From the ground up
By Katrina Styx
for D3sports.com
| Aliceann Wilber's record speaks for itself:
423-120-51. William Smith athletics photo |
SAN ANTONIO -- The head coach of William Smith’s soccer team is a woman of reputation.
She has a coaching record with more than 420 wins. She hasn’t had a losing season since 1983. Her teams have made NCAA Tournament appearances 20 times, making the semifinals six of those and once coming home with the championship. In 2003 she became the first woman to receive the NSCAA’s Bill Jeffrey Award. She has been named Division III Women’s Soccer Coach of the Year four times and NSCAA Regional Coach of the Year four times, and the honors go on.
With so much success, you’d never guess that when Aliceann Wilber started coaching soccer for William Smith in 1980, she had virtually no experience.
Wilber just wanted to be an elementary school teacher, she said. In college she studied elementary education. She did play soccer on a club level team, but schools were not yet required to offer equal opportunities for women in sports, so there was no official school team for her to play on. When she graduated college, she got a K-12 teaching job.
It was Title 9 that pushed Wilber into coaching. When she was fresh out of college, the federal mandate went into effect, requiring federally funded schools to spend equal monies on men’s and women’s sports programs. All of a sudden, Wilber’s school needed a women’s coach, and she was it.
“So I coached everything,” she said. “… It was a big learning curve.”
Wilber spent four years teaching and coaching, until her father’s death led her to take an extended leave of absence. In the time off she wanted to find some sort of recreational activity, but recreational league teams were all for men. Rather than risk joining a men’s team and getting kicked off because of her gender, Wilber decided to start her own team.
“If I organize or create a men’s team, they can’t kick me off,” she said.
In 1980, Wilber became head coach of William Smith’s first women’s soccer team. At first, their record was anything but stellar. It took about six years, Wilber said, before the team scored as many wins as they had losses early on. It’s a lesson she’s tried to pass on to the athletes she coaches.
“People have to be willing to pay your dues, and don’t fret when it’s not easy,” she said, “because it’s not always easy.”
So what is it that makes Wilber such a successful coach? It isn’t how well she knows the game, she said. It’s her people skills.
“A lot of coaching is about being a competent teacher,” she said.
The rest she’s learned along the way, largely through attending coaching seminars. Her mentor, she said, is Graham Ramsay, a soccer guru in the Washington, D.C., area. He’s independently minded, but informed and passionate about soccer at all levels, from youth to professional.
Since the soccer world is constantly changing, there’s always something new for Wilber to learn, and that’s one thing she loves about her job.
“There’s so much new research and information about sports and performance,” she said. “I find it so fascinating.”
Her years haven’t all been easy. There was even a time when she felt she hated coaching, when her own children, now in college, were about 10 and 12 years old and starting to get more involved in activities of their own. Her responsibilities as a wife, a mother and a coach were pulling her in different directions, and she very nearly gave up coaching. But the economic benefits were too good to turn away from, she said, and when she realized that, she also realized that she needed a change in perspective.
“Like that I changed my attitude, and I’ve been fine ever since,” she said with a snap.
It’s a lesson she passes on to all of her athletes: a positive attitude is critical.
“You do change it, and you can change it,” she said.
On the field, her level of focus might be intimidating to some players who are unfamiliar with her. She admitted there have been times when she was so focused on the game that she didn’t notice times when her own family came to see her at the practice field.
Intimidating or not, Wilber has helped create a tight-knit team with ties beyond its current members.
“I love the family, the soccer family we’ve built over the years,” she said.
In fact, it’s one of the reason’s she’s still coaching. Another reason is to pass along what she’s learned to young coaches just entering the field.
“It’s my time to give back,” she said. “I remember being that young coach fresh out of college.”
It was a lonely time for her, she recalled, since women coaches were few and far between. Times have changed, but she still wants to share her experiences.
“I see that as a personal obligation,” she said.
