Every coach has benchmarks he or she strives for during a career. The first win. The first championship. A decade with a team.
Soccer coach Stacy Strauss has met all of those benchmarks, and Oct. 16 against Bowling Green, she captured her 100th win.
Strauss said the win couldn’t have come soon enough. Throughout 12 years as Ohio’s coach she has seen success and made many memories.
Sophomore goalkeeper Mattie Liston has seen Strauss’ commitment to the Bobcats firsthand the past two seasons but also understands the 12 years she has put in as head coach.
“I think it’s been a long road for her. She has been very dedicated to the team since she’s started,” Liston said. “I think it’s been expected that it would happen, and we’ve been surprised she hasn’t gotten the accolades for the kind of coach she is.”
Strauss said it would be pretty hard to find anything better than coaching at a beautiful campus, which helps draw many recruits to Athens. Her teams won Mid-American Conference titles in 2001 and 2004.
“Certainly the championship seasons were great, but I would say 2003 (is a favorite),” Strauss said.
“We were kind of struggling a little bit and we had not won a game in six. I think we tied a few, but that was the first time myself or anyone else in the program had experienced a lack of success, and then Carolyn Valade scored in overtime to beat Miami,” Strauss said. “It was kind of the goal we needed to turn the season around.”
Though teams rarely play a “perfect game,” Strauss remembers defeating Kent State Oct. 5, 2001.
“It was just one of those games that we could do no wrong. I mean that’s the ultimate quest in soccer, to have the perfect game, and it’s impossible because there’s no timeouts, there’s no game plan,” Strauss said. “It was just one of those days that I looked at the coach and he looked at me. Everything just went right that day.”
During her 12 years as head coach, Strauss said she has improved most as a tactical coach and has a better perspective on the game as a whole. Many times, success has come down to her emphasis of putting the work in, Liston said.
“She has just really taught me to get out everyday and make myself better every day, set realistic goals and get out seven days a week to work hard and become a better player,” Liston said. “Personally, she has really taught me to wake up every day and do the best that you can do.”
Under Strauss, the Bobcats have thrived off the field academically. Most recently, Toye Famodu was named the MAC Female Scholar Athlete of the Week Oct. 21.
“(Strauss) really stresses academics, she stands for all players on the soccer team having a really good track record as far as GPA and academics as a whole,” Liston said. “She really likes to make every soccer player not just a good player but a good person.”
As the coach for 12 of Ohio’s 15 seasons, Strauss is the runaway wins leader in program history.
She said the best part of her job is the relationships developed with the players.
“Being able to watch the kids grow up and have a window into their lives,” Strauss said. “The out-of-nowhere random phone call or email that comes seven or eight years down the line of just saying, ‘Thanks.’ That stuff really means a lot.”
mb832409@ohiou.edu
