When April Kater announced that she was resigning on April 7, Syracuse lost the only women’s soccer coach it knew. Now, more than four weeks after Kater’s resignation, the SU athletics department is trying to find its second coach in Syracuse women’s soccer history.

Janet Kittell, the associate director of athletics, said she hopes to have a new coach in place within the next couple of weeks. No candidates or specifics have been announced.

‘The search is being run efficiently,’ Kittell said. ‘The student-athletes are involved in the process. This is a very normal search.’

Kater resigned last month to pursue an education in environmental studies. She will study in New Zealand.

After Kater’s resignation, assistant coaches Tracy Stalker and Greg Tait assumed responsibility for a spring schedule that ended April 18. Stalker and Tait will run the annual girl’s soccer camp this summer, with Tait serving as camp director. The new coach would participate in the camp as well, if hired in time. The camp is from July 28 to Aug. 1.

Both of the assistant coaches were offered the opportunity to return to Syracuse next year. Tait, who is pursuing his master’s degree in business administration, will return for at least one more year.

Neither Stalker nor Tait were considered for the head-coaching position. Kittell cited their lack of experience as the main reason why.

‘As good as they are, they really are not qualified,’ Kittell said. ‘They don’t have the depth of experience necessary.’

The athletics department is only considering candidates that meet strict criteria. All interested candidates must have played and coached at the Division I level and enjoyed prior success in developing a program. A master’s degree is also preferred.

The absence of a coach will not hurt the Orangewomen too badly. Although there was no head coach for the spring schedule, Kittell aims on having a coach before the more important summer practices. All recruiting for the class of 2004 is complete, with Kater signing three girls for next year. Recruiting for 2005 has yet to begin. A new coach should be in place in time to start recruiting normally.

‘(Recruiting) starts gearing up towards the end of May,’ said Sarah Barnes, the assistant coach at Connecticut. ‘The end of June is when it’s really busy. By now you already have kids targeted. Nowadays, kids commit early.’

In fact, Kater may have timed her resignation in order to allow maximum time for a replacement to be named and settle in before the 2004 season.

‘They’re going to be fine,’ Barnes said. ‘This is really a dead time. It happens in every program. Sure, there will be a transition, but I don’t think there will be a problem.’

The new coach will surely have added pressure to revive a program that is coming off consecutive disappointing seasons. The past two years, the Orangewomen have gone 12-19-4. They have fared even worse in the Big East with a record of 2-8-2.

Syracuse has the players to succeed, Barnes said. It just needs to become closer as a team and hope that a little luck comes its way.

‘They are a very talented team,’ Barnes said. ‘Soccer is a funny sport. The best team doesn’t always win. I think that happens more so in soccer than any other sport. You have to be lucky. They just need to put things together. It’s more on the kids. They just need to merge together.’

Published on May 4, 2004 at 12:00 pm