B.J. Snow, the husband of U.S. international Lindsay Tarpley, has been named the new full-time head coach of the U-17 U.S. women’s national team, U.S. Soccer announced on Friday. April Kater was also named women’s head development coach.
Snow, who compiled a 34-4-6 record in his two years in charge of the UCLA women, takes over the U-17 job from Albertin Montoya, whose U-17 squad failed to advance from the group stage due to goal differential at last year’s World Cup. The next U-17 Women’s World Cup takes place in 2014.
“The early goals will revolve around solidifying a foundation and a vision of what will happen in the next 14 months,” Snow said in an interview with ussoccer.com. “We want the girls to know how to behave and certainly start to instill some of the philosophies about how we want to play, but we also want to put together a program for all of the girls so when they leave camp they are prepared to work on their own individual development and not have it solely based on being in a national team camp.”
Kater assumes a brand new position within the U.S. Soccer pyramid. She will work alongside U.S. Soccer women’s technical director April Heinrichs and women’s youth development director Jill Ellis. According to a U.S. Soccer press release, “Kater will work closely with Ellis and will be responsible for developing and maintaining a national database, tracking elite youth players to serve all of U.S. Soccer’s girls’ youth national teams.”
She will also serve as head coach of the U-14 U.S. girls and work with the U-15 women’s national team.
This is the first time that the U-17 women’s coaching position is a full-time job. The U-20 women’s position was also recently turned into a full-time position, but the role has not yet been assumed by any coach. Steve Swanson led the U.S. U-20 women to a World Cup title in September, but he has been the coach of the University of Virginia for the past 13 seasons and it is unclear if he is willing to give that up for the U-20 position.
