[U.S. UNDER-17 WOMEN] For the second time in two years, UCLA has lost its women’s head coach to U.S. Soccer. After JillEllis, who named youth development director, B.J. Snow has left to take the newly created full-time position as the U.S. Under-17 women’s national team head coach. In a secondfull-time hire, April Kater as head development coach.
Prior to being named UCLA head coach in 2011, Snow was assistant head coach from 2009-10 and assistant coach from2007-08. He first arrived at UCLA in 2006 as a volunteer assistant coach. He had previously been head men’s coach at his former high school, Portage Central in Kalamazoo, Mich. for four years.
He has previously served U.S. Soccer as an assistant with the Under-20 U.S. women’s national team, traveling with it to the 2010 Under-20 World Cup in Germany.
Several UCLArecords were set under Snow’s watch, including a 25-game unbeaten streak that ran from Oct. 14, 2011 to Oct. 28, 2012, and a record 564 consecutive shutout minutes for goalkeeper
“I went into this position wanting to help develop people and provide a platform to facilitate their development, but, ironically, Ialways ended up feeling that I learned more from them,” Snow said in a statement. “It is these relationships that I will cherish for the rest of my life. They will never truly understand what animpact they had in both my personal and professional growth.”
As head development coach, Kater will work closely with Ellis and will be responsible for developing and maintaining anational database, tracking elite youth players. She will also coach and assist in U.S. Soccer’s National Training Center initiatives, serve as the head coach for the U.S. U-14 girls national teamprogram and also work with the U.S. U-15 national team.
Kater, 43, comes to U.S. Soccer after seven seasons as an assistant coach at Colorado College.
Nice to see Kater moving up to the National level on a full time basis, she was a good coach in her time at Syracuse and will be asset moving forward.