Elizabethtown University Women’s Soccer – Coach Amy Hough
In today’s episode, I speak with Coach Amy from the Elizabethtown Women’s Program in Pennsylvania. We talk about her timelines of recruiting and how they approach transfers. Coach also shares about the great small town atmosphere with solid academics. Plus, we discuss the deep, supportive staff and how they all interact. Learn more about Elizabethtown University Women’s Soccer.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Coach Amy at Elizabethtown in Pennsylvania. Welcome coach.
Coach: Hi, welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah,
Matt: thanks for being here. I, I say, you know, E Town’s now in the, in Catholic University’s conference, so, uh, you know, normally I’m rooting.
Well, I’m only rooting against you once a year. How’s that? No, uh,
Coach: maybe twice in playoffs. Yeah. It depends. Depends. We’ll
Matt: see. But, uh, but Awesome. So we’re talking here, it’s mid-December. I know we were just chatting before you were just at the NCFC showcase. Um, we’ve got, you know, uh, eec, uh, ga, ECL, all these things happening around, uh, kind of what, what, what is your.
Timeline right now. You know, it’s December class of 26. Are you done? Are you just look, you know where, where do you stand this time of year usually.
Coach: Yeah, so we are, we have the 26 class pretty much wrapped up. There’s, there’s one or two spots that, that we’re just finalizing with [00:01:00] financial packages and I mean, that’s less in my hands and more in, um, the hands of those people and the families at this point.
Um, but we’re really knee deep in, in 2020 sevens, and I’m pretty excited with, with. The prospects of that group, and I mean, as I’m sure that you’ve discussed and, and have discussed on the podcast, like it’s interesting to watch this CLA class with the, um, addition of the roster caps and the explosion of the transfer portal of just how fast some of the class wants to move, but also just the diversity of people being a lot more open to maybe schools that they, they haven’t been, or areas that they haven’t been in the past because they wanna keep their options open.
Matt: Yeah, it’s, it’s been nuts. And so what. For, for you guys is, is the transfer portal, you know, are you, are you window shopping or, or you know, is that something you guys tend to do? Or, or, or how do transfers now fit into, into your recruiting process? Yeah,
Coach: I mean, I think it’s something that you keep an eye to, but like for us, like.
Transfers are [00:02:00] not going to be the way that we build our roster. Um, at least historically it has not been. We’ve had, um, a few transfers that have come in, uh, for the right reasons. Maybe they had looked at eTown initially in their search and ended up choosing a different school that, you know, what wasn’t ending up being the right fit for them.
Maybe they went to a city school thinking that they wanted more of the city and turns out they, they wanted something a little bit more suburban. Um, so they might transfer for those reasons and it’s right, but like. I think for me, I really have gone through the traditional organic process unless it is so right and there is a fit that is going to continue to build our culture and also make us better.
Matt: Okay. Well, we mentioned a couple of those events, but what are, what are the places that you, you tend to go that, that are kind of high on your list each year?
Coach: Yeah, I mean, we’ve historically, like I was just down at NCFC, um, I think this year the big, uh, debate for me was do I go to Kansas City or do I go to [00:03:00] NCFC?
And this year I, I stuck to my roots of going to NCFC and, uh, honestly, pretty excited about some of the players that I saw down there. And some of the, the, the teams, um, obviously continuing to evaluate like the ECNL and the A CRL are great places also to get recruits. Um, so I mean, I started my year down at e.
CRL in Virginia. And I definitely plan like the holidays are coming up, but uh, like, you know, all of us are about to converge on Florida and it’ll be a pretty fun time at the ECNL and the ECRL events down there. Um, and then obviously, like as you go into the next part of the year, um, I’m super lucky where I’m located, um, in central Pennsylvania, so not too far away.
