Director of Coaching, Co-Founder

Coach Tony’s love for the sport of soccer began at 4 years old when he started playing. He felt a natural attachment to the game from very early on and developed a creative relationship with the ball that allowed him to be his most expressive. He played for FC Dallas from u10-u18, traveling to England at u16 for a 6-week training in St. Peterborough and trialing with Cambridge. At u18 he committed to play with SV Morlautern in Germany where he returned to play another season at u20. After starting Salient, he settled in playing locally USL2 and NPSL with the Denton Diablos leading the 2021 National Championship team.

Coach Tony is currently studying for his NASM certification (National Academy of Sports Medicine), with an expected completion date of Fall, 2026 so that every athlete who trains at Salient is under our science-backed curriculum designed to improve elite athletic performance while reducing injury risk.

Director of Operations, Senior Technical Coach

Coaching Certification – Goalkeeping Level 3

Kelsey’s love of the game started at age 4. She loved a lot of things about playing soccer as a kid, but she has to admit that her mom rocked the postgame snack responsibility. However, her claim-to-fame as goalkeeper all started when her u11 team’s keeper didn’t show one day – her athleticism and fearlessness made it a perfect position for her.

Coach Kelsey was named District 5-5A Goalkeeper of the Year and the Most Valuable Goalkeeper in District 3-5A. She then went on the play for the Oklahoma Sooners where she was a 4-year starter and holds the all-time saves record at OU with 390 saves and is fourth in career shutouts with 17. In 2016, she was named a WPSL All-Star playing for the Chicago Redstars and the Houston Dash before she went on to play professionally in Sweden in 2018 and 2019, winning MVP of the entire league and MVP of her team.

Kelsey’s has earned a Goalkeeping Level 3 certification – the highest offered. She has experience over the years as the FC Dallas ECNL Goalkeeper Coach, Texas Woman’s Soccer Goalkeeper Coach, UT Dallas Woman’s Soccer Goalkeeper Coach, ODP Coach, and has 8 years of experience as a Performance/Strength Coach.

Head of Continual Development, Senior Technical Coach

Certified Personal Trainer

With Ronaldinho as his childhood inspiration, Brock matured into a young player following his favorite team Chelsea FC and players like John Terry, Frank Lampard, and Didier Drogba. Coach Brock played as a center midfielder growing up, but now plays in the right back position.  With a brag-worthy level of fitness, he’s willing to bet he can beat most people over the course of a full 90 minutes.

Brock’s career blossomed when he started playing for Solar at 13 and grew in level to play under Diego Castro winning a National Championship in 2019 helping him to commit to play D1 at Bradley University. He moved on to spend 3 years at Bellarmine University, captaining his junior season. 3x ASUN All-Tourney team, 2023 All ASUN 1st team, Academic 1st Team, 2nd Academic All-American, ASUN Defensive Player of the Year Transferred to UNC – Chapel Hill for spring 2024 to pursue a Master’s Degree and ultimately decided to transfer home for the Fall of 2024 to SMU. 18 appearances with 17 starts, helping lead to 7 shutouts and an Elite 8 appearance.  He also played NPSL with the Denton Diablos on the 2021 National Championship team.

In addition to coaching, Coach Brock leads our Continual Player Development initiative, working with all coaches and providing timely player progress updates based on our 6 Pillars of Development for our Salient players.

Senior Technical Coach

Coach AB’s dad grew up playing in Africa, so as soon as AB could walk, he had a ball at his feet. For as long as he can remember, soccer has been his biggest love and passion, feeling almost as if he was “born to play”. Coach AB plays anywhere up top, an all-around forward. He feels his biggest strength is “striking the ball… HARD!” (We can attest to the truth of this statement!). He plays smart and simple, and if he has an opportunity in front of the goal, he says, “I’ll put the goalie in the back of the net along with the ball if I have to.”

Coach AB played for the Dallas Texans Academy. When he was 16, he was invited to play in the SC Freiburg academy in the Bundesliga, where he spent 6 months before electing to come home rather than signing away his option to play in college. He received a Division 1 Scholarship to play soccer at Colgate University in NY and after graduating, returned home to Dallas to begin his career.

