Players made it easy for Shackford

PU women’s soccer coach named D-I’s best

By: Justin Feil
   Julie Shackford may not be a household name, even if plenty of fellow coaches recognized her achievement in voting her Division I Soccer Coach of the Year — male or female.
   The plaque Shackford received this month to recognize the honor had her name misspelled.
   That’s OK because few will have a chance to see it. It’s in her closet, though she’s just the fourth female to be named the nation’s top coach by the National Soccer Coaches’ Association of America.
   "I have the semifinal trophy in the middle of our office," Shackford said of the trophy that means the most to her. She also earlier was named Coach of the Year by SoccerBuzz magazine.
   Even as various sectors of the college soccer community try to pass along credit to Shackford for the Tigers’ first-ever NCAA Women’s College Cup Final Four appearance, she’s deferring it elsewhere for the job she did in putting together a 19-3 season.
   "There really was nothing difficult about it at all," said Shackford, whose 10th year at the helm of the Tigers women’s team produced a season full of record-breaking achievements, including her 100th win with the program. "It was one of those rare years. In terms of training, there wasn’t a day when everyone didn’t want to be out there. Everyone worked really honestly. Nobody took any shortcuts. If anything, the group is so ultra-competitive, I had to reign them in sometimes."
   The season began with Princeton visiting Germany in August. That pre-season trip meant the Tigers opened training almost one month earlier than usual. And when they advanced to the final weekend of the season, it meant they’d stretched to within two days their longest possible season.
   "Back in ’98, we were not nearly as deep," said Shackford of her program’s first international pre-season trip. "We were 9-2 or 10-2 and ended up losing our last five games."
   This season, the Tigers seemed to feed of the German trip in which they lost more games on the trip than they would the entire season. Princeton returned ready to play at a high level. They immediately opened eyes with a win over Texas A&M, a team that had reached the final eight the season before.
   "To have that kind of game early, and to play as well as we did, gave us a ton of confidence," Shackford said. "We’ve always tried to play a competitive schedule. Sometimes teams you schedule end up being better than you thought. Penn State getting beat (in the NCAA tournament), that was big. So there’s luck involved. The players, all our kids, took advantage of what we were given and then some."
   Of course, Shackford expected a lot of her players, and let it be known. Princeton had not advanced beyond the NCAA first round since it last hosted in 2002. The Tigers went into the postseason on the strength of an unbeaten, untied Ivy League championship year. It was in the postseason when the Tigers had the best chance to show that they were something special and they did so with four straight wins to reach the Final Four.
   "I don’t think I did anything different than in the past 10 years," Shackford said. "I think there were a lot of factors that went into it (being such a successful season). The Germany trip was one. We had a big talented senior class. And we also had a group that underachieved last year.
   "That’s the weird thing about awards like that. So many coaches that do a great job of coaching don’t get the awards. I definitely didn’t do anything different."
   But the underachievement the season before, another year in which they lost in the NCAA first round, served as a perfect motivation for a senior-heavy squad.
   "We definitely talked about all those things the year before," Shackford said. "We talked about with the talent we had, we didn’t get as far as we wanted to. The junior class was primed so you could push the group as much as you could after that. It really was the first group where it was big in numbers and big in talent and big in the psychological dimension.
   "With players like Liz Pillion, Brea (Griffiths), Es (Negron), they don’t back down from anything. We weren’t going to accept anything different than that. Just their make-up from a mentality point of view helped a ton. In some ways, it’s the least amount of coaching I did."
   Shackford didn’t have the intersquad squabbles, tension or jealousy that can weigh down some teams. She had a focused, veteran group to lead the way to a true team goal. That allowed her to just coach.
   "It almost was self-regulating," she said. "All of our coaches and our assistants were big. It was perfect. Chris Pfau has been in the pro game. In his second year, he’s been able to make an impact. Julio Vacacela made the keepers more accountable in practice which made a big difference. Even our trainer Cheri Drysdale, made an impact. She was able to read the players well and know when to get them back. It was just one of those weird years. We got great support from the administration. Everyone was extremely supportive of the team.
   "At the Harvard game, that was the turning point," she added. "We struggled up there like we always do. Once momentum swung in our favor, people got so into it. From that game forward, we had this following."
   That following saw the Tigers set records both individually and team-wise, from an early start to a late finish. Shackford looks at the seniors she’s losing and knows that it will take an even better job of coaching to put the Tigers into a similar position next fall. But by doing so well recently and now earning the national recognition, they’ve established themselves as a national program, and the postseason awards only confirm the standard they’re holding themselves to.
   "I definitely think it opens people’s eyes who didn’t know what the Ivy League was about and had no idea about the level of play," Shackford said. "For Princeton, there definitely has been a positive change in the amount of inquiries from kids.
   "To get a taste of that, they know what it takes," she said of the returners. "I don’t know if it’s a reasonable goal to be in the Final Four every year. Definitely now I feel like we feel like we’ve gotten past that first-round barrier. We lose a big senior class. It’s good and bad for the young kids. They got this great experience, but they didn’t get to play a lot. But they saw what it takes."
   Winning the big-name post-season honors also ensures that the Tigers will have more interest from high-level players looking for the combination that Princeton can give. Being coached by the reigning Coach of the Year is a significant calling card.
   "It’s great for the program, great for Princeton," Shackford said. "Anything that gets the name out there. Our kids play for the love of the game. And they’re able to compete at such a high level."
   Shackford thought she had the makings of a spectacular team coming into the season, and as the year went on, the Tigers proved her correct. A slip-up here or there could have changed everything and that’s something that Shackford acknowledges when she speaks of the season and the Coach of the Year award.
   "I think with soccer, soccer is such a humbling game," she said. "You know you can do a great coaching job and not have a great record. To have what you do validated is something everyone pushes for. I’m humbled by that."
   And if Julie Shackford isn’t totally humbled by thinking of that, all she has to do is dig in her closet for the misspelled plaque that shows even with the highest honor from her coaching peers, not everyone knows quite who she and the Tigers are yet.