We have like Penn Fusion, so their winter showcase. Um, a lot of college coaches I know come to that and a lot of teams from around the country are gonna be here. Why in February? Sometimes it snows, sometimes it’s 20 degrees. But hey, uh, Pennsylvania is a beautiful spot, and I mean, last year I know we were out recruiting in the snow, which was pretty cool.
Um, and then Jefferson Cup and, [00:04:00] and PDA is another big one that I’ve, I’ve historically gone to and then trying to figure out of the playoffs. What makes sense? Um, so I mean, I’d say that that’s typically, and then of course like the PDA showcase, that was just in the fall we were at. Um, and again, really lucky of where I’m located.
PA Classics is right down the road. So they just had a winter showcase that, I mean, it makes it, it’s a no brainer. It was a 15 minute drive to get to the fields for me this weekend. So,
Matt: gotta like that.
Coach: Yeah, it’s great.
Matt: Well, what, what about ID camps? Do you guys host ’em? Do you or your staff work external camps?
How do they fit in?
Coach: Both. We do, we definitely host, and I love being able to host ID clinics. And I mean, in every stop that I’ve made along my coaching journey, ID clinics have been incredibly important. And I try to talk about, it’s not like, I mean, I’ll be honest, if you look at the prices of ours, they’re usually less than a hundred dollars because I really want players to come here and experience a day with us.
Um, yes, they’re amazing recruiting opportunities. I think in this, um, 2025 class that we had just brought [00:05:00] in. Um. Maybe six or seven of them had come from an ID clinic that had come to our campus at some point for an ID clinic. Um, and again, that probably wasn’t the first place that we had identified them, but they all got to know that process through this because again, as much as the ID clinics are for us to see players in our environment, it’s.
Also like you get to see me and my natural habitat as well. I don’t try to put on a show. My entire team is usually there, um, as well, so that you can see the players and get to know who you’d be interacting with. Um, but then also like, yes, I do also do external ones. Like I know right before the pen fusion showcase I’ll be at, uh, one down in the Philly area.
Um, I do. Depending on who reaches out, like different ones that make sense for us, um, that is attracting kind of the, the right type of, of student or, and a wide diverse array of students as well. Like, I’m not just gonna, um, go to one that’s 15 kids. I, I wanna like, I mean, Keystone right down the road offers, um, a college day.[00:06:00]
Um, so being able to go and, and see some of those players as well as some of the surrounding players as well is, is really great.
Matt: Okay, well, whether it’s at a showcase, a tournament, an ID clinic, kind of what makes up that hierarchy of things you’re looking for in a player both on and off the field.
Coach: Yeah.
So obviously I think the easy, the easy part is the soccer side. Like what’s the technical ability, what is their soccer iq? Um, how are they reading the game? How do they impact the game? Um, I think the harder side to get to know is actually the character piece, which is probably, to me, the more important.
I mean, obviously I want talented athletes. We, we get talented athletes, but figuring out do they fit our culture? Do they, are they the type of person that really has that growth mindset? Because if you come into college, um, as a freshman and you are the same person and same player when you leave as a senior, I haven’t done my job.
You haven’t done your job. Uh, we’ve gotta develop and I think, um, finding players that want that. Um, ability to grow and that commit to the growth process are really [00:07:00] important and making sure that they fit. And I say our culture, we have four values in our program. Um, together, great teammates that keep the program in mind, accountability that they’re doing, like words are gonna match their actions.
They do something every day to continue to hold that standard for themselves and others. Trust is probably the most important one. And I mean, that’s the recruiting process. You’re gonna build trust. It starts in the recruiting process and it, it kind of overflows into your college career. Open honest conversations because while you’re at college, whether it’s soccer, academic, social, like mistakes are gonna happen, failure’s gonna happen, hopefully not too bad.
Um, but you know, you’ve gotta be able to get that support from people instead of, I mean, so many of us wanna put on the armor that we’re doing great and we’re perfect and, and things are, are going awesome all the time, but that’s. That’s not the human condition. We all know that like sometimes there are challenges.
