It's okay to trust Lowry

It's okay to trust Lowry 

It's been frustrating being an Indy Eleven supporter since the beginning of the Mark Lowry era. In reality... It's been frustrating since the club's inception. Each season, chopping, changing, and bringing in new faces while you can look across both leagues the club has played in and see clubs who have players who have spent multiple seasons with the same club. 

For Indy Eleven their style, which at times has changed, but overall has stayed the same, hasn't valued longevity. They haven't really held onto coaches for more than two seasons, they rarely hold onto players more than that as well. Supporters have even watched in recent seasons as talented players have been let go and flourished in their new clubs.

But watching the 2023 Indy Eleven team has felt... different. Sure, while the elements of the club culture remain the same, a lot of roster turnover, etc. But over the course of the season, you can see, amidst the frustration, the one thing that few clubs do achieve

Growth. 

Mark Lowry isn't perfect. His preferred style of player is also not perfect, but his press conferences post-match, and his radio hits on Soccer Saturday show a man who, along with his staff, wants to not just achieve one season of greatness.

That would be easy.

For Lowry, it's about growth and building the foundation over the course of a season, and for better or for worse, he has achieved that. And for Indy Eleven and its supporters... It's not clear whether or not they have had a head coach who had that thinking. 

Growth isn't something that happens over time. With the structure of the leagues in the United States, it can be lost how often the season is short-sighted... You play for the playoffs, you play for a title, but with no long-term goals, you don't really have anything to plan for each season. 

That isn't truly Lowry's style and for Indy, it's something they haven't really experienced. Indy Eleven has had some fantastic head coaches, with the highest quality being Tim Hankinson in 2016 who led them to the title game in the North American Soccer Lague but unfortunately lost in the final against the now defunct New York Cosmos. 

For Indy Eleven now, in an era where you have the cloud of MLS always hovering overhead, the mountain of a new stadium being built, Lowry wasn't brought in to achieve a single goal each season (making the playoffs) or just win the league title. Lowry was brought to Indianapolis to rebuild the culture and landscape of the club as it enters a new era and with each