From star soccer player at Santa Clara to star assistant coach at Stanford (that included a couple of national championship wins), to now head coach of the UCLA women's soccer team; she is Margueritte Aozasa.
Show Highlights
- She was a four-year starter at Santa Clara University, an assistant coach at Stanford University, where the team won two national championships PAC 12 titles between 2015 and 2019 and recruited two top-five recruiting classes, coached six players who have joined the Olympic team and was named the head coach of UCLA’s Women’s Soccer Team in December 2021
- The positive experience she has had coming into the UCLA program, moving, and getting married all at the same time
- What she has brought to the program after her predecessor, Coach Amanda Cromwell, moved on to coach professional soccer
- What she focused on when taking over an already successful women’s soccer program
- How her coaching philosophy has a lot of similarities with her predecessor’s, and her focus on building the team’s defense
- How she feels about the relational and technical foundations her staff has been laying for the last three months
- Her takeaways from coaching mentors Coach Albertin Montoya, Coach Jerry Smith from Santa Clara University, and Coach Paul Ratcliff from Stanford
- What her leadership style is, and how she strives to be an approachable and reasonable coach
- How she and her staff’s promise to always be honest and transparent with the players has benefitted the team
- How her Stanford team winning a championship in 2017 and then going undefeated until the semi-finals in 2018 influenced her decision to pursue a Master’s in Coaching and Athletic Administration from Concordia University Irvine
- How the MCAA program prepared her for taking the step to be a head coach in the PAC 12
- What she tells her players who want to enter the world of professional soccer to prepare for
- Her analysis of west coast, mid-west, and east coast soccer styles of play
Tags: Masters in Coaching, Coaching, MCAA Podcast, Alumni, Soccer, Olympics, Team USA