So the more that you can be open and vulnerable with people and build that trust that they can help you when you need it, um, and that you can help them too. And that leads right into our last one is relentless and that’s the ability to [00:08:00] kind of face failure and challenges head on and still keep going and understand that there’s another layer.
So I think those pieces of that, getting to know who a player is at their core. Because again, so many of us can go out and we can find, and we know what talent looks like. We know what a great first touch looks like. We know what a goal score looks like. But if they, if that person comes in and kind of wrecks the culture that, that a coach is building that I’m building here at eTown.
Yeah. That might not be worth it.
Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, that’s, that’s a, it’s a great way to put it. Um, all right, well, let’s talk a little bit about, um. The school itself. Uh, you, you’ve been there a number of years. You get some really good insight for us. So what, what are some of the things that, that you find are, are awesome about the school?
What stands out? Some things maybe we wouldn’t even know about going through the website.
Coach: Well, I think one of the first things is, depends on the day. We have the Dove chocolate plant right down the street, so if the wind is blowing in this direction, you’ve got a nice. Smell of chocolate. We call those chocolate days around here.
Um, it was yesterday, we [00:09:00] actually walked out for lunch and we could smell it and it’s like, this is a good day. Um, so like that, like little things about like a smaller town. We have a great downtown area with some great restaurants as well that are, our girls like to, there’s ice cream emporium downtown as well.
Um, that in candy, which is even better. Um, so good team bonding atmospheres. I mean, academically we’re. We’re really competitive. And I think one of the great parts about going to a smaller school is that, and you can see this on, on a lot of websites, is the interaction and the small class sizes that you’re going to have.
But I remember when I was on my interview almost 10 years ago, um, which is crazy, I just completed season number 10. Like, that’s, that’s wild how quickly this goes. That I asked the question to the people that were in the room with me, the coaches, the support staff and athletics, and why eTown? Why did you all, why have you been here?
Why did you. Stay. Um, and it’s the people, like it’s your professors. It’s the, the, the people in the, the marketplace that are swiping you in. Like, we honestly, like Willie is one of the most [00:10:00] amazing people. Uh, we just, she actually had a Willy Wonka day that she dressed up like Willy Wonka. Um, and the students really, really received it well because she’s one of those smiling faces on our campus that you just count on seeing.
And I think. It’s the people that are here that are gonna make that experience. Whether that’s, again, in your classes or if it’s the people that are helping you study, or your team, like I always say it like, I don’t think that you can go to a college without meeting the people that you’re actually gonna spend that time with, because if you don’t like them, you’re not gonna like that experience.
And a coach is important, they set a vision, but it’s the people that you’re gonna be in the dorms with in like running through a brick wall at practice with like studying next to in the library. Like those are gonna be the people that that make this.
Matt: For sure. Well, you know, one of the biggest things for.
Especially freshmen coming in is really learning how to balance the demands of the school side of things, plus the soccer side of things. So what support systems does, does eTown have in place to help [00:11:00] both sides of that coin? So make sure everybody’s successful.
Coach: Absolutely. Well, with the advent of ai, one of the big things that we added this past year is we have like a chat bot that is checking in with our freshmen in addition to actually the human side.
Because what we’ve learned is that this. Generation of student is really comfortable like texting, right? So like for our general students, like that is another touch point that if they say certain key things like, Hey, I’m really struggling with my, my stats class. Well all of a sudden that actually puts up a flag to a coach, puts up a flag to a professor, puts up a flag to our learning zone, um, that they’re able to kind of make sure that they’re reaching out with some of that.
Support. Um, additionally you also have the advisors that are there, um, to, and professors, but I mean, we have a great system on campus academically that professors and coaches can actually get connected pretty quickly as well as the advisors, as well as the learning zone, as well as our counseling services that if a professor or anyone is noticing they can raise.
