Top Ladies Soccer Coaches

[brazil]

Wolff is a good soccer coach....but Rideway plays in the A/AA bracket..very little competition...plus he had Ashley Eason (national team pool player), and Jenille Newborn (regional odp player) on the team for 4 straight years...in the A/AA bracket with those two players...just about any coach could have won state...Those two were literally unstoppsble at the A/AA level..I want to see Rideway win the state title this year..and that will show me something....

[peterw]

Before I comment on Tennessee's best coach, I must respond to Brazil.

Yes, coach Wolff and Ridgeway pretty much had it made with all that talent in A-AA. They were only 3 students away from being big enough to move up to AAA soccer, where they should have been anyway. They will become AAA either this fall or fall 2004 according to the new numbers.

However, you cannot ignore the fact that although they were A-AA's best team for 4 years straight, they also won regular season games against such teams as Germantown and Houston. That convinced me how talented they were.

[Edited by peterw on 2-9-03 12:39A]

 

[peterw]

Also, Jimmy Burchett and Mike Irby are undeniably very talented coaches. It's hard to tell however if a coach is in the right place at the right time, or if he or she actually makes a difference.

 

My picks below are based on doing the best with what you are given. Also, see my state champ picks for fall 2003 in one of the other forums.

[Edited by peterw on 2-9-03 12:45A]

 

[peterw]

From one of Tennessee's top girls soccer historians comes the following comments:

 

A-AA coach: Ken MacDonald (FRA)

-Brought Vanderbilt program from infancy to contending

-Took over at FRA, the laughing stock of the best district in A-AA (District 11, typically having 5 of the TN's Top 11)

-Won the 2002 championship as FRA undoubtedly won the most exciting prep soccer game I've ever seen

 

Honorable Mention: Harmon Hodge (DCA)

-Took Hume-Fogg from brand new to the state finals in 4 seasons producing several Division 1 players.

-HFA hasn't done much since Hodge left.

-Now at DCA, he's created a powerhouse in A-AA.

-Coached TN's top 2 scorers of all time (#2 Aline Bernard at HFA and #1 Courtney Dunlap at DCA)

 

AAA coach: Todd Purcell (Cordova)

-Beat Houston in the Elite 8 in 2002. That's the first time since the inaugural playoffs in 1986 that neither Houston nor Germantown advanced to the Final 4!!!

 

Division II: Jimmy Weekley (The Baylor School)

-Continues to defeat any team attempting to assert themselves into a position of Division II supremacy, such as the always talented GPS squad.

-Weekley is my overall pick for best coach.

[Edited by peterw on 2-9-03 12:40A]

[Edited by peterw on 2-9-03 12:47A]

 

[brazil]

peterw makes some very good points....Ridgeway was possibly the best team period in the last 4 years, regardless of division...and to the coaches credit did not hold them back...he reached their potential...

 

i also agree, as stated in my earlier commment that jimmy weekly is the best overall coach in high school...he also was one of the first coaches to effectively introduce zonal defending to the girls games...

[Guest HBaller88]

I think that the coach of the Dobyns-Bennett Indians, Bill McClosky, is up there with the greats!!

[DaVinci22]

bill Winchester took a group of girls that had won 5 games the year before his arrival and coached them all the way to the state quarterfinals!. Ooltewah is lookin good for some years to come. Go Owls

[CREE]

I believe that the lady owls were full of seniors and a outstanding transfer student ( from Grace Acad.)

I am sure the coach did a great job, but a blind squirrrel finds an acorn every now and then. Lets see if he can be successful for more than one season

[DaVinci22]

i wouldn't exactly say senior laden.... there best players were underclassmen. Kim Colville and Shellie Underwood were good but their goalkeeper was terrible and Jessica Mack is the most overrated player ive ever seen in my life. you talk some major trash but that transfer is coming back for next year and they have an outstanding freshman who will be a superb soph.Not too mention a great midfielder in Holly Hullender. but the fact of the matter is those seniors which you speak so highly of never accompished anything until this past year. Winchester always has his teams in great shape and they will be technically superior to the other teams. for those reasons he is a top coach.

[hardball03]

Who was in the Owls Region? and who did they defeat to reach

the quarter-finals? It's all relative.

 

You got to remember that the tournament is now allowing

8 teams in versus 4. A team like Brentwood that couldn't

get past Franklin will now be knocking off teams on the

other side of the bracket.

 

It will be difficult, depending upon the seeding, for some

of these teams to get out of the first round now.....more so

than in years past.

[Edited by hardball03 on 2-19-03 12:31P]

 

[DaVinci22]

they had to get past mcminn county and red bank some of the better teams in east tn. mcminn had only allowed 1 goal scored on them all season and had a record setting scorer.also they had beaten Notre dame earlier in the season a team that was well respected across the state

[Edited by DaVinci22 on 2-19-03 6:31P]

[PLACALL]

GOOD CHOICES