The women’s soccer team will be reporting in one week for pre-season training. As we are getting ready for the team to arrive on campus, I am thinking about all of the change that has happened that will impact our 2012 team.
The first change is the most obvious. A new freshman class will be added to our roster. Ten new faces will be eager to prove that they are ready to play college soccer and will want to help our team succeed. The particular biographies of each player can be found in the release from signing day, but the important thing is that all of these players have been successful in their high school and club teams. We always want to include players who expect success on the soccer field and are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve it.
We have a new assistant coach with our program. Meredith Flaherty had been a volunteer assistant for about one and a half years and is now our assistant coach. She helped Florida win a NCAA National Championship in 1998 and was part of the U.S. Women’s National Team pool. She has been going full force on recruiting and helping me get prepared for my fifth year at Sam Houston State.
Prichett Field is undergoing a facelift with the laying down of a field turf surface. Unfortunately, delays have pushed back the completion date to around September 1. This means that we will have to move the site of our three August home games. As soon as that site is confirmed, we will let everyone know. Moving from grass to a field turf surface will bring some changes to how we play, but most all of our players are used to this type of field from high school.
I was excited to see that www.allwhitekit.com (a website dedicated to promoting women’s soccer) ranked our 2012 recruiting class as #1 in the Southland Conference.
I am very excited about the possibilities that this season holds. There have been lots of changes, positive changes, and we will start anew on August 1st.
-- Tom Brown
Head soccer coach
Head soccer coach