A wonderful little red [00:12:00] flag. We don’t wanna see red flags very often, but it’s an important communication tool that can alert the, the key groups that if someone is struggling academically, hey, they might not wanna be talking with their professor about it, but if a coach brings them in and says, Hey, what’s going on?
Well, you know, like, I, I really struggle with this one topic and I’m not quite sure how to approach my professor. ’cause it seems everybody else in the class, and we talked about that trust and that vulnerability again, well. Hey, we can actually connect them with people on our team that maybe have gone through the same thing, um, academically as well.
From a soccer side of things. And I think it’s hard in the transition from high school because most high schools, you’re getting there seven 30 in the morning. You are busy and you have a schedule picked for you until two 30 in the afternoon. If you’re in soccer season, you’re there until probably five o’clock.
Then you go home, you have dinner, you. Like start your homework. It’s so different here when you have an 8:00 AM class, an 11:00 AM class, and a 2:00 PM class. And if you’re thinking, Hey, I can just scroll some reels or watch some Netflix [00:13:00] in that time, or take a nap, like most days you’re gonna end up being up until two or three o’clock in the morning to get your work done.
Which is not conducive to being a great student, which is not conducive to being a great athlete because the more tired we are, the, the more chance there is for injury, falling behind all of that good stuff. And not to mention like we’re in a mental health crisis in this country. Um, and like there’s a rising rates of a lot of different, uh, things.
And I’m not gonna say that this is gonna solve everything but sleep. Regular sleep. A good amount of sleep is actually gonna reduce some of the effects of like the stress, the anxiety, the depression. Again, not gonna eliminate it, but it can help. So if you’re staying up till two or three, like you’re automatically, your mood is changing.
So being able to put in place a support system for them from a soccer perspective of study hall hours that they’ve gotta use the usable hours of the day. Um, so we have study hall hours, um, for anyone on our team that would be below a 3.0 or our first semester freshmen. That it’s four hours a week in those usable hours.
And it’s tailored like so if we get to someone [00:14:00] that’s in sophomore year and still struggling academically, now we start to figure out what can we do to better support this individual? Um, and to be honest, like I’m very fortunate. We don’t have that very often.
Matt: That’s good. Well, let’s rewind a couple months, uh, mid-October, heart of the conference season.
Kind of walk me through that schedule of, of a normal week in terms of classes, practices, meals, game cadence, all that stuff.
Coach: Yeah, so this year, um, the Landmark Conference, um, we have both soccers and field hockey and in, in a way to kind of help our, um, member schools, soccers and field hockey will flip.
Who is a Tuesday midweek and who’s a Wednesday midweek. So this year we were the Tuesday midweek. Um, so our schedule this year, it might look a little different than some other years, but so our typical cadence. Was, we’d have the game and I, I think probably the easiest place to start was game on Saturday.
’cause that’s gonna be consistent. We always have a game on Saturdays. Um, then this year we would have practice a recovery practice that we’d get a lift, um, a good tempo run that was written by [00:15:00] our strength conditioning coach. And then a nice, like shake it out type of technical practice that we might play a little bit, but mostly small sided to get us.
Like really the lactic acid moving Monday, then we would have, um, practice depended on the time of the year once we got to October and the heart of the conference season. Um, we actually had a student athlete who was student teaching this semester and, uh, her Mondays were really tough. Because she’d get done with student teaching and she’d have her seminar class at five o’clock.
So as a team, we actually decided that we were gonna have just a couple 6:00 AM practices throughout the course of the fall so that our entire team could be there in our pregame prep. Um, not, not typical for us in season to have early morning practices at all, but we definitely did that so that we could have our whole team.
Also, it promoted recovery, which was fantastic, that we had a little bit longer, um, to recover. Tuesday would be gim day. Um. Wednesday this year was actually our off day. And then Thursday, Friday we would have a normal practice time of like 4 35 o’clock. Um, [00:16:00] that we’d go four 30 to six or four 30 to six 30.
