From the announcement of the team's plans to come to Denver to finally learning the team name, fans have been invested. And the latest milestone is a big one: On August 6, the team named Nick Cushing as the franchise's first head coach.
Cushing has a decades-long career in professional soccer, having coached both overseas and domestically. The English manager is experienced with coaching men and women and has already started his work with the Summit.
“We have a passionate, committed fanbase and we have to put a team on the field that replicates that," Cushing says in an announcement. "Our team will play an attacking form of the game that excites our stadium and makes things difficult for our opponents. We want to create a winning team as well as a great experience for all of Colorado.”
The team will begin play in the spring of 2026 at a temporary stadium in Centennial, where the Summit is also building a permanent training facility.
Here's what fans should know about the Summit's first head coach.
Nick Cushing Wins Trophies
Throughout his coaching career, Cushing has been a winner, particularly on the women's side of the game. In 2013 he became head coach of the Manchester City women's team in England, where he would coach until 2020. With Manchester City, Cushing won six major titles, including the 2016 league title, two Women's League Cups and the 2017 FA Women’s Cup. During that stint with Manchester City, Cushing won an impressive 72 percent of his games.Cushing's pedigree as a coach is part of what motivated the Summit to hire him.
"In order to be successful right away, you need people that have experienced environments like this, have built organizations, and have had success,” says Curt Johnson, Summit general manager. “Nick brings world-class experience, a passion for player development and a tactical vision that will excite Summit supporters. He’s won major trophies and is the right leader to guide us into our first season and beyond.”
After his time at Manchester City, Cushing headed to America to coach men's team New York City FC, where he was an assistant coach and then head coach. While he was there, the team won the MLS Cup and the Campeones Cup. Most recently, Cushing moved back to Manchester City to serve as the interim head coach before coming to the Summit.
His goal is to take home hardware everywhere he goes.
“It could be that a cardboard box is the prize and I’d want to win it,” he said in 2023. “Winning trophies is addictive. There is no feeling in the world [like it]. I’ve had three children, and I’ve been married, and I’ve done a lot of amazing things, but winning trophies in this business is something that is seriously unrivaled.”
He's Already Worked With Top Women's Talent
Cushing is no stranger to high-level athletes, having coached some of the best in the game over the years. Americans will recognize Carli Lloyd, a two-time Olympic gold medalist for the United States, as one of those top athletes. Cushing coached Lloyd during her brief tenure at Manchester City in 2017, the year the team won the FA Women's Cup. Other notable names Cushing has coached include Japanese national team captain Yui Hasegawa, international stars Nadia Nadim, Khadija Shaw, Kerolin and Vivianne Miedema, and loads of top United Kingdom talent, like Caroline Weir and Lucy Bronze.Cushing has shown he can both develop young players and effectively deploy established athletes. The Summit has already acquired the team's first player, Colorado Springs-born Ally Watt. Watt is currently a forward with the Orlando Pride, which won the NWSL Championship in 2024. She is the first piece Cushing will build his scheme around.
Cushing Wants His Teams to Prioritize Having the Ball
Unlike many coaches, Cushing himself has never played soccer at the professional level, but that hasn't stopped him from developing a distinct coaching style. He is known for asking his team to have a high level of possession on both offense and defense, telling the media he wants his teams to “press high and counter-press aggressively.”Cushing has also been described as a pragmatist who keeps it simple while having faith in young players
He is an Everton Super Fan
Growing up, Cushing and his father had a tradition of watching Everton games together. Everton is a professional men's soccer team in the English Premier League based in Liverpool. Each Saturday, Cushing and his dad would stop by a local pub and then head to the stadium to see their team play. Even back then, Cushing loved every element of the game, saying he always liked to watch the warmups, even on days when the weather was poor.When coaching inr New York, Cushing confessed he still has every Everton t-shirt he collected during his youth, crediting those early days for helping set him on his career path. He loved soccer so much he started off as a volunteer with Manchester City before working his way up the ranks.
Cushing Loves Rivalries
Because of the strong Everton-Liverpool rivalry, Cushing grew up steeped in delicious rivalry tea. He carried that zest for winning rivalry games into his coaching career, especially while leading Manchester City against Manchester United. In New York, the two MLS teams in the area play an annual Hudson River Derby, so Cushing has experience with American sports rivalries, too.Colorado's local MLS team, the Rapids, has a rivalry with Real Salt Lake. Every year, the two teams face off multiple times, and after the last game, the team with the most success against the other that season takes home the Rocky Mountain Cup. There is an NWSL team in Utah, too, so if a rivalry emerges on the women's side of the game, Cushing is sure to be in on the fun.
