Dec. 25, 2004
Notre Dame’s Randy Waldrum – the nation’s only repeat winner of NSCAA regional coach-of-the-year honors – is one of six finalists for 2004 national coach of the year, to be presented on Jan. 14 in Baltimore at the annual National Soccer Coaches Association of America convention. Waldrum, whose clever use of personnel played a key role in the ’04 team’s sustained success and postseason push, repeated as the NSCAA Great Lakes Region coach of the year while the other five finalists for the national award include Mark Francis of Kansas (Central region), Princeton’s Julie Shackford (Mid-Atlantic), Yale’s Rudy Meredith (Northeast), Duke’s Robbie Church (South) and Arizona’s Dan Tobias (West). It marks the sixth time in 23 overall season that Waldrum has earned region coach-of-the-year honors.
Waldrum and his pair of second-year assistants – Alvin Alexander (recently named head coach at Xavier) and Dawn Greathouse – guided Notre Dame to a 25-1-1 season that was capped by a win over UCLA in the national championship game. Only three previous Division I teams have won more games in a season.
His 2004 Irish squad finished fourth in the nation with a 0.51 season goals-against average while totaling nearly as many goals (70) as opponent shots on goal (71) and trailing for just 102 minutes all season. On the way to the title, Notre Dame beat Santa Clara, Boston College and Connecticut twice (with the lone loss to UConn) while adding other noteworthy wins over Portland, Stanford, West Virginia, Villanova, Michigan and Arizona State.
Waldrum – who has taken three of his six Notre Dame teams to the College Cup semifinals (including ’99 runner-up) – showed clever use of his personnel during the 2004 season, utilizing the team’s depth to keep the top players fresh for the lateseason run (19 different players started in ’04). He also used a variety of formations and made a key early-season decision to utilize senior Candace Chapman at forward, following a broken leg suffered by her classmate Mary Boland. Chapman had been an All-America outside back in 2002 before missing ’03 due to ACL knee surgery. She had not played forward since high school but responded with an all-BIG EAST season that included 12 goals and 8 assists as the team’s second-leading scorer.
Earlier in the ’04 seaosn, Waldrum picked up his fourth BIG EAST coach-of-the-year award (also ’99, ’00, ’03; no other coach has more than two) and now has earned six NSCAA region coach-of-the-year honors, also doing so with the Tulsa (’90) and Baylor (’98) women’s teams and the Tulsa men’s program (’91, ’93).
Waldrum’s 2003 and ’04 teams combined to win more than 90% of their games (45-4-2) and the Irish have totaled nearly a +100 win-to-loss margin in the six-year Waldrum era (119-20-5; .844) while winning nearly 80% of their “big games” when facing an NSCAA top-25 or postseason opponent (49-13-1, .777). Three of the top-four team GAA in ND history have come during the Waldrum era (0.39 in ’00, 0.49 in ’03, 0.51 in ’04; record 0.36 set in ’97). Waldrum has compiled a 302-125-24 record (.696) in 23 total seasons as a college head coach.