Yale Bulletin and Calendar

February 14, 2003|Volume 31, Number 18

Rudy Meredith, head coach of women's soccer.

Peers and players applaud Meredith's winning ways

While out on the road recruiting potential players for the women's soccer team at Yale, head coach Rudy Meredith emphasizes that his team is something like a family.

Success for the team, he impresses upon the high school seniors, comes if the players feel a part of a tightly knit group in which they can both work hard and have fun with each other.

His leadership has brought the Bulldogs to new heights in women's soccer, and has contributed to a recent honor for Meredith -- selection by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) as Coach of the Year of the Northeast region.

Meredith, one of six regional coaches of the year, was honored Jan. 17 at an awards banquet held in conjunction with the NSCAA Convention in Kansas City, Missouri. His recognition as Coach of the Year of the Northeast Region also made him a contender for the NCAA/Adidas National Coach of the Year for Division 1-Women; that honor eventually went to the University of Portland's Clive Charles, whose team won the NCAA national championship.

For the Yale coach, garnering the regional award was enough of a feather in his cap, he humbly admits.

"All of the New England soccer coaches vote for the person in their region who gets this honor, so being selected means that your peers have respect for you and that your team has had a good year," says Meredith. "I'm proud on both counts."

Meredith became the youngest head coach ever at Yale when he was appointed, at age 27, to lead the women's soccer team in 1995. He previously served for three years as the team's assistant coach.

He has quickly distinguished himself as the winningest women's soccer coach in Yale history. Now holding an overall record of 70-48-8, he led the 2002 women's soccer team to its first-ever appearance at the NCAA Division 1 Tournament after finishing the season 11-4-2. Yale's 11 victories last fall are the most since the 1998 team won a school-record 13 games under Meredith's direction.

Additionally, the Bulldogs have won at least 10 games in four of Meredith's eight years at Yale. Prior to his arrival, Yale had won 10 games only once in 18 years.

An All-State high school player in his home state of Maryland who went on to become a member of the 1990 Southern Connecticut State University Division II national champion men's soccer team, Meredith says his basic philosophy about his work is "to be the kind of coach I would want to have."

In addition to encouraging close bonds among the players and challenging them at practices and games, Meredith shows them that having fun is paramount to the game, according to midfielder and team captain Ali Cobbett '03. For example, the coach engages his players in annual soccer contests with Yale men's hockey and tennis teams, and this year he invited his players to attend a Halloween day practice dressed in costume. He appeared at that practice dressed as a cow.

"If you make it fun, kids want to come to practice," Meredith explains. "So even if we're playing Harvard two days from now, I'd still make room for a little fun. I don't want a tense environment."

Cobbett, who also plays lacrosse, was well familiar with Meredith's coaching style long before she came to Yale: Meredith had served as her coach on Connecticut youth soccer teams from the time she was 9 years old. In 1998, he led her age-16-and-under premier team, the Weston Wild Things, to a national championship. A year earlier, he also led another an older youth club team, Yankee United Nova, to a national championship.

"He is always positive," Cobbett says of her coach. "He loves soccer so much that he always wants to play with us -- to get in and do the drills with us. He's a very good player himself, and seeing that, I think, helps to give us confidence and inspire us."

Cobbett is among a number of women soccer players who have earned accolades under Meredith's tutelage. Along with her teammate, Eleni Benson '05, she was selected to the Greek women's national soccer team that is training for the 2004 Olympic games in Athens. Meredith has also coached nine players to first-team All-Ivy honors during his tenure.

Fritz Rodriguez, who played soccer with Meredith at Southern Connecticut State University and has been his assistant coach for eight years, says the head coach takes little credit for his accomplishments at Yale.

"He always says that coaches get too much credit when their team wins and too much discredit when they lose," comments Rodriguez, who is also an assistant athletic director at Yale. "It's true in the sense that if you don't have the right horse, you can't win the race. But it takes talent to motivate kids and to build respect, and he's got that gift.

"His greatest gift is to see what the problem is, translate that to the players and come up with a game plan to fix that problem," the assistant coach continues. "We've been competitive because of that ability, as well as his talent for strategizing. He knows our team's strengths and weaknesses, and he finds out the strengths and weaknesses of our opponent, and he figures out how to take advantage of those things."

While not on the field with his Yale players, Meredith spends some of his time helping to develop a youth soccer program in Kenya. Last year, he began a collection drive for soccer balls and uniforms to send to the African country. He is coordinating the program's establishment with members of the Kenyan national soccer team.

The coach plans to spend the summer playing soccer in Sweden, and, never one to rest on his laurels, has already established some new goals for his team.

"When I took this job, I told [Yale Athletic Director] Tom Beckett that I wanted the team to make an NCAA tournament," says Meredith. "Now that we've accomplished that, I'm hoping to win an Ivy League Championship. I want to start focusing on that next goal."

-- By Susan Gonzalez

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