Thoughts from yesterday's US-England Match!

First off I've got to give Bob Bradley credit-taking his team into Wembley to play, while also taking on Argentina and Spain in preparation for world cup qualifiers this summer. I like the mentality of playing that level. It was also extremely apparent we've got some work to do. I asked Ted Copeland, the former national team coach for the English Women's team who has been visiting us, what he would tell England at halftime and he said to just keep doing what's working-to which we all agreed. When he answered the same question on the US, it was a big sigh...

These games will serve as a great tool for our backline to work on their organization as we seemed out of tune and not well connected at all. Too often we got caught behind players giving them position to the goal and just too strung out, leaving big gaps (....the second goal!).

I enjoyed the simplicity of how England played and knocked it around 1-2 touch. If you go back and watch the game again, count how many back passes England made to there goalkeeper versus how many the US had. Pretty much summed up the possession being so slanted to England.

It will be interesting to see how the US bounce back in these upcoming matches as again it's about the qualification games for the US in the long run!

Out of town this weekend-so have a great one and we'll catch up with you next week!

English Coaching Legend Visits Fort Worth!

Hope everyone had a great Memorial Day Weekend! This week we've been fortunate enough to host Ted Copeland, former England Women's National Team Head Coach. Ted worked for the English FA for over 10 years and is credited with developing much of their coaching education. Much of it has also been adopted by UEFA. It's been great to watch him working as he truly is great at coaching coaches.

Retired in Spain now with his wife, Ted has had the chance to work with many of England's top professionals on both the men's and women's side. He pretty much discovered one of the top female strikers in the world in Kelly Smith at the age of 15.

I'm looking forward to watching the men's US National Team vs England at Wembley today with Ted. I'll certainly let you know how one of the English greats views the game!

Golf Anyone???

This weekend Ft. Worth host's 5 of the top 10 golfers in the world at the Colonial Country Club for the annual Colonial Golf Tournament. One of the more prestigious and historic golf tournaments in the country, every year it turns Ft. Worth into one big party. From the 10,000s of people who sit along the fairways and follow the golfers to the celebrations downtown, this is one great weekend to be in Fort Worth.

Located just 1/2 mile from TCU's campus, Colonial Country Club is the hub of the golfing world this week and is home to one of the favorite events for TCU students annually. Everyone rolls out the red carpet and has an absolute blast. One of my favorites are the live concerts at the end of each day at the course-the setting and the weather couldn't be better for a great time!

Superb Staff-Jason Jones, Equipment Manager!!!

As we've been profiling our staff here at TCU, one of the key people in making our program what it is, is Jason Jones. Jason is not only our equipment manager, but our Mr. Everything when it comes to getting things done. He definitely spoils our kids and should have the nickname, Mr. Nike. From getting us a one of a kind TCU Purple Nike Jersey last year, to making sure every player has everything they need to be successful. It's nice that we're a Nike school-one of the benefits of having a top-25 football program-so Jason makes sure you've got anything and everything you need.

He's one of the hardest working guy's in the entire department and keeps hours that most people wouldn't even think of. On top of his work with our team he's also probably one of the few guys in his field with a masters degree! He also is a pivotal part of the TCU Athletic Department Indoor Soccer Team-he's the enforcer!

I can't say enough about how valuable Jason is to our program and how much easier he makes all of our coaches and players lives! Thanks for all of the hard work Jason!

2008 Schedule Released

We just released our final schedule for next fall and I'm as excited as I've ever been. We'll play a total of 13 teams that competed in the post season last year, with teams from the SEC, PAC-10 and Big 12. What I'm the most excited about is the fact we're hosting 12 home games with only 7 on the road. That's a huge opportunity for us to get a great start!

Some of the highlights of the schedule include home matches versus Ole Miss, Xavier, Rice, Texas, BYU, UNLV, New Mexico and Utah. With some great road games at Arizona State, Texas Tech, San Diego State, Wyoming and Air Force.

My scheduling philosophy, as you could see this past spring, is always to play the best schedule possible. I'll never duck anyone-to be the best you've got to play the best-once again in 2008 that's the case!

Beckham Mania Hits Texas!

David Beckham made his Dallas/Fort Worth debut yesterday in front of a standing room only crowd at Pizza Hut Park. And boy did he and the LA Galaxy put on a show, defeating FC Dallas 5-1. Was great to see so many young faces out at Pizza Hut Park, many for the first time. It was also very funny listening to all of the girls (and women, my wife included) gasp at every touch he had.

Whether you're a Beckham fan or not, you certainly have to appreciate the level of attention he's brought to the game and MLS. The number of kids exposed to the game for the first time is definitely a legacy Beckham can be proud of. For whatever the interest is...looks or ability--oohhhh wait, I've got to go tear down the David Beckham poster my wife just put up on our wall!

