Adam MacDonald
VALDOSTA — Valdosta State University took the next step towards fielding a women’s soccer team by announcing Melissa Heinz as its first head coach on Thursday.
Heinz comes to VSU from Winthrop, where she served as the Eagles head coach for past seven seasons. Like she did at Winthrop, Heinz will start a program from scratch at VSU.
“As the new coach I promise to give my very best, have integrity, work very hard and show lots of energy to building this team to the standard levels of the coaches, athletic department and university,” Heinz said.
At Winthrop, Heinz was named the NCAA Division I coach of the year for first year coaches after guiding the Eagles to a 7-12-1 record in their first year of play. Three years later, Heinz directed the Eagles to their first Big South regular season championship and a runner-up finish in the Big South tournament.
Before coaching Winthrop, Heinz spent a year as an assistant at Birmingham Southern. She spent the 2000 season as head coach at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala. From 1997-99, Heinz was the head coach at her alma mater, William Carey College. After seven years at Winthrop, Heinz took the job at VSU because she said she it’s a better opportunity to get more support for her program at VSU.
“The people are phenomenal and the support is huge,” Heinz said. “I come from other programs that don’t even have half this support. And I’m not even talking financially. Support is huge.”
VSU athletics director Herb Reinhard said he was looking for a candidate who would have academic success, on-field success, experience starting a new program, a track record of providing a positive experience for student-athletes and someone who would mesh with the athletic department’s philosophy and represent the University and community in a positive manner.
“I can stand here today and tell you that I believe we have found that individual,” Reinhard said.
The women’s soccer team will not take the pitch for the first time until the 2011 fall semester. Heinz has 18 months to get program ready.
“We have a ways to go before we take the field for the first time, but today we take step two,” Reinhard said. “We’ve announced the program. We now have a coach. I’ve given her the file folder. I can go back to being athletic director.”
Heinz will start working fulltime on March 1 and her first priorities are finding recruits and making a schedule. She said what she learned in building Winthrop is new programs need good leadership.
“It’s a lot of work,” Heinz said. “You have to get out there. You have to let everyone know about Valdosta State.”
As far as scholarships go, the NCAA allows 9.9 equivalencies for Division II women’s soccer. How those scholarships will be used won’t be determined until recruiting starts. For those recruits that come to VSU for the 2010 season, Reinhard said they’ll probably be redshirted since the program won’t start playing until 2011.
Heinz said transfers will be an option, but she added expect to see her doing a lot of coaching since the Blazers will field a lot of freshmen.
“I’m not quiet,” Heinz said. “I can get rowdy. I can get loud. I think in the first couple years there’s going to a lot more coaching because we’ll be younger.”
Heinz called Georgia and Florida recruiting “hot beds” and said she’s thrilled with the prospect of getting to recruit in the South Georiga/North Florida area.
In addition to playing college soccer at William Carey, Heinz played for the Charlotte United Soccer Club and with Youth Soccer Olympic Development programs in South Carolina. She has also served on the staffs at Alabama, Alabama-Birmingham, Clemson and Texas A&M;.