Um, in our pregame classes for us typically range from like 8:00 AM till usually they’re done by three 20 in the afternoon. So if Molly wasn’t student teaching, we’d be able to, um, maybe start a little bit earlier, but that’s okay. Like, I mean, I think it’s so important as a coach that I’m able to take a look at those class schedules.
And not be picking and choosing who’s showing up to practice and when, um, really working together to maximize that we have our whole team the entire time.
Matt: Okay. Awesome. Well, in terms of the team, what is like your ideal roster size? What are you trying to hit each, each season there?
Coach: Yeah, I mean, I actually, there’s kind of big news coming out of eTown this year.
We’ve historically had a beautiful grass field that we’ve played on and, you know, the, the college made a great investment in athletics that we’re gonna be turning that to turf. Um, so in saying that, like I used to have, and I’m not adjusting it very much, but um, it used to be 24 to [00:17:00] 28 was my ideal roster size.
I think all of us know that as. As awesome as it is to have a consistent surface that throughout our entire conference now it’ll be turf. Um, turf also carries some inherent risk of injuries. So I think now, and I’m not, again, not ingesting a munch, probably 25 to 29, maybe 26 to 30, um, 30 kind of is that number that gives me the, the creeps.
Um, because I think as a, as a coach, it’s very hard to really manage a roster that that is that big be, especially when I’m preaching that togetherness, that impact that each player is going to have. So I think like keeping it in the wheelhouse, like this past year, we were at 26, the year before we were at 26.
I think that’s a pretty happy number for us. But obviously there’s gonna be some times that it bubbles a little bit, just depending on some recruiting numbers and some recruiting classes. Like for example, um, in 2027 we’re gonna recruit a very small class, like four or five, but we only graduate two. So that year it, it’s gonna naturally just bubble a little bit and [00:18:00] then we’ll bring it back down and get it so that we’re recruiting six to eight in each of the classes and, and having the right number.
Matt: Okay. Well what about staff? Talk to me about who else is on staff with you. What role does everybody play? Who, who are some other people may be just supporting the team from the athletic department, that sort of thing.
Coach: Yeah, we have a great staff. So, um, obviously me, uh, as the head coach, I have, uh, a wonderful assistant, Jessica Weel, who just is a recent McDaniel uh, alum.
She was an All American and from this area, so she came back and wanted to get into coaching and I was like, perfect. This is great. Um, I also have a long time assistant who actually predates me at eTown, um, in Jamie, and she is our goalkeeping coach, and she’s been phenomenal in developing our goalkeepers like the past.
In the time that I’ve been here, we have had several goalkeepers be all conference and I mean, I was a goalkeeper in college. It’s great to be able to have someone because I can’t always just go and run and work with the goalkeepers, but it’s great to have someone that can develop them at such a high level as well.
Um, we have had a couple [00:19:00] volunteer assistants as well in the past. A couple of seasons. Um, my former assistant, Natalie, um, who took a, a full-time job at a different institution, not in the soccer realm. She came back and helped us a bit as a volunteer assistant this year. Um, we have also had, um, uh, Kendra Jones, who is, um, went on to Drexel this past season.
Um, we’ve had her as a volunteer assistant, which is was unbelievable. We actually had our, our legendary men’s coach, skip Roderick, pop out for a couple, a couple of practices, couple games here and there as a volunteer assistant because like, it just, the knowledge that that man carries with him is really just awesome.
So, and to keep him around the game and keep him in the blue jay colors, I think is a, is a good thing.
Matt: Okay. Well you mentioned you obviously, but talk to us more about your coaching style and the style of play you like to, to play there.
Coach: Yeah, for sure. I, I love possession with purpose. Like, I mean, I think there’s, um, there’s times and places to connect a, a, a unbelievable amount of passes, [00:20:00] but I think the soccer is best played when you’re looking to break lines and you’re playing it in a possession style.