Superb Staff -- Lauren Crawford

One of the things we are all thankful for here at TCU is the incredible staff we have to support our team. One member of the staff who puts in an incredible amount of time and energy is our full time certified athletic trainer, Lauren Crawford. Lauren and her two student training assistants handle the day to day injury prevention, care and rehabilitation of our team. You can always find Lauren in the training room taping and giving treatment to our players before and after training/games, or on the field during training/games, or overseeing the rehab of someone. She also coordinates all of our team's care with our athletic department's staff of doctors. It’s a huge job, and one that Lauren does extremely well. TCU Athletic Training’s dedication to the welfare of our student athletes is second to none as evident in the care all of the teams receive, the incredible medical staff, and the training room facilities here at TCU. We are very fortunate to have Lauren looking after our team, and we just hope all she ever has to do is tape a few ankles, but if necessary she is one of the best when more needs to be done.

What Is A Horned Frog?

The Horned Frog (actually a lizard) has been TCU's mascot longer than TCU has been the university's name. Four students helped make the decision in 1897, when AddRan Christian University (renamed TCU in 1902) was located in Waco, Texas. Here are some other facts about the horned frog, one of the country's most distinctive mascots: The scientific name for this Texas reptile is phrynosoma cornutum; in Greek, phrynos means "a toad" and soma means "body";in Latin, cornutus means "horned."Their primary diet is red harvester ants; they'd like 80 to 100 a day. Unfortunately, red ants are falling victim to insecticides and to more aggressive fire ants in much of Texas.The typical Horned Frog is three to five inches long.Horned Frogs are cold-blooded animals and have an unusual pineal gland, resembling a "third eye" on the top of the head, which zoologists believe is part of their system of thermoregulation.When angered or frightened, horned frogs can squirt a fine, four-foot stream of blood from their eyes.

The Horned Frog was named the State Reptile of Texas in 1992.

In stories of Native Americans in the Southwest, horned frogs are depicted as ancient, powerful and respected. Archaeologists find horned frogs on petroglyphs, pottery and other crafts painted hundreds of years before Columbus set sail for America. In some parts of Mexico, folklore persists that these creatures which weep tears of blood are sacred.

Alumni Game!

Hey guys! My name is Angie and I am a former player for the Women's team. Last weekend we had our annual Alumni game up at good ol' Garvey Rosenthal.

The Men Alumni played first against the current TCU men's club team. It was great to see so many of past frogs out there. We had about 17 former players come out and play. The weather was perfect, not too hot, with a slight breeze. The Alumni ended up victorious with a 3-1 win over the club team. ( The club goal was a little questionable.) All the guys were already talking and getting ready for next years game.

After the men's game the Real game began. :) The current players were warming up and focused while us old folk sat down and watched. We then put in our old warm up CD over the loud speakers and it brought back a lot of memories and laughs. The game started off a little rough for us Alumni. We probably should have actually warmed up but we were too busy putting on our sweet matching Alumni shirts ha! Anyways, we were trailing 4-1 with about 17 minutes left in the game. We switched some players around and put all of our speed up top. The combination of Karissa Hill, Lauren Pope, and Rebecca Repasky proved to be too much for the current team to handle. Our team was able to score 3 more goals while giving up one, making the final score 4-4. Everyone thought the game was over until chants from the current men's tennis team (who just won the Mountain West Conference tournament title) begged for a shoot-out to determine a winner. The current players clearly had no idea what they were going up against when we decided to bring in the ringer and put Jennifer Sims in between the pipes. Jen ended up saving 4 out of the 5 attempts by the current players while us old folk shanked all but one of ours. Time for sudden death......the current frogs were up first and Jen made a fantastic diving save to deny the goal. Kim Ozenick stepped up for the alumni and buried the ball in the left corner to give the Alumni the 'W'! This is the forth year in a row that the Alumni have been victorious and we plan on keeping our winning streak alive.

After the game everyone enjoyed some great food from Rosas ( gotta love fajitas) and hung around to catch up. It was soo exciting to be able to play at TCU again and with all my former teammates! I was also even able to have my toasteroven returned to me after it was kidnapped my Jr. year by another player Niki Long. I know former players Jessica and Suzie (my roommates at the time) were just as excited to see our precious over returned! It was a great night full of food, soccer and lots of laughs, and we are all looking forward to the game next year!

MAYFEST!

I've asked one of our alumni to do a guest blog on the alumni game from this past weekend, so I figured I'd share another neat thing about Ft. Worth as today got the chance to take my wife and son to MayFest.

We've got so many different things to do in Ft. Worth, from 9 world class museums, one of the best zoo's in the country, numerous lakes, a vibrant and active downtown, the Ballpark for the Rangers, Hurricane Harbor, Six Flags, that sometimes a great event like MayFest gets overlooked.

MayFest is held annually on the banks of the Trinity River and is a huge spring celebration with 3 stages for bands, arts and crafts, shows and rides-Zak's favorite was definitely the jungle themed bounce house obstacle course.

Today we caught a great cover band on the main stage, a jet ski stunt show and the K-9 dogs trick show. Overall not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon outdoors with the great weather!