leading a nomadic lifestyle for most of that time.

But during his time in Australia, Riddle took a look at his life and had a lot of questions.

"I was living with a girl that I met out of a newspaper ad, living out of a suitcase," Riddle said. "I was enjoying my soccer - it was a good league and I was enjoying it - but I was sort of looking down the line going: 'What am I going to be doing in two or three years? This can't go on.' So I got to that point and thought, I want to get back to the states and get to coaching."

Riddle's decision to come back to the United States has proved to be a turning point in his life. After spending parts of six years earning his bachelor's degree in physical education at Coastal Carolina, Riddle grew fond of the United States; his return marked the beginning of a new chapter in his life.

Over the past 17 years, Riddle has traveled all over the world playing and coaching soccer. The game, and his unwavering passion for it, have come to define him.

The reward

Before coming to Buffalo in January, Riddle spent four years as head coach at Western Michigan. As a conference rival, he was impressed with the UB staff's professional demeanor and the school's facilities.

When Riddle saw the head coaching position was open after the 2012 season, he grabbed the opportunity. He knew the Bulls had the resources to build a program to take to the next level.

He applied for the position and was hired in January.

For the first time as a head coach, Riddle has the resources to recruit athletes from his home country, New Zealand. He said it's one of the most exciting parts about working at Buffalo. One player from New Zealand will attend UB in the fall.

In Buffalo, Riddle has finally found a place where he can put together all the aspects of his life he feels most passionate about.

He began recruiting and evaluating current talent immediately upon his hiring, and his wife, Jessica, and two daughters, Rylee and Nora, joined him here in April. Not only does he see an opportunity to raise his family in Buffalo, but also to build a program with resources to do things he hasn't been able to do before.

After years as a nomadic player and then as an assistant coach looking to catch on somewhere, Riddle earned the accolades and was able to choose Buffalo as much as Buffalo chose him.

Becoming a coach

Riddle's journey to Buffalo has been long and winding. He spent time with three different colleges and two professional teams just as a coach.

During his time at Western Michigan, he led the Broncos to two Mid-American Conference Championship game appearances and upset defending national champion Akron in the 2012 semifinals.

His success at Western Michigan is just the most recent of his coaching accolades.

Prior to leading that program, Riddle held assistant coaching positions at two universities and player-coach positions with two United Soccer Premier Development League (PDL) teams.

In 2008, he spent the summer as a player-coach with the Kalamazoo Outrage of the PDL and the fall as an assistant at Fairfield University.

It was a wildly successful year for Riddle. He was hired with the Outrage in August of 2007 and spent the entire fall scouting and recruiting players.

When the season finally began, Riddle guided the first-year Outrage to an appearance as one of the final eight teams in the nation in the PDL.

After his successful summer, Riddle went to coach at Fairfield. With the Stags, he was able to recruit New Zealanders for the first time. He recruited four New Zealanders to play for Fairfield, three of whom recently graduated.

The Stags won the Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament that season, upsetting No. 6 Loyola and making an NCAA Tournament appearance.

He followed up his successful 2008 with a hiring as the head coach at Western Michigan in January 2009.

Despite his success there, Riddle wanted to work more within his program, which prompted his move to Buffalo.

Building a home

The years that followed the completion of Riddle's bachelor's degree were integral in how he became a coach.

After a year break from school in 1999 while he was playing professional soccer in New Zealand, Riddle returned to Coastal Carolina in 2000 to complete his degree.

While taking classes during the year, Riddle played with a PDL team called the Des Moines Menace during the summer. He also volunteered with the Coastal Carolina team, which allowed him to work out with the squad and stay in shape.

He graduated in 2003 with a degree in physical education. During the time it took him to earn his bachelor's degree, Riddle volunteered at a YMCA in the area.

After graduation he spent a few months there, but he found out he would not be able to renew his work visa while working there.

Instead, Riddle decided to spend his last few months in the United States playing soccer. He played for the West Michigan Edge, thanks to a friend who had contacts in the PDL.

When his work visa expired, Riddle returned to the southern hemisphere and played a season with the Altona Magic of the Australian Premier League.

After that season, Riddle returned to the United States with a new visa and began pursuing a career in coaching. He spent the summer volunteering at soccer camps and was eventually offered a graduate assistant position at the University of Evansville. Riddle earned his Master's degree in public administration there.

The two seasons he spent at Evansville were a turning point in his life.

During his first year at Evansville in 2005, Riddle met Jessica. Less than two years later, on May 6, 2007, Riddle took the first step toward creating a family in the United States when he made Jessica his wife.

Riddle had returned to the United States with the intention of settling down after years of traveling spent away from his friends and family. The years following his wedding were spent traveling the country looking for coaching positions.

The months after his marriage in 2007 and the first half of 2008 were spent in Western Michigan before moving to Connecticut for the last half of 2008. Finally in 2009, Riddle found a more permanent position as the head coach at Western Michigan.

While at Western Michigan, Riddle and Jessica had their two daughters. Rylee is now 3 and Nora is almost 1.

