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Kit Vela (Brown '90)Head Soccer Coach -- New Mexico |
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Bio
What was your experience in youth athletics? Were there opportunities available to you?
I grew up in Southern California so in saying that, obviously it was no different then than it is now. It’s kind of the hub of girl’s soccer, and I grew up in the area where girl’s soccer started in Southern California. I mean I played club, I played high school, and it was full throttle down there.
Considering the fact you were a women's soccer player, why did you choose to move from the hot bed of youth soccer to Providence?
Brown at that point had been in the top-12 in the country, which is one of the reasons I chose it for soccer. I say top-12 because only 12 teams went to the playoff. There were only, I think, 96 Division-I teams, so the choices were much fewer. So my choices were three different Ivy League schools and two California teams because that’s all there was at the time. I chose to got to an Ivy because that was what I’d wanted since I was a kid. In saying that, the Ivies at that time— especially Brown— were very very competitive out of the 96, or whatever it was, Division-I teams at that time. The East Coast is what dominated college soccer because that’s where there were scholarships, that’s where there were programs. The West had not caught on yet. In fact the West has only really been, Division-I wise, only been around for 11 years. That’s how long I’ve been in coaching for college. I was lucky enough to graduate from Brown, go back to California, get a couple of different jobs. I did a little bit of this and little but of that. I got into coaching at my high school, the high school that I had gone to. Then all these programs opened up and I got be an assistant coach at Loyola-Marymount in California. Fortunate or not, I got in when the West Coast opened. So going to Providence, it was big on the East coast in comparison to the West as far as going and playing in college.
So you have been at the front of the wave as women's college soccer has pushed across the nation.
I was lucky enough to be one of the, I don’t know what they’re calling us now days, but the first. We pioneered it I guess you could say. Then actually when I was in California coaching I was able to play on a very very good women’s team that was one of the first teams in the WPSL when the WPSL and the W-League started, which were the predecessors to the WUSA. So I guess I pioneered all the way along.
What obstacles still stand to young women who want to participate in athletics?
Their challenges are much fewer than ours where there is so much money involved now. I think one of the challenges for them now is there is so much money involved, really doing it for the love of the game and not for the scholarship. Because there is no professional, well there is the WUSA but such a small percentage are going to go the WUSA once they come back again. Such a small percentage of women are going to play semi-professionally or professionally. That really what parents are looking to do is get that college scholarship. That’s what is going to get them to college and pay for their college and then they’ll have their four years and get out. What they forget is that once the get to college, if they are playing for a Division-I program, is that it’s a job. We’re paying them to come and play in college. I think what the challenge is now, is for the player to really love to play and not just want that scholarship. It’s tricky because you see a lot more burnout. I think a lot of kids transfer. They go to one program that is too demanding and they go well this is too much for me or the coach goes you’re not working hard enough, this isn’t the place for you. I think there is a lot more of that going on right now than there ever was. We say it all the time, if the kids now days had the passion that my generation had, my gosh women’s soccer would be outrageous. But I think you get too many kids playing now days really playing because of the money and not because of the love.
What has athletics done for young girls that choose to participate?
I think there are still a great number of players doing it because they love to play and they are getting that opportunity to play at a very high level and get their education if not fully paid for, at least partially. I think that just allows so many more opportunities. So many more girls are going to very good in college and getting a good degree, you know being part of what you might want to call a sorority in a Division-I team. You live and breathe the sport so that’s almost like your sorority and I think it’s given a lot of players a lot of opportunities to meet people, travel around the country, get a chance to compete at a high level. It’s the highest level really because such a small percentage go on to continue to play. So I just think it’s great, it’s great networking, I mean they are getting so much opportunity and at least a chunk of their education is getting paid for.
What do you see in the future for women's athletics, will it continue to expand?
I can only imagine that it will keep growing. Of course there are all the questions with I guess a couple of years ago President Bush was looking at doing away with Title IX, which would kill us. Kill us because then universities wouldn’t have a reason to keep all the women’s sports, monetarily. If things stay as is, I can only imagine it just continuing to grow. If college athletics stay the way they are and continue to grow then there is going to have more reason to have the WUSA, which gives more women an opportunity to play professional. Which was never a thought in my day, I never thought I’d coach when I went to Brown. I just thought I’ll get four great years in, I’ll play two sports, you know I’ll get a great education, gosh it doesn’t get any better than this. Then when I got out, this whole coaching opportunity came up. I think it’s kind of the reverse now girl are going off to college saying, "not only do I want to play but someday I want to coach." Their mentality is a little bit different; I think that’s fantastic. It’s great just to have all these women playing but it will be ever better when they take coaching seriously and they want to coach. Then all the young girls get better role models they get better coaching at the youth level. It’s just a circle.
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