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Part of something bigger McDermott leaves Northwestern for WUSA's Courage
By Dean Caparaz, Soccer America WUSA will begin play in April with just one female coach. Former UNC star Marcia McDermott is heading back to Fetzer Field to lead the Carolina Courage. Marcia McDermott couldn't resist leaving the Big Ten for the big leagues. The former North Carolina star had spent the previous six years as the coach of Northwestern, which she led to NCAA tournament appearances in 1996 and 1998. But she left Evanston, Ill., last November to become the first coach of the WUSA's Carolina team, which is now called the Courage. "It's exciting to be in this league," McDermott said. "It's the best league in the world, and it was very hard to leave behind Northwestern because I really enjoyed building that program. This was just an opportunity to be a part of something bigger that I wanted to take." She will coach the Courage at Fetzer Field, where she won NCAA championships in 1983, 1984 and 1986 with North Carolina. McDermott didn't seek out a coaching job in the WUSA until the franchise moved to the Triangle area.
"I know the area and community, having gone to school here, and the tradition throughout the whole of North Carolina soccer," she said. "I was a part of it. The first time I coach at Fetzer Field will be real memorable for me." McDermott is the only female coach in the women's league. "I may be the first woman coach in the WUSA, but I doubt I'll be the last," she said. "You know there's going to be a lot of good women coaches in this league." HIGH ON LIST. North Carolina assistant coach Bill Palladino and Florida State coach Patrick Baker were also in the running for the Carolina job. "I had close to a dozen candidates," said Carolina and New York Power president Jerome Ramsey. "Marcia was very high on my list. There were a lot of things I liked about her -- her knowledge of the game, her intelligence both about the game and about coaching, managing and mentoring and being a leader. I also liked the fact she's had experience building programs pretty much from scratch." McDermott was the first head coach for Northwestern, which began its program in 1994. She also coached at Arkansas (1990-92) and Maryland (1989), which she coached in the second and third years of the program's existence. She was an assistant coach at UNC Greensboro in 1988. McDermott left the Arkansas job to become a graduate student in the history department at Arkansas. Then the Northwestern job opened up. She never completed her studies. NEW IMAGE. McDermott gets another shot at a brand new program. Time Warner Cable, the team's investor, changed the nickname because it was obsolete. It had created "Tempest" for a team based in Florida, where the club was originally going to play. "I think the Courage is a good name," McDermott said. "It reflects everything the team hopes to embody. Just moving to a new location, we took the opportunity to create a new image." Dean Caparaz is an associate editor at Soccer America magazine.
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