At a press conference Saturday afternoon, Ohio Athletics announced that Aaron Rodgers will be the new head coach of the women’s soccer team.
The University of North-Texas graduate was a three-year assistant coach at the University of Kentucky before signing with Ohio. Rodgers was also an assistant coach at the University of Florida.
The director of Ohio’s athletics department, Jim Schaus, is convinced that Rodgers is the right person to take over the women’s soccer team after former Ohio coach Stacy Strauss resigned Dec. 3 to “pursue other professional opportunities,” following an 8-10-1 season and a season ending loss to Miami in the first round of the Mid-American Conference championship tournament.
“Rodgers is enthusiastic, hard-working, creative, innovative and he has strong contacts to club coaches and high school coaches here in Ohio,” Schaus said in a short statement, adding that Ohio chose him from a tremendous pool of candidates.
“He wants to be a Bobcat,” Schaus said.
Rodgers repeatedly said in his own statement that he is excited to be at Ohio and clarified right away that he is not the Green Bay Packers quarterback.
Even though the new head coach hasn’t had a chance to interact with the team yet, he already has a vision of how he wants to influence the program.
“I am dedicated to bring the best soccer players of Ohio to Ohio University,” he said, adding that other keys to build a successful program is to maintain the possession of the ball and to keep clean sheets.
“I want to develop a program that the players and coaches are proud of,” Rodgers said. “There should be great success ahead; maybe immediately in 2013.”
am794811@ohio.edu
