We are honored to welcome special guest, Carrie Taylor, to the Kicking It Forward Gala on February 1st. Taylor is an absolute dynamo and trailblazer for women in soccer both as a player and a coach. As the Technical Director of the Women’s Pathway in the United Soccer League (USL), she is making a huge impact on the growth of women’s soccer in the U.S.
Taylor’s story of how she went from her original career goal of being a doctor, to becoming a soccer coach and women’s soccer advocate is one to be shared.
The Flint, Michigan native fell in love with the beautiful game as a youth soccer player and wanted to continue playing in college. As a student at the University of Michigan, she played on a club team, because there was not a program for the women’s side. Carrie decided somebody needed to do something about it, so she did.
Taylor worked hard on fundraising and petitioning the school along with some of the other women at U of M and it worked … by the time Carrie was a senior, the University established a women’s soccer program. The best part about it was that Taylor was able to delay graduation and play on the University of Michigan’s very first D1 women’s soccer team in 1994.
The coach of the women’s soccer team at U of M was Debbie Belkin, who had been on the US Women’s World Cup team when they won in 1991. Interestingly enough, Taylor’s club coach had been Linda Hamilton, also a member of the 1991 team. Playing for two players that she had idolized, Carrie was inspired to seek a career in coaching
Life was amazing, here I was 21 years old and having the honor of playing for two women who had played at the HIGHEST LEVEL OF THE GAME. Holy crap, I thought, maybe I could be like them. My soccer skills weren’t going to get me to the national team — but I thought maybe I could be a coach like them.1
After graduating with a BS in Biology, Taylor successfully pursued a coaching career, taking the position of assistant coach of the Women’s Soccer team at Temple University, moving on to continue coaching D1 soccer at Xavier University. Taylor decided to get some high school coaching experience, so she put her biology degree to work and taught high school biology, while also coaching the girl’s high school soccer team. That experience confirmed that she wanted to focus on coaching.
Those years of coaching high school showed me that I wasn’t a teacher who was coaching. I was a coach who was teaching. That’s when I knew that I was meant to be a soccer coach.1
Taylor decided to take on a uniquely challenging experience at Mt. Saint Joseph University as the head coach for the women’s team who was also responsible for starting the very first men’s team at the DIII school. That experience helped prepare her for more ground-breaking moves in her career.
After four years at Mt. Saint Joseph University, Carrie made a series of career moves that helped expand her horizon both as a coach and leader in the world of soccer. Her positions included Director of Coaching for various youth clubs, consultant, project manager, podcaster, all while continuing to grow her experience as a coach.
During this time, Taylor came to work with Landon Donovan on a bid for an MLS expansion team in San Diego and found they had a lot in common. So, when Donovan established San Diego Loyal SC as co-owner and head coach he knew that Taylor was perfect for his assistant coach. This meant that Carrie Taylor was the first woman to coach a USL Men’s professional team.2
It was an exciting time … but it happened to be the year 2020 and everything was changing. The pandemic had a profound effect on many of us, including Taylor. After a four-month hiatus due to COVID, she made the difficult decision to step away from her historic position at San Diego Loyal SC.3
“With COVID and Black Lives Matter and the world being in a state of flux, I tried to take a look at myself,” Taylor told The Athletic, “and see where I was personally with my career and things I believe in, and what I wanted to put my energy towards. I think some things were maybe out of alignment. Going forward, there’s causes that I believe in that I wanted to support.”
During the pause with coronavirus, I’ve been looking at the future. No one knows what it’s going to look like next year, but I was reading a lot of articles about how this pause might really affect women and might really affect the women’s game in a lot of ways.
Taylor’s next steps included working as a technical consultant and assistant coach for the Jamaica women’s national team, developing a three-year strategic plan for the future of the Reggae Girlz’ program.4 And now she has brought her all of her experience and passion to USL to lead the women’s program.
As the USL Technical Director Women’s Pathway, Taylor is once again taking the lead to advocate for women.5 Not only has she seen first-hand how important opportunities like the ones in USL are for women, she knows how important it is for women of the future.
We need to encourage not only young girls that play soccer but any young girl. They will see competitive, strong, intelligent, diverse, confident women pursuing their goals with all of their being.1
Join us at the Kicking It Forward Gala on Feburary 1, 2025, and take this incredible opportunity to meet Carrie Taylor, along with fellow soccer icon, JP Dellacamera. They will speak on the evolution of women’s professional soccer in the U.S. Read more about the gala here.
Sources:
1Soccer Today Staff. “WOMEN’S WORLD CUP: BE A PART OF THE DREAM”. Soccer Today, https://www.soccertoday.com/womens-world-cup-watch-and-be-a-part-of-it/. 5 Jun 2015.
2Soccer Nation Staff. “Why Landon Donovan made Carrie Taylor his first assistant, and what it could mean for women coaching men’s soccer”. Soccer Nation, https://soccernation.com/all-roads-led-carrie-taylor-to-san-diego-loyal-soccer-club/. 20 Nov 2019.
3Rueter, Jeff. “Carrie Taylor leaves historic role as men’s coach with higher ideals in mind”. NY Times – The Athletic, https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/1928634/2020/07/14/carrie-taylor-leaves-historic-role-as-mens-coach-with-higher-ideals-in-mind/. 14 Jul 2020.
4USL Super League Staff. “WWC Q&A with Carrie Taylor”. USL Super League, https://www.uslsuperleague.com/news/2023/08/09/super-leagues-carrie-taylor-the-expanded-field-has-opened-the-worlds-eyes-to-the-quality-players-that-are-out-there/. 9 Aug 2023.
5USL Soccer Staff. “USL Super League Names Carrie Taylor Vice President of Operations”. USLSuperLeague, https://www.uslsuperleague.com/news/2023/08/09/super-leagues-carrie-taylor-the-expanded-field-has-opened-the-worlds-eyes-to-the-quality-players-that-are-out-there/. 13 Jul 2023.