In Conversation With: David Diianni

May 17, 2026

"On What Made Him Fall In Love With Football"

Growing up in a small community outside of London, Ontario, soccer was what my dad did. He had a good career. It's what he loved. Very early on, all I remember is going to ice rinks for hockey and playing soccer, and being a multi-sport athlete.

I loved the individual aspect of the game that is within a team aspect of the game. You have the individual duels, the tactical parts that are always challenging you mentally and physically. And then you add the aspect of the team, it's the ultimate team game.

"On Building A Winning Culture"

Building a culture, is a process. It's not events. It's not team-building activities.

To me, it’s investing in people, having relationships, and knowing who they are and where they come from. If you provide respect, value, transparency and communication, and listen to your student-athletes and staff, people feel valued and they feel seen. Then you have culture.

For us, it starts with getting to know each other—who they are, where they come from. How they're wired, how they learn, while being transparent and vulnerable. That allows you to handle hard. And that's what makes success that much more valuable, because you're doing it together.

"On His Superpower As A Coach"

I think I'm a great relationship builder. I build cultures.

Our student-athletes know that I care about them and that I'm willing to invest time and energy every day into their needs and their career—not just as a soccer player, but as students and as people. I think that is my superpower.

The second part is I'm very growth-minded. I'm paranoid of getting caught. I want to improve. I want to get better. What am I not doing well enough? How can I help our program better? I think being growth-minded is the key to success in life.

Adapt or die.

"On What He Looks For In A NCAA Div 1 Player"

The easy answer is athleticism, skill level and tactical IQ. Those things are really important. But in recruiting, you almost never miss on talent. You miss on character.

Can these student-athletes handle hard. Are they emotionally prepared for four years away from home? Can they handle the distractions?

Are they disciplined enough to be able to invest in their processes? How do they interact with their family? Are they respectful to mom and dad? Do they shake the coach's hand after training? Are they good teammates?

What happened when they were out for an injury? Did they disappear, or did they stay around their team and invest in the rehab, the recovery and play a part in the growth of their team, just not on the field?

I think at this level, that’s the difference between success and an average career.

It’s character, it's interactions, it's how do they handle adversity, because all the other stuff you can see. What about the stuff that you can't see?

"On The Recruitment Process"

For a high school student athlete you're evaluating and watching them a year or two ahead. You want to watch them when their team's losing, when their team's winning. You want to watch the interaction with the coach.

But the only communication you can have is with the coach. You can't speak to the parents. You can't speak to the student athletes.

When you can finally communicate in June of their sophomore year (grade 10), it's learning their why. And they hope to learn your why and who you are as a program, who you are as a staff. What are you looking for in a player?

Then you hope to get them on campus. That's when you truly can see how they interact with mom and dad, how respectful they are, and what their decisions look like.

At the end of the day, the key word to all of this is relationships. You're building relationships. You're learning how they're wired, and they're learning who you are.

The transfer portal skips some of those steps, or you're fast-tracking them pretty aggressively. So you fast-track things like finding out background and their why and relationships and all of those things.

"On How Canadian Players Get Noticed"

Canada's changed a lot. There's a lot more showcases now. In some ways, it's easier than it's ever been.

You have the three NDC programs: Ontario, Montreal, and Vancouver. In general, most of the best players in the country are playing in one of those three groups.

Then you have showcases like FTF, where they invite arguably the rest of the country's best players. Making sure you attend one or two of those a year helps.

Social media has helped a lot. Having Canadian student-athletes in ninth grade, tenth grade sending emails and videos and things like that helps. Being proactive.

There are more than enough locations now and programs to be able to make sure that a Canadian player does not fall through the cracks. They can still go somewhere to be seen.

"On The Proudest Moment Of His Career"

The proudest moments have been the last two schools I've been at.

At Grand Valley State, they'd never made the NCAA tournament. They had never won the conference. We made the NCAA tournament every single year I was there, 11 years straight. To build that from the ground up, and to leave it so much better than I found it, as a sustainable program for somebody else, I'm very proud of.

Then at the University of Iowa, to leave that program as a top 20 program with talent all the way through all four classes, I'm very proud of that.

I'm very proud of how I left both those programs to the coaches that followed me.

"On The Next Generation Of Canadian Football"

I think in Canada, they're trying to get it right. They're creating academies under pro clubs. They've got a professional Canadian league. They're trying to keep Canadians home and give them a pathway that starts at the age of 10 and builds all the way up until they're done playing as pros. That’s exciting.

No matter what area of the country you grow up in, there's a club you can dream to play for. You now have a vertical pathway, which is really important.

On the women's side in particular, they're creating pathways for a young woman to develop, see role models they can aspire to, and receive the tools and coaches they need to be successful.