After almost two decades of college, amateur and youth coaching in Southern California, Carlos Juarez gets his first shot at the professional ranks with the San Diego Spirit.
Kevin Crow jokes that sometime during the next two years, he’s going to get Carlos Juarez.
Crow, the former San Diego Sockers star who now works as the San Diego Spirit’s general manager, holds a playful grudge against Juarez, whom he played against in college. Juarez and his visiting Cal State Los Angeles team beat Crow’s San Diego State squad, 1-0, in 1981.
“I can still picture the goal,” Crow said. “It was my mistake.”
Last November, Crow made Juarez, 40, the head coach of the Spirit. Juarez and Crow have two-year deals with the single-entity WUSA.
OFFER HE COULDN’T REFUSE. For the past four years, Juarez coached the WPSL’s Ajax club and the men’s and women’s programs at Cal Poly Pomona, a Division II school in Southern California.
He says coaching the best players in the world in the best league in the world was an offer he “couldn’t refuse.”
“Plus, I love Southern California,” he said. “It had to do with the whole package.”
Taking the Spirit job meant that he and his young family didn’t have to relocate. Juarez and his wife, Kristi, have a 7-month-old son, Blake.
Juarez is happy that moving to the WUSA also left him with just one coaching job. Along with his college and WPSL posts, Juarez has been a U.S. national team staff coach, serving as a national coaching coordinator and as an assistant for the U.S. under-20 women’s national team for eight years. He has been an instructor for national license coaching schools since 1990.
From 1993 to ’97, Juarez was the head coach of the U.S. U-16 girls team. From ’86 to ’94, he coached the girls Western Regional teams at the U-16 and U-19 ODP levels. From ’85 to ’93, he was the men’s soccer coach at Cal State San Bernardino. He was the coordinator for the CSUSB men’s and women’s programs from ’95 to ’97.
“Here, I’m fully devoted to the Spirit,” he said. “I can be more efficient. The hours are still long, but for one purpose – to make the San Diego Spirit a good team.”
SHREWD IN DRAFT. Juarez got a head start when the league allocated the best set of U.S. founding players – Julie Foudy, Shannon MacMillan and Joy Fawcett – to the Spirit last May. The club took a hit with the news that a pregnant Fawcett will miss most of, if not the entire, inaugural season.
Juarez helped offset the loss of Fawcett by taking Fan Yunjie in the December draft. The Chinese national team star ranks with Fawcett among the best defenders in the world.
He also bolstered his roster by drafting Jaime Pagliarulo, a sixth-round pick in December who may turn out to be a steal. The former George Mason goalkeeper played well on the U.S. national team’s January trip to China.
“From what I’ve seen of Carlos judging talent, being organized and being administratively on top of things,” Crow said, “I’m very happy.”
by Soccer America associate editor Dean Caparaz