The unanimous choice for 2019-20 Ivy League Coach of the Year, Brown University Head Women’s Soccer Coach Kia McNeill led her team to an Ivy League championship, going undefeated in league play with a record of 14-1-2 and #10 national ranking going into the NCAA tournament. Before becoming Brown’s Head Coach in 2016, Kia was a high school All-American, Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year, a member of youth National Teams, a star at Boston College where she later coached and earned her MBA, and a professional soccer player internationally and, closer to home, for the Boston Breakers.
Here in the PCA/Maddie Potts Coaching Symposium, Kia shares her thoughts on four key topics: (1) in coaching, value every player because “every player, #1 through #26 has value” and it is essential that coaches make that clear; (2) in recruiting, she looks for players who will be great teammates, leaders who are coachable; (3) in soccer parenting, know when to push and when to pull; and (4) in playing and coaching, she is inspired by Tony Dungy’s book, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance, and encourages her team to seek to be “uncommon” with the message that it’s easy to be average, but to be elite or a winner is hard and requires commitment and dedication.
