A pioneer in United States women's soccer is now in charge of the women's soccer program at Illinois Wesleyan University.
Keri Sanchez played on the U.S. Women's National Team that competed in the first World Cup qualifying tournament in 1991. She also won four national championships as a student athlete at North Carolina, where the Tar Heels posted a 97-1-1 record in her four seasons there (1991-94). She then played professionally and later began a long career as a coach.
Sanchez's 25-year coaching career includes stops at Division I Texas and Oregon and Division III Claremont Mudd-Scripps in California.
After her most recent stop as an assistant coach at Texas, Sanchez said she was ready to become a head coach again and appreciates the school-life balance that student athletes in Division III are afforded.
“I think I fit the D3 model. I really believe in the whole student athlete experience and allowing them to be students and athletes and get involved in other things around campus,” Sanchez said.
Student athletes in Division III are not allowed athletic scholarships, unlike those in Divisions I and II.
Sanchez said she doesn’t share too much of her personal story until she’s asked, but she hopes her student athletes can see potential in themselves based on her example.
“I have a lot to offer in terms of ‘been there, done that.’ I’ve been able to do it at a high level too, so I understand the sacrifices and the work you have to put in in order to play at the college level, whether it’s (Division) I or (Division) III,” Sanchez explained. “Not everyone can do it.”
Sanchez said she hopes her career can set a positive example for her student athletes in a sport that has grown in popularity since the era in which she played.
Sanchez recalls there were fewer female sports role models when she was growing up.
“I didn’t have a female sports figure in mind that I was trying to chase," Sanchez said, adding she wanted to emulate hockey great Wayne Gretzky and football star Jerry Rice when she was young. “Now you talk to six, seven and eight-year-olds at soccer camp and they want to be Alex Morgan and Crystal Dunn and Megan Rapinoe. That itself grows the game.”
Sanchez said she hopes the U.S. Women’s National Teams’ success will help bridge the pay gap with their male counterparts. The U.S. women have won the last two World Cups and two Olympic gold medals in the last decade.
“You hope that people who value women’s sports see how incredible they can be and start to invest that money so that you can see more equal pay,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez said she would like to see soccer follow tennis’ model where the gender pay gap is more narrow.
Soccer 'hotbeds'
Sanchez said Chicago and St. Louis are hotbeds for high school women’s soccer and she hopes to build on the sports growth in Central Illinois.
“You’ve got some hotbeds within the Midwest that are getting recruited all over the country, those high-end players,” Sanchez said. “In Bloomington itself, it’s starting to grow. Some of the really good players at Illinois Wesleyan have come from the community.”
Sanchez is IWU’s fifth women’s head soccer coach. She replaced Tony Dulak, who resigned in February after two seasons.
