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Soccer Award Winners

All-American Jennifer McElmury is the most decorated player in Golden Gopher soccer history

I recently had the chance to sit down and talk with one of the best players to ever come out of Minnesota, Jennifer McElmury.

Jennifer McElmury became the first and only player in Minnesota soccer history to earn first team All-America honors after leading the Golden Gophers to an 18-3-2 record during her senior season. The 1997 team co-captain was twice named the Big Ten Conference Player of the Year and she led Minnesota to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and Big Ten titles in 1995 and 1997.

McElmury holds three of the top-10 positions for points in a season and ranks second all- time in career points (124), goals (49) and assists (26). Her number "27" was retired by the U of M soccer program in 2004.   Info

AK:  Did you watch a lot of soccer growing up as a kid?

JM: Most definitely.  I definitely watched a lot of soccer.  I taped a lot of men's national team games because the women's program wasn't up and running too much yet so I watched a lot of the 1990 World Cup when we went to Italy and anytime there was a game on TV I was watching it.

AK:  Who was your favorite team and favorite player to watch as a kid? 

JM:  My favorite team was Germany and my favorite player was Lothar Matheus.  He played center midfield and that's the position that I played so I watched him and tried to model my playing style after him. 

AK: Do you still watch a lot of soccer and who is your favorite player now? 

JM:  I watch a lot of the English Premier League now on FSC.  My favorite player to watch now is Steven Gerrard from Liverpool.  He embodies work ethic, he's a phenomenal player and he is a pivotal piece for his team.

AK:  I also love watching Gerrard play.  How he plays determines how Liverpool does.  It is fun to watch someone have that much of an impact on every game he plays.

AK:  You played with some really good players growing up.  How fun was that?  

JM:  Yeah I really did.  I grew up in a time where there was a lot of good players in Minnesota, not that there aren't a lot now, but when I grew up there was an overwhelming abundance of good female players and I was fortunate to play with a lot of them when I played my club soccer and I got to play with a lot of them in college. 

AK:  A handful of that team ended up going to the U of M together and you had a great team there.  How was it representing Minnesota and having success in front of the people you grew up with?

JM:  I think that is why a lot of us went to the University of Minnesota.  It was a young program and we wanted to make it into a better program, a national program, a national power.  That is why a lot of us went there together and since we had played together in club,

I think we were maybe a couple steps ahead of other teams who had a lot of new players just coming in.

AK:  Speaking of being a couple of steps of other teams because so many of you had played club together, what do you think about the idea of colleges recruiting 5-6 players off of great club teams every other year?  This way you can bring in a group of girls who have already played together, know how each other play and how their personalities work together.

JM:  I think that is a good idea.  I think colleges have to be picky with their scholarships but if I was a college coach and if I could get 5 players off a good team then it's only to your benefit.  Colleges also pick players based off of their team's needs and there are so many schools with scholarships available now so someone could get $10,000 a year from one school and a full ride from another school and it's pretty desirable to go to the school that gives you the full ride.  But kids want to go to school where their friends go so it could happen.  It might be hard to get that many kids to go to one school but it is a benefit if the coach can do that.

AK:  Do you have a favorite game or moment that happened on the field during your career?

JM:  My favorite playing time was with my club team.  I played for Bangu Express and that was when the club first initially started out.  There were only about  4 teams for the club back then: 3 boys and 1 girls.and now the women's side is is bigger, but back then the boys side was bigger.    Just playing with them, because it was a lot of my friends, and going on the road trips together it was probably one of the funnest teams that I've been on.

AK:  Looking back at your career, all the road trips and tournaments you went on, do you remember the games more or the time spent off the field with your teammates? 

JM:  Probably the off the field stuff.  That is what bonds your team together.  Having players do things off the field together is a benefit, but you also remember some of the games you could have one or lost by a goal.  I remember a lot of Regional State Cup Tournaments that we lost by just one goal.

AK: What is Minnesota is doing well right now to create a presence in the region and hopefully produce more teams that can reach the level your team reached and even surpass it? 

JM:  I think you've got to start young.  It's good that a lot of programs are developing young players and not just putting all the emphasis on these select teams.  The select teams was all I had when I was growing up and now you see a lot of clubs spending more time with the 8, 9 and 10 year olds and the good clubs have programs set up for these age groups.  That is only going to benefit our state as a whole.

AK: The younger age group coaches don't get much recognition as the older age group coaches do since America is a win/ result based society and not a development based society.  It's a tricky situation because they are coaching young kids and it shouldn't be about winning games, but developing players.  But the combination of this result based culture and the idea that winning isn't the goal at the younger ages, the coaches of the younger age groups can be looked upon as not being good enough to coach the older age group.  Do you think that these coaches are not good enough to coach older teams?  Or if they are how do we change the perception that they are not quality coaches?

