Amy Edwards’ favorite part of coaching was X’s and O’s.
As an assistant to Randy Waldrum at the University of Tulsa, she and the staff would discuss tactics at lunch, moving sugar packets around to depict players.
“That was before computers – even whiteboards,” she notes.
Team strategies still excite Edwards.
Now she studies player and coach X’s and O’s on video. Her laptop is filled with matches, which she analyzes, marks up and sends to her team.
But that team is soccer officials. Edwards is in her eighth year as manager of tactical and video analysis for the Professional Referee Organization. She oversees hundreds of refs – some full-time, others part-time – in six North American leagues.
Edwards’ job is absolutely full-time. Her role is to prepare officials for each match. To help them anticipate the countless situations they may face – and figure out where and how to move on the field, to best see the action while not interfering with it – Edwards breaks down every game played in Major League Soccer, the National Women’s Soccer League, USL’s Championship, League One and women’s Gainbridge Super League, and MLS Next Pro.
She loves every moment. And she is the right woman for the job.
Edwards began playing soccer in her native Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. (Her state ODP team was “an easy win” for opponents, she says.) She honed her skills traveling three and a half hours to an elite Dallas club, then became one of the first stars at the University of Tulsa, when Waldrum inaugurated the program. He became one of her mentors.
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