I was wondering if anyone has ever seen or heard about Evansville University? It's located in Indiana. Is it a good soccer school?
i know quite a bit about both the men's and women's soccer at Evansville. do you have some questions? i would be happy to answer any that you have.
Is it a good soccer school? Do they have a good record? If you've seen the practices what are they like? Is the competition really good? What are games like up in Indiana? What do the coaches focus on? What is it like in Evansville? Kind of away from soccer but had to ask.
First off - not to split hairs - but it's called The University of Evansville. You asked if it was a good soccer school... yes. They dumped their football program a few years ago. Since that time, they've recommitted their athletic department to mainly two sports: soccer & basketball. The Men's soccer team has great talent, and to say they underachieved in 2004 would be a tremendous understatement. They have the talent to be a Top 10 program in 2005, but they have a lot of personal issues to overcome before the talent can begin to shine. Their Women's program is currently in a 3-season funk. In their first 9 seasons, they went 107-65-18 under Head Coach Mick Lyon who is now with the Hoosiers. The current Head Coach is Ron Raab, a former assistant to April Heinrichs. The talent pool Ron inherited was very shallow, but he's working on that. You can check SoccerBuzz.com for the current verbal commitments he's recieved. It's a fairly impressive list. Their stadium field is one of the most impressive surfaces in the country. 120x75 burmuda that is manicured daily. Awesome field. The training surfaces are also burmuda and look equally impressive to begin the season, but obviously don't hold up as well through constant use. As far as the city of Evansville is concerned, it's a great place for soccer. The youth, club and High School levels of soccer are all very good. A new 3+ million doller, 10 field soccer complex was recently constructed. The main field is a .5 million $ AstroPlay surface. Evansville is a hub for several major soccer cities including, Indianapolis (3 hour drive time), Louisville (2hr), St. Louis (3hr), Nashville (2hr), and Cincinnati (3.5hr). Evansville is a river town that's geared more toward family. It's the 3rd largest city in Indiana and has quite a bit to offer. In closing, I think any female soccer player that is currently looking to attend UE to play has to be committed to returning UE to their glory days of NCAA tournament play - but be willing to handle the early challenges. And last but certainly not least, you didn't ask about the education. Three words - Top Shelf Education. Great professors and a great learning environment. Hope that helps - best of luck!
I don't know what great talent looks like, but I saw them play on a couple of occassions and while I agree they have some nice players, I think they fall short of great talent both athletically and skillfully. Maybe they were very off on the occasions I was able to watch them, but athleticism rarely has a bad day, and great talent usually doesn't look ordinary in back to back games. Just curious about what makes them great talent wise. Are they great based on their media guide, or their player resumes before college or have these players made their mark on the college, national, or international levels already and then underachieved this year?
Not to get to deep into this topic - as this is a Women's thread - but UE does have both athletic and skillful players on their roster. And while it is the norm that players of that caliber stand out at least once in back to back games; depending on when you saw the UE men, it wouldn't surprise me that the whole team looked very mediocre. Many of these points have been brought up by me and others in the Men's College Board under "Up & Coming Coaches." Back to topic - I was simply trying to give zolman a taste of the program in general. We all have our opinions - that was mine. Many posters were tired of hearing about UE in the Up & Coming Coaches thread - so please don't respond there. If you'd like to discuss the UE Men's team in greater detail, start a new thread in the Men's College Board and I'm sure we can talk further.
Thank ya'll. Your opinions helped me a lot. The Evansville area sounds really great. I plan on visiting it soon. The reason I didn't ask about the education part is because one of my coaches went to the University of Evansville. She told me it was a really good school. She ran cross country there and I was really just wanting to get some second opinions on the place. If ya'll have anymore information please tell me. I really want to find out as much from people who actually have been there. Thank you again.