W. Soccer finds coach

After a two-month search, Penn's women's soccer team hired coach Andrew Nelson. Penn named Andrew Nelson the third coach in Quakers women's soccer history yesterday. This move filled the vacancy left by the departure of Patrick Baker, who left for Florida State during December after leading the team through its greatest growth period since it became a varsity sport in 1990. "I am very excited to begin the opportunity to coach the women's soccer team at Penn," Nelson told Penn Sports Information. "I can't wait to start working with the players later this spring." Nelson has headed-up the Wellesley College women's soccer program since 1994. He has garnered a 67-25-8 record, which amounts to an impressive .710 winning percentage. His 1998 team made its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance and advanced all the way to the Division III quarterfinals. A 16-2-3 record and a No. 10 national ranking went to the all-female institution, and a country-low .29 goals against average iced the cake. "He pushes us to do our best, to have higher expectations of ourselves," Wellesley sophomore Hilary Soderman told The Wellesley Illuminator. Nelson's hiring culminates a nearly three-month-long selection process. "Like any head coach search, especially for a national sport like soccer, we like to search nationally," senior associate athletic director Carolyn Schlie Femovich told the DP last week. "We advertise nationally, and we network nationally." Nelson may be just what the Quakers are looking for in a coach. He hails from a program, which, although admittedly much smaller than Penn's, places emphasis on high-powered academics. "We want somebody to understand the Ivy perspective," Femovich said. Also to his credit, the young coach, a 1988 graduate of nearby West Chester University, has belonged to the Region I Girls Olympic Development coaching staff since 1996 and served as Massachusetts coach in 1995 and 1997. But one thing that separates a Division I program from Division III is the need to recruit. As Femovich put it, "I wanted to know if this would be somebody that would be respected by people in the soccer world. We want somebody that will be respected by recruits." The question is, therefore, posed. Can a coach from Division III succeed at Penn? But these same questions were once posed about Baker. Before coming to Philadelphia, Baker was the head women's coach at Division III North Carolina Wesleyan from 1989 to 1993. He had a 46-37-5 career record here and, despite an inability to win clutch Ivy contests, he is roundly considered a success. The Quakers hope that Nelson will encounter the same good fortune. "Everybody that I've talked to has been very positive on the new coach," Quakers senior Jackie Flood said. "Coach Baker laid a solid foundation and we hope he can just improve on that."