Um, and I think. Yes, there, there’s times like I will specifically remember, and Matt, I’ll, I’ll make fun of Catholic for just a second. There was one year, and then this is years ago, so it’s not Casey, it’s not her current program. Um, but 2019 JP had an unbelievable Catholic university women’s soccer team, like and un unlucky for us.
We ended up having to play this game on turf at home, um, simply because our, our grass field did not dream. We got. So much rain and it didn’t drain. And I was sitting there going, oh my goodness, what in the world is gonna happen? We have this phenomenal turf team coming to us and JP just knew that we were gonna try to possess, they squeezed us.
I think their back line was above the half field mark. And it was the one time in my career that I looked at my midfielder and I was just like, just put one over the top. Go ahead. Like just go ahead. They’re squeezing us so much and see what happens and our little forward. Um, Lee at the time was able to get on [00:21:00] the back end of that and bury one and like at that point I had never beaten Catholic.
Like that was the first time that, that me and my coaching career, that we beat Catholic. And what does it come from? It came from us being a little bit more direct. So there are times and places for that. But I think the overall style is I wanna play a, a great brand of soccer that’s gonna be possession based.
But again, with the thought process of scoring goals, because you, you have to, like last time I checked you, you win games by scoring more than the other team.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. No, we’re, uh, I, I think that that, uh, sums up what I’m going through, through with my high school team right now in terms of trying to persist.
But sometimes you just gotta, you just gotta go, you know? You just never know. Yeah. Um, well, I’m sorry that it had to happen against Catholic, but that’s all right. Yeah, me too. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll let it slide this time. Um. I, I appreciate all of your insight. I don’t want to keep you too long. I’m gonna, I’m gonna leave you with one last question, and that is, if you had one piece of advice for anybody going through the college recruiting process right now, what [00:22:00] would that be?
Coach: Keep your options open and explore a lot of different places because you never really know where that great perfect fit is going to come. And I think be, be communicative. Be respon like responsible for your own search in the way of like, look, coaches here know a ton, right? So we hear no like that might like it.
It’s not the right fit. There’s going to be more nos in this process than there are yeses. Most likely if, if we’re doing our jobs correctly. So being great and upfront and building that trust that hey, this isn’t the right fit, because just like a, a student athlete is trying to go through their funnel and whittle it down to that final school coaches are doing the same things.
And I think the quicker for, for both sides of it, that people can, can be upfront and honest about where someone might stand in that process. I think is, is really good. And sometimes it’s hard, like I’ll be the first one to tell you. Sometimes it’s hard that, um, I know players aren’t just ghost teaming. I think they’re, they’re really trying to like [00:23:00] weigh their options and eventually they’ll come back and kind of like figure some things out.
And coaches do the exact same things. Especially, I mean, we get to do some of the heat of our recruiting through our seasons. That’s a really tough time to be like. Super responsive within five, 10 minutes or even a day. Um, but I think be persistent, be resilient in that process. And also recognize, like, you gotta know what you want in that process of, of whether it’s, Hey, I, I definitely wanna go to a division one school, and I don’t care what that actually looks like in terms of, um, I, I wanna go and I wanna have that challenge and that’s okay.
Some people you might be sitting on a bench for four years and a role player. Some people might ha be really successful in one or two of the years, but maybe not as much, but you commit to that process. The same thing is true at D three. Like you commit to that process and find what is your best fit that kind of allows you to grow, allows you to develop, um, but again, like just enjoy the process.
Because I think it’s fun to be able to go and meet with a bunch of [00:24:00] coaches I enjoy meeting with, with the recruits that we chat with on the phone or get on campus. But enjoy that process and find that one that hits you in the gut just right that you know is your place.
Matt: Awesome. Really appreciate it, coach. Uh, wish you the best of luck and I guess I’ll see you in Sanford here in a couple weeks.
Coach: Yeah, that sounds great. Alright. Alright,
Matt: take care.
Coach: Bye.
