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Last Night’s NSCAA Social at San Francisco State University
By Amanda | June 18, 2008
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Theresa Echtermeyer, Nora Maguire-White, and Kim Sutton are the female staff coaches at this year’s NSCAA National and Advanced National Courses in California.
Last night, I attended a social gathering at the NSCAA coaching academy course at San Francisco State University. Thanks to Jeff Tipping for inviting me - It was great fun to chat with all the female coaches in the room, and also the men who coach women/girls in soccer. I’ll be headed back to UCSF on Thursday to meet all the coaches of women/girls as a group and invite them to get involved in the NSCAA Women’s Committee at-large. Until then, here are a few observations from the evening.
- UCSF coaches and staff host a great academy course. The attendees all said they were organized and well-fed. They hadn’t started the “meat” of the coursework yet, so we’ll see how they answer later this week. ;-)
- There were many more men than women in this coaching course, I’d say about a 1/8 to 1/10 ratio, judging from the room last night.
- The oldest male coach attending the course was 67 and he won a t-shirt for admitting that particular fact (he had been enjoying a nice private beer in the corner until the spotlight turned directly on him and he was called out).
- The oldest female coach attending the course was 33 and she won a round of giggles & sarcastic jokes… then a round of applause, and a nice adidas tote. Later this coach told me that she and her husband had been coaching for years, but she was only just able to take the National Diploma because her husband has the time to take care of the kids for an entire week without mom.
- The youngest female coach was 19, and she won a round of applause from the audience and a t-shirt.
- The person who had traveled the farthest to attend the Coaching Course was a young man from South Africa.
- There were 3 female instructors on the course including Kim Sutton, Nora Maguire-White and Theresa Echtermeyer (pictured above).
- I won an XXL NSCAA t-shirt because I answered the trivia question, “How many National Championships has Anson Dorrance won at UNC Chapel Hill.” Correct answer: 19. Thanks Emma.
- Jeff Tipping is as popular as ever, and his wife is as sweet as ever.
- I met a young coach who played at Emory University, named Laurel O’Neal, who is undergoing fascinating research about testosterone levels in competition between men and women, and its effects on social interaction, physical performance, and recovery from injury. She’s a Master’s Student at West Virginia. Nikki Izzo-Brown, if you’re reading this, she’s incredible.
- One young female coach expressed that she hadn’t yet volunteered for any demonstrations because she’s intimidated to play with the men in the course.
- I was surprised to learn that very few people know anything about WPS, especially a group of coaches like this who are all actively involved in the game on many different levels. Everybody I speak with is extremely supportive of the League’s efforts and ambitions, but the questions are becoming pretty predictable.
1. Where are the teams located?
2. What’s the new business model, and why will it work when WUSA did not?
3. Who are the coaches?
4. When does the League start play?
5. Are you excited? :-)
- Finally, Marco Santillon of the Latin American Soccer Coaches Committee and Sam Okpodu of the Black Soccer Coaches Committee are in town. We’re planning to meet up on Thursday to share thoughts and ideas about how we can each make our committees better. Efficiency, communication, outreach, and marketing will surely be the main topics.
Topics: NSCAA |
June 18th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
The last time I tried commenting, it didn’t take. Let’s see if it works now…
June 18th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Ha! Success! Ok, on the WPS topic… someone emailed me and asked me where and how I’m getting my info. I told them it’s all on the WPS and USL websites. All the details are out there but they’re scattered. It seems Chicago is really taking advantage of the hype machine but the other teams are remaining a little too quiet.
June 18th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Melissa, I couldn’t agree more. It would be great to see the teams taking more initiative to get the word out. Peter Wilt has already been a leader in Chicago with the Red Stars. And NY/NJ does a good job with their W-League site. I’m hoping all the teams dedicate personnel to this important task, as social media marketing is time-consuming. It’s the future of this League’s grassroots development. Good thing we have wps.theoffside.com!
June 30th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
A good place to find some news about the WPS and discussion about it is on Big Soccer (www.bigsoccer.com). There is a forum for WPS in the women’s section. http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=68
But I’ve found that it’s pretty common that most people even those that are inolved with soccer aren’t really aware of the new league.