Potential Coaching Candidates I guess that since no one else has responded here there probably aren't any good rumors going around about any potential Courage coaching candidates. I wonder if UNC assistant Bill Palladino is one of the leading candidates or perhaps even Wake Forest coach Tony da Luz? I believe that Palladino coached UNC to a NCAA championship in the early 90's when Anson Dorrance was with the USWNT. Wasn't Palladino also the head coach of the Raleigh Wings when they won back-to-back W-League championships a few years ago? Apparently da Luz was one of the top candidates for the San Diego Spirit job, but according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, one of the main reasons why da Luz decided not to take the Spirit job was because he didn't want to move his family from Raleigh back to San Diego.
According to the latest Soccer America news...2 of the top 3 candidates are Angela Kelly and Dave Dir.
Dave Dir - Former coach of the Colorado Foxes - Original coach (five years) of the Dallas Burn - co-host of MLS ExtraTime during it's second season - ESPN/espn2 color analyst on MLS broadcast - GK coach of US U-20 MNT Dave Dir is one of the few folks I could think of that, if hired, would not be looking over their shoulder at McDermott. He would be a very big pickup for the league, and the Courage.
More From McDermott Interview Here is something I just came across that I had posted previously, but was lost when the BigSoccer Administrators "restored" the boards in mid-December and wiped out nearly a month's worth of posts:
Palladino & Ellis Since he is currently an assistant coach with the USWNT it seems unlikely that Palladino will take the Courage job. I also think that if Palladino was going to take the Courage job an announcement would have probably been made by now. Wasn't Susan Ellis an assistant coach for Bill Palladino when he was the coach of the Raleigh Wings? I also think that if Ellis had been offered the head coaching job, an announcement would have been made quite some time ago. My money right now is on Angela Kelly taking over as head coach and Susan Ellis staying on as her assistant.
From the Soccer America newsletter: Expect an announcement early next week -- Tuesday is likely -- that the Carolina Courage has, finally, hired a head coach. All indications are that U.S. national team staff coach Jay Entlich is new boss. Entlich, the Region IV girls coach, worked with Carolina goalkeeper coach Scott Calabrese at the U.S. U-21 women's national team camp in San Diego last month. Entlich joined U.S. Soccer last March after two years as women's coach at the University of Tampa. He previously was an assistant coach with Virginia Tech's men's and Mississippi's women's programs. He is expected to sign a contract this weekend. If the deal falls through, a European coach likely will be brought aboard.
Wow, that is interesting. I was told someone completely different. It was a male, but not this guy. Thanks for the post. Not exactly a glowing endorsement for Ellis if they are going to go abroad next.
Thanks for the update! I wonder what happened with Dave Dir and Angela Kelly? I'm also curious about who this European coach might be. AndyMead mentioned the Fulham coach earlier in this thread. I was also wondering if Gaute Haugenes might be getting some consideration for the Courage job since it sounded like he was set to leave after Fulham decided to no longer continue being England's only women's professional club following this season.
Any Information About Entlich? Does anyone know anything more about Entlich or have a link to a bio? I did a couple of searches, but couldn't find much about him that was current.
Background isn't everything... While it would be nice to know a little bit more about this guy (i.e. what kind of success he's had as a coach, playing background), his coaching history isn't the most important thing, IMO. Look at Krikorian - the University of Hartford isn't exactly a high-profile college program. And wasn't Tom Stone running a soccer camp in Denver or something beforehand? Few would argue with the success they've had so far. Part of me is disappointed that, if this report is true, the Courage won't have hired another woman coach, since the franchise is a pioneer in that regard. Still, it's nice that Entlich has a background in women's soccer. And if he gets the job done, and the team continues its success, that's all that matters to me at the end of the day. My guess is that if the report is in fact true, we'll find out all about him on Tuesday.
Entlich the player After I made my last post, I went searching for Jay Entlich on Google. Like Nordby1 said, there's not much out there that wasn't already mentioned in the Soccer America article, but I did find some stuff in this Mississippi State news release that talks about his playing career: http://olemisssports.ocsn.com/sports/w-soccer/spec-rel/051398aaa.html
Re: Background isn't everything... I have to admit that prior to seeing the Soccer America report I had never even heard of Jay Enlich. I will also be disappointed if the Courage don't end up hiring another woman coach. I hope that Ellis at leastl stays on as one of the Courage assistants.
New thread If this guy is going to be our new coach, he probably deserves his own thread, right? So I created one based on what we know so far. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32812
Re: Background isn't everything... Any theories as to why Dave Dir or Angela Kelly are not on the radar screen anymore? Even though UH is not a major program, it is still a very good quality team. Thomas was also a scout for DiCicco prior to the 99 WWC.
A clarification That was pretty much what I was trying to say, although apparently poorly. No one doubts the success, or coaching ability, of Mark Krikorian. But when he was hired, I'm sure there were a lot of people going "Who's that?" because of the low-profile nature of the Hartford program. There are an awful lot of people out there, the extent of their knowledge about women's soccer coaches is Anson Dorrance and Tony DiCicco. Now, thanks to the league, WUSA fans also know about Krikorian, Marcia McDermott, Tom Stone, Ian Sawyers, etc. But there's still a lot of good coaches out there who are unknown to the vast majority of soccer fans. If Entlich is indeed going to be the next Courage coach, I sure hope he's one of them.
Dir & Kelly If Carolina was in fact ever interested in them, I would have to guess that both Dir and Kelly must have decided against taking the Courage job. Since I believe they were both with the Raleigh Wings at the same time, if Kelly had taken the head coaching job with the Courage, I'm guessing that there was probably a good chance that Susan Ellis would have considered staying on as her assistant.
I only watched several mins of the Argentina match on Saturday but I swear I thought Dave Dir was doing sideline reporting for this match.
Dir & Kelly Maybe Dir got a better offer from ESPN? I was also wondering if the timing was such that Kelly felt that she didn't want to leave Tennessee after a number of high school players had already agreed to come and play for her there.
I didn't see the match, but it's possible he was. I know he worked for ESPN during the World Cup, doing studio analysis between games and at halftime.
Dir interviewed for the Carolina job. To my understanding, he wasn't made an offer. He's with the U20 men still.