Report: Orlando Pride plans to hire UCLA women’s soccer coach Amanda Cromwell


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Just weeks after her team was upset in the first round of the NCAA tournament, it appears that Amanda Cromwell is leaving the college game.

Orlando Pride is preparing to hire the UCLA women’s soccer coach for the same position, multiple sources said Jeff Kassouf. from the equalizer on Monday evening. Under Cromwell’s guidance, the Bruins ended the regular season on the road to their second straight Pac-12 title that fall, only to lose to unseeded UC Irvine in the opening round of the NCAA tournament on November 12.

A UCLA Athletics spokesman told All Bruins that the university had no news to share on the report. The Pride delivered the following statement to Equalizer Soccer:

“We are in the process of identifying the best head coaching candidate to lead Orlando Pride. We look forward to making this announcement in due course. “

Cromwell signed a multi-year extension to stay at UCLA in 2014, but the team has not publicly released any updates to their contract since then.

Orlando has been without a full-time coach since the middle of the season, with Marc Skinner joining the women at Manchester United in July. Former Florida coach Becky Burleigh was the interim coach, but the club announced ahead of the season finale that she would not be returning full-time in 2022.

The Pride also parted ways with the Executive Vice President of Soccer Operations Amanda Duffy on Monday Steph Yang. of the athlete was reported as part of an organizational reorganization initiated by Zygi and Mark Wilf, who became owners of the club in July 2021.

A possible move to the professional level brings not only a change of scenery, but also a unique predicament for Cromwell, who was one of the founding investors of the NWSL expansion team Angel City FC. The team will debut in 2022, with the draft expansion taking place on December 16, but Cromwell could train for another team in the same league at that time.

Cromwell has been UCLA’s head coach since 2013 and won a national championship in her first season. In the seven seasons since then, the Bruins haven’t quite peaked, but they only missed the tournament once under Cromwell.

In their eight seasons at the helm, Cromwell led UCLA to a 149-29-20 record, good for the second-highest wins and third-highest win percentage in program history.

Cromwell first came to Westwood after completing 11 NCAA tournaments and 203 wins in 14 years in central Florida. BJ Snow coached the Bruins in 2011 and 2012 before coaching the U.S. Under-17 women’s national team in 2011.

This is only the second time that a position as head coach has been filled at UCLA since Athletic Director Martin Jarmond took over the helm in July 2020.

The first opened in July when Amy Fuller Kearney resigned as UCLA women’s head coach in rowing and moved to Senior Advisor for UCLA Athletics. Former assistant head coach Previn Chandraratna is now UCLA’s interim rowing coach.

It seemed like UCLA’s second opening could be men’s golf, as Derek Freeman announced on Nov. 1 that he would be retiring at the end of the upcoming spring season. But with Cromwell’s departure with immediate effect, the women’s soccer job will be the next Jarmond has to fill.

Cromwell is like Freeman in that they both took their programs to their first and only NCAA championships, Freeman did so in 2008 and Cromwell in 2013.

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