JM:  Any coach should be a teacher and when you're up at the upper level it's such a different game.  It's much more about tactics and the younger level is all about skills.  It's not necessarily a glamorous position, but if you look at all the European methods.  There are books and DVDs on learning the Dutch way.  It's a huge system of play.  The United States should really look at what the Europeans are doing at the U9 and U10 age groups.  I don't think that you can do a whole lot to change the image of this type of coach because most coaches who are coaching at this age either have a kid or they have a love for teaching kids at the younger ages.  If we could encourage coaches to have an older team for a couple of years and then rotate back down to a younger age group for a year or two it would really help.

AK:  What do you think about the idea of holding younger teams training sessions either right before or after the older teams sessions, since you will always have some great coaches who will only work with the older age groups?  This way the kids can get coached by these great coaches too.

JM:  Yeah that could work.  A coach is probably not going to mind doing an extra hour of training if they are already at the field.  It has a lot to do with scheduling and the manager of the younger team being able to work with the coach to set up the times and convince the coach to do the sessions.  It could happen.

AK:  You've been developing the WBL program the past 2 years.  How has that been going? 

JM:  It's a bigger club and there are things that the club does well and there are things that they need to work on.  Right now it is mainly about developing the younger players, like we talked about, and getting a good foundation with them and helping progress the older players.  But I think it is really about educating the coaches at the younger ages.

AK:  You had more teams advanced a level last year than any other year in the club's history.  What did you attribute that to?

JM:  A lot of things.  There are a lot of quality coaches in the White Bear Lake Soccer Club.  They do a lot of things well and it is evident in their high school team.  When I played at White Bear Lake we were good but we didn't have the grass roots White Bear Lake Soccer Club.  I always tell people that since I was a young player the club has really changed things and made them a whole lot better.  That really comes from the top down to the bottom with making things better.  The coaches are better.  The training is better, and more coaches are getting the information that they need to teach their players.

AK:  You are the Stillwater High School Varsity Girls Coach.  Your program has been going through a developmental stage the last couple of years.  How difficult is that to go through as a coach?

JM:  With every program and every team it is hard to maintain being at the top.  We have gone through some of the lows and hopefully now we can start making our way back up.  Like we talked about, it is developing our players and getting the foundation.  What is hard about high school is that you have so many players coming from so many different programs and you've got such a short amount of time to get them working together and hopefully you don't have to spend too much time working on the skills and you can focus on getting the team to play well together.  It is difficult and I'm not going to say it is not frustrating at times for both the coaches and the players, but we try not to let us get us down and we know that in the end we have a goal of getting better.  If we're getting better wins will come and success will come.

AK:  Along that same theme, how do you keep the moral of the Seniors high while you're building for the future?

JM:  You have to encourage them.  A good portion of our seniors did go on to play college soccer.  You can tell them that they can play college soccer and they can play soccer for the rest of their lives.  Our seniors were good at that and they had other sports that they were playing in the winter and spring, but I'm not going to say that they weren't frustrated at times.  The key is how do you channel that frustration and deal with it.  I think we dealt with it fine, but it is challenging.

AK:  Especially when you are going through a frustrating year, how do you get players to leave what happens on the field on the field and not let it affect their relationships with people off of the field?

JM:  There are a couple of ways.  I've heard of coaches that have sessions that are on the field after practice where people are able to clear what ever is on their chests.  That is probably a better way for guys to handle it, but with girls they can hold a grudge.  They can hold something for weeks on weeks and you really need to work with the girls and nip problems in the bud so it is not a long drawn out problem.

AK:  It takes a lot of courage to be great at anything.  If you want to be great not everyone is going to be happy for you and you'll receive your fair share of criticism.  How should kids who are great players at young ages deal with this unwanted pressure?

JM:  This is another kind of gender issue.  Guys are going to be a little bit better at this and girls don't want to be separated from the pack or a group of girls.  As a coach and as a parent you need to talk with the player who is showing they may have a gift or they are doing well and tell them that there are going to be times where you're not always going to be with the players you've always been with.  It is not a bad thing, but if you have a gift you need to take advantage of it.

AK:  In girls I see a lot of players who are super confident between the ages of 8-11 years old but between the ages of 12-16 they just want to fit in and their drive to be great seems to disappear.  Is this because it is too tough to continually maintain and improve upon your skills to stay great?  Or is it because girls would rather fit in and not deal with the criticism that comes with being great?

JM:  Probably a combination of both.  A lot of people don't want to give the time and be dedicated to a sport or there may be another sport that they want to play.  We have people who train year round just for soccer and we have other kids who are shuttled from one sport to the next and so there is not really a given amount of time spent on one sport.  So some of it is probably due to that.  It also can be because a girl has had some success and they don't like being different.  They don't like not being with their friends.  It also could be a maturity or hormonal thing.  Puberty hits and their bodies change so their bodies aren't as fast or as fluid as they once were.

AK:  Is there any chance you'll play in the new WUSA league that is being formed for next year?

JM:  I don't think so.  I'm pretty booked up as it is, but I will definitely be interested in the league.  It will be good for women's sports and it will be good for girls to have some idols on TV to look up to.