Since the girls have moved to Buffalo, Riddle said it's been a nice release to get away from soccer while he is spending time with his family. When he first moved to the area, he was living in a hotel room with one of his assistants and they were always discussing the day's practice or a player they were recruiting.

Riddle's hope is that he can spend a long period of time at Buffalo and raise his family while he builds the program.

Coming to America

As a 19-year-old, Riddle found himself in a daunting situation.

After playing a season for a New Zealand super-club team called Wellington United and experiencing success, Riddle had played for New Zealand's Olympic qualifying team.

Even though the national team didn't qualify for the Olympics, Riddle made four appearances, including one in the final minutes of a victory over Oceanic rival Australia.

To this day, it remains one of his most cherished soccer memories.

Riddle was ready to take the next step in his career, so he was at the airport to travel to England in search of an English League contract.

What made it difficult was leaving home. It was tough for the young man when success meant he would not be returning to the place he grew up.

Even though Riddle would move many more times, oftentimes halfway around the world, and once away from his wife and two small children, he said this was the most difficult move he has made.

Through the pursuit of his dream, Riddle's parents, Allen and Mary, have only been supportive. They've visited him when they can and offered him a safety net if he ever decided to change his career path.

It seems Riddle will not need to take his parents up on their offer, though. Even when struggling, he has been able to find a way to make soccer work for him, and now he seems more entrenched in it than ever.

That is at least partially thanks to Bobby Clark.

In the time Riddle spent with the national team, head coach Clark's coaching strategy changed Riddle's perspective on the game he loved. For the first time, Riddle began to see soccer as a team game.

Before playing for Clark, Riddle believed soccer was an individual sport because of all the time he had spent drilling to improve his individual skills, like ball handling.

Clark - now the men's head coach at Notre Dame - was a mentor to the players and steered each in the direction he thought appropriate.

For a few players, it meant that Clark helped them catch onto the English Premier League. For others, it meant the United States college system.

At the time, Riddle had not considered mixing his education and soccer career, so he traveled to England to stay with his grandparents in hopes he could sign a professional contract with an English soccer team.

"I'd done so well in the highest level of the New Zealand league, got some great experience playing with the national team and beating teams that had premier league players on them," Riddle said. "I didn't really know what to expect."

Looking back, Riddle believes he may have had an easier time catching on with higher-level teams that played possession-oriented soccer, a style that fit him better.

Without much of an idea of what to do with his soccer career, Riddle called Clark, who suggested he travel to the United States and join a college team there.

Riddle started at Coastal Carolina University in 1997 and played two seasons, scoring 18 goals in 34 appearances.

After playing two and a half years against men, Riddle had to make some mental adjustments to play in his age group again.

"I think that what that meant at the time was that you had to become more of a leader because you had better experience than some of the other players," Riddle said. "But of course there was no one to turn to anymore. There was no older, experienced head to turn to and get you through bad situations. We had to become those people ourselves."

Second chance at the pros

After two seasons at Coastal with no NCAA Tournament appearances and a coaching change, Riddle and a teammate wanted a chance to play in the national tournament.

They decided to transfer to San Jose State.

Before what would have been his first season with the Spartans, Riddle returned home to play a season with Nelson Suburbs F.C.

Riddle had a strong season, scoring 18 goals in 15 appearances, and caught the eye of a new professional team - and the first professional New Zealand team - Football Kingz F.C.

The Football Kingz were gearing up for their first season in the Australian National Soccer League.

They offered Riddle a two-year contract and he accepted, ending his NCAA career and his San Jose State career before he even got to California.

It was a short-lived relationship, though. After a disappointing season in which Riddle didn't see much playing time, he parted ways with the Kingz.

"The most important thing at that point after leaving the Kingz was to make sure I got my degree," Riddle said. "Once I had that degree, if I wanted to try and play again at that higher level, I would. But I needed to get that degree under my belt."

So after a year - and his second try at professional soccer - Riddle returned to the United States and Coastal Carolina to complete his degree.

Early success to present success

In retrospect, Riddle has been able to look back at nearly all of his experiences with a positive attitude - whether it was spending a summer working in a pub, leaving the Football Kingz after the first year of a two-year contract or spending years away from his home and family.

Riddle's new office in the soccer suite in Alumni Arena reflects this optimism well. It is a long, high-ceiling room with suffocating beige walls, which puts his focus on the TV, where he watches game film.

His desk sits in the back of the room, one side hugging the wall and the other side separating him from the door.

The objects that adorn his office correspond directly with his life passions.

On the windowsill behind him sit pictures of his family - a wedding picture of Jessica and him, a frame featuring photos of Rylee and Nora and a collage of Liverpool stickers arranged by Rylee.

Between the frames are replicas of the World Cup and European Cup.

A frame with a picture of his 1996 Olympic qualifier team with the pennant he received for the game and a scorecard shares a wall with the door close to his desk.

With his family and passion behind him and his past accomplishments all around him, Riddle has placed his goal in front of him.

Riddle has been all over the world to play soccer, but now in Buffalo, with his wife, two daughters, lifelong passion and resources to build a program the way he wants, Riddle is ready to "put the tent pegs in" - which he has been looking to do all along.

Email: sports@ubspectrum.com