About

Organizing the back line as the goalkeeper at the University of Wyoming in 2000.

Soccer Science, The Neurotic Genius of Soccer in the Digital Age, takes a look at the technologies that are revolutionizing the way we see the beautiful game, from the personal perspective of Amanda Vandervort – former college coach, web geek and fan of professional soccer.

Hi, my name’s Amanda. Soccer Science is my personal blog and while I often write about my experiences and opinions related to any number of organizations I’m involved with, take this as my disclaimer that my personal views are certainly my very own and don’t necessarily reflect those of the companies I work for now, or those I have worked for in the past.

Currently, I’m the Web Coordinator at Women’s Professional Soccer, which basically means that I manage womensprosoccer.com while educating and remotely training the web managers at nine markets across the country in areas such as the content management system (CMS), e-newsletter campaign, social media marketing (SMM) and search engine optimization (SEO). I develop and implement league’s social media marketing campaign including the WPS Fan Corner, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and MySpace, and I also design, code, send and track performance of e-newsletter campaign – Sign up here!

Marcia McDermott, Emma Hayes and me at the Globe Pub in Chicago during the 2007 Women’s World Cup.

I grew up playing soccer in Tucson, AZ, and was an ODP player when I was young. I went on to be the goalkeeper at the University of Wyoming. I studied Communications with a focus in Technology Education and was the computer lab manager for the College of Education. Intening with the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, a non-profit arm of the Wyoming Small Business Development (SBD) that focused exclusively on women in business, would certainly give me valuable insight later in my career.

After college, I packed up and moved East to work as the Graduate Assistant Soccer Coach at The College of New Jersey, while simultaneously selling Real Estate in Pennington and earning my Master’s Degree in Educational Technology. At 24, I was hired as the Head Women’s Soccer Coach at New York University so I moved to (a tiny studio apartment in) Manhattan and worked there for 4 years. I hold my USSF B Coaching License and NSCAA Advanced National Diploma and worked as Region 1 ODP Senior Staff while I was on the East Coast. I am currently on the NSCAA Board of Directors and work as the Chair of the NSCAA Women’s Committee.

Women’s Professional Soccer staff at the 2009 WPS All-Star Game Awards Gala in St. Louis.

Two summers ago, I left NYU to moved to the Silicon Valley to try my hand in the tech field. I was hired as the Director of a .com start-up, and in June 2008, I moved to the midwest to help start the Chicago Red Stars WPS franchise as the Director of Online Marketing, Website and Camps. After getting their online presence and social media presence up and running, I moved back to San Francisco to accept this awesome position with the League.

Anyhow, Soccer Science was born back in 2007 (my archives only go back to 2008 b/c of a major domain migration) as a way for me to learn multiple facets about the art and science known as SEO, content management systems (Wordpress baby!), and Google for Publishers (Adsense, Analytics, etc.) using my own domain as a guinea pig. I’m a bit of an idealist, too, as I truly believe in the power of both soccer and technology to bridge divides between people, races, genders, cultures and countries.

Please don’t hesitate to send me a message if you want to talk WPS, social media, SEO, NSCAA or anything soccer-related.