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Vol. 128, Issue 19
THE DAILY
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Small businesses feel left behind amid development PAGE 2
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of the University of Washington | since 1891 | dailyuw.com
A fresh start and new energy
Nicole Van Dyke to build on Washington women’s soccer legacy By Andy Yamashita The Daily Nicole Van Dyke’s new office is practically empty. The off-white room in Conibear Shellhouse has three chairs, a desk with nothing on it, a computer, and a table in the back with several plaques that aren’t hers. Windows look out over Lake Washington, allowing the sun to shine in and illuminate the bare walls. The emptiness makes sense though: she just arrived. On Jan. 4, Van Dyke was announced as the third head coach in Washington women’s soccer history, replacing Lesle Gallimore after the legendary coach’s 26-year tenure on Montlake. Since then, she’s been travelling all across the West Coast talking to recruits and current players about her vision for the program.
Van Dyke spent the past four years at Pennsylvania, but has West Coast roots. Born in Sandpoint, Idaho, she moved to Spokane when she was twoyears-old and lived there eight years before moving down to California. “Pretty much my whole life has been on the West Coast,” she said. Out of high school, Van Dyke played a year for College of the Desert in Palm Desert, California, before transferring to CSU Bakersfield, where she played from 1998-2000. She set several school records and her 17 goals in a season are still a program record. Even then, the Division II school had a reputation for churning out soccer coaches, both for college and higher-level teams. But Van Dyke originally thought she wanted to do something else.
“My undergraduate degree was in liberal studies, so I thought I was going to teach,” Van Dyke said. “I am teaching in a way, it’s just a different curriculum.” It was at Bakersfield though, where she also got her first taste of coaching. Van Dyke, along with many of her fellow studentathletes, helped out with local club teams. Upon graduation, she became an assistant coach for the Roadrunners before moving to Sweden for a year to play with Mallbacken IF. In Europe, she had to adjust to a new system, a new role, and a new culture. But she always knew she wanted to come back to the United States, and when she was offered the head coaching job at Division II CSU Stanislaus, she took it. She was just 23-years-old. In 2006, following a league
championship, her alma mater came calling. Bakersfield was about to transition from Division II to Division I and wanted her to guide the school through it. Van Dyke agreed to return, and also became the school’s first full-time women’s soccer head coach. And though things like scheduling and recruiting were difficult at first for a team trying to raise its profile, she enjoyed helping Bakersfield establish an identity for its new women’s team. “It was really fun,” Van Dyke said. “You had an underdog mentality and we built the culture based on that. And we built the culture based on where we could go, not where we were. Those players were great because they gave a lot and changed the trajectory of the program … You always want to do more, but I think the transition was where I
probably grew a lot as a coach.” Van Dyke made her first appearance in the Pac-12 in 2011, joining the Stanford women’s soccer team as an assistant coach under Paul Ratcliffe. The Cardinal immediately played in and won the College Cup, marking the first of her three appearances. “I had a vacancy with my assistant coaching position,” Ratcliffe said. “I talked with quite a few people, the soccer community is pretty small, and a number of people recommended Nicole as a very good up and coming coach. I got in touch with her, brought her on campus, and got to know her better and so I was really lucky that I got to work with her for four years. She did a great job for me.” SEE SPORTS PG. 7