When asked what he feels makes him a great coach, he says his personal experience as a player, along with his passion and love for the game, that it is 100% contagious. He demands the players’ best effort and attention, all while creating a fun and competitive environment in sessions.

Senior Technical Coach

Coach Bishop admits that his young love for the game stemmed from the friendships he made with his teammates; they motivated each other to be the best at their game, and he says it intensified the glory of winning games and major achievements together.

During middle school, Coach Bishop’s family made the intentional decision to place him in a charter school giving the flexibility to train for futsal for 4 hours per day beginning at noon still allowing him time in the evenings for additional team training. Lots of homework in the car he says, but the result - 3 regional futsal championships and 3 national futsal championships! Coach Bishop was honored the opportunity to train at Santos FC youth futsal academy, where he played alongside Real Madrid player Rodrigo. He also trained with West Ham academy coaches where he received an invitation to trial with the academy team. 

He feels his greatest strength on any team and what he has been commended for is his vision on the field with and without the ball. “Physical strength and technique is easy to improve through training, but it is the self-reflection and being able to take something you learned in training and apply it to your character is what makes a player a great player.”

Senior Technical Coach

Coach Wariebi was born in Queens, NY but grew up in Limerick, Ireland. He fell in love with soccer at a very young age. The thing he loved most about playing was the ability to express himself with the ball while competing at a very high level.

Wariebi’s career was spent in the winger and striker positions and he feels his biggest strengths were taking players on 1v1 and having an eye for the goal. He believes his playing style is pretty direct; he says he’s always been confident in his ability and never shied away from a defender. He represented the Irish youth National Team, and experienced both the Manchester City and Sunderland academies before moving to the United States. He was named one of the nation’s top 11 players while playing for Solar Chelsea in 2017 as well as played D1 with the University of Dayton.

Senior Technical Coach

Coach Darrius started playing soccer when he was 4 years old. He said that as a little kid, he just loved running around doing anything active, or playing goalie for fun, but as he continued to mature as a competitive player, he preferred any position in the attack. His strengths as a player were his speed, dribbling, ability to score GOALS, his aggressiveness, and his leadership qualities.

Darrius played in Spain for Club de Fútbol Motril and Base Gabia CF in the 3rd division and prior to that attended Kansas Wesleyan University, and since played semi-professionally for FC Dallas Dynamo in the UPSL. Coach Darrius believes that his knowledge of the game, his leadership qualities and his ability to connect with players are what make him an excellent coach!

Senior Technical Coach

Coach Omar grew up in Italy, where he played for the prestigious Academy of Sassuolo in Italy, which was founded on the life/development perspective to ‘always aspire to be the best and most disciplined’. Growing up, he had the opportunity to play in many international tournaments against big academies like Atalanta, Milan, Ajax, and Real Madrid.  At 19 years old, he came to the United States and played for West Virginia for 2 seasons before transferring to University of Texas, Tyler.

Coach Omar started as a center back, then played wingback, then midfield and ended as a striker-winger in his last season of college. His preferred position is to play in the midfield because he’s a player that likes to talk and organize the team, along with the strength of his technical abilities. He acknowledges that while he’s never been the “big-fast” player, he has always been the one to connect the team on all sides and he likes to get on the ball.

Coach Omar also leads our Salient Cantera program, daytime training for competitive players.

Senior Technical Coach

Coach Malachi loved that as a young player, the game made him feel “unstoppable” and that he could forget about everything else going on in the world around him. He says that as a kid he was always the attacking strength of the team, he would dribble the whole team and score every game. That still carries with him today, he’s the heart of the attack of his team. He’s a very technical skiller that also distributes the ball to the wingers and strikers.

We first met Malachi when he was 14, we spotted him working intensely and diligently every single day alone in American Indoor when he thought nobody was watching. We invited him into our trainings as a player and with his continued hard work, he quickly developed and the following season he made the FC Dallas team, working his way up to the ECNL u19 team and most recently completing his first season of college soccer. Coach Malachi is an excellent leader and his work ethic is unreal; ask him about the book he authored at just 12 years old!