For the third time in as many years, the Dartmouth women's soccer team has had new faces behind its bench at the start of the season.
The uninformed observer might venture to suggest that changes of this sort can be a good thing, because turnover in the coaching staff is sometimes helpful in reversing the fortunes of an losing team. The Big Green, however, is just the opposite. In the 51 games the teams played in the 1994-96 seasons, they have wound up on the short side of only 16 of them.
Unfortunately for Dartmouth, the women's program has just been the victim of circumstances. In June, 1996, then-head coach Steve Swanson was offered a job that he could not pass up--the opportunity to coach the women's team at Stanford University and work with the legendary Bobby Clark, former coach of the men's team at Dartmouth. Two months later Neil Orr was hired as the interim coach for the 1996 season, but made it clear when he was hired that he was not in a position to take the job for good.
In February, the bounces started to come in favor of the Big Green again. Kelly Blasius-Knudsen '91 was hired to head the team for the 1997 season, an event she said would not have happened if the timing hadn't been right.
"The first time the Dartmouth job opened up [in 1996,] I didn't apply. I had just gotten the Vermont job and I thought it was too soon. But when it opened up a second time six months later, I thought that I would be crazy to pass it up," Blasius-Knudsen said.
In 1992, a year after her graduation, Blasius-Knudsen returned to Dartmouth as the top assistant under Swanson. She stayed for three years before being hired as the head coach of the University of Vermont women's team in 1995. Now she says that she was very fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time, not only this past winter when she had the chance to return to Hanover, but also when she was a player and assistant under Swanson.
"When I look around the league and see coaches who have been in the same place for 15 or 20 years, I know that I was right not to pass up this golden opportunity again.
Blasius-Knudsen's assistants, Nicole Barbuto and Stacy Strauss described their arrivals at Dartmouth as similar incidents of lucky timing.
Barbuto was a graduate assistant at the University of New Hampshire in 1996, and when Blasius-Knudsen was hired and looking to fill her staff, Barbuto was nearby in Durham working on her master's degree in kineasiology and exercise science with an emphasis in sport psychology and was available to apply for the job.
Strauss was student teaching in Ohio and also looking for a job last spring when her position was posted.
"It came down to this or a teaching job in rural Ohio," Strauss said. Clearly happy with her choice, she said that she couldn't have painted a better picture for herself and has been thrilled with both the athletic department and the team.
A graduate of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio where she was a standout goalkeeper for four years, Strauss had a feeling that she would feel comfortable at Dartmouth before she ever took the job. She knew current Dartmouth Men's coach Fran O'Leary from his coaching days at Kenyon, as well as some Kenyon students who had worked at the Lightning Soccer camps here in the summer.
"I have heard Dartmouth described as a big Kenyon," Strauss said. Evidently Kenyon College was founded by a member of Dartmouth's Class of 1796, Philander Chase.
Now six games into the 1997 season, few at Dartmouth would complain about the way the coaching situation has turned out. None of the three women would have guessed that they'd one day be sharing a small office in Hanover, New Hampshire, but they have managed to work very successfully together all the same.
"I think we all have a real good feel of what we want from our team, especially when it comes to what we expect from players physically and mentally and the kind of effort we want," Strauss said, noting that the staff also works well together off the field. "We complement each other administratively. Nicole is very organized, while Kelly's expertise is in field strategy and how to teach it. My strong suit is the emotional and motivational end of things, and I am also the comedian, which is good because those two are pretty serious sometimes."
Barbuto, a 1992 graduate of Canisius College, is also pleased that she is a part of a staff that shares the same visions about their team.
"We all seem to really like a possession game of soccer, playing simple and moving the ball," Barbuto said. She also noted that Blasius-Knudsen was successful in finding assistants who bring to the staff not only an agreement about the style of the team, but new ideas as well.
"Kelly is really good at giving both Stacy and I opportunities to add to practice sessions and in game situations she's always looking for our input."
Blasius-Knudsen hopes that she and her assistants provide enough of a personality spectrum for each member of the team to feel comfortable talking to at least one of the coaches if they need to do so.
The coach said that she was happy with the way the team has embraced the new staff and the subtle changes in expectations, and said that she feels that this acceptance has played a big role in the way the team has bonded on the field and off in recent weeks.
The changes are subtle indeed, especially when you consider the discontinuity in coaching over the past three years. Much of that is due to the effect Swanson had on the Big Green soccer program during his six year tenure. Neil Orr shared many of his philosophies last year, and Blasius-Knudsen still looks to him as a role model.
"I think Steve has a way of being very intense and very committed to his job, yet he never loses sight of the individual," Blasius-Knudsen said. "Each one of his players always knows that Steve is looking out for your best interest and for the interest of the team as a whole, and that gets the most out of you."
The team has started to become a reflection of its coaches, and the cohesion it has developed helped win the UNH game two weeks ago, and could make a difference in the team's fortunes later in the season.
"The whole team is pretty young, and it's kind of neat to have the youth and the new staff at the same time," Barbuto said. "We are out to keep some of the old traditions and expectations but also to make some of our own."
The team took a big step toward achieving the kind of success Blasius-Knudsen desires with its scoreless tie over the University of Hartford, the top-ranked team in New England. That win, combined with the opportunity to play powers Harvard, Connecticut and Yale, should provide the team with the opportunity to play themselves into the NCAA tournament, a spot they found themselves in last season. That would be one tradition Blasius-Knudsen would like to continue.
