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sports:
women's soccer
For Reynaud,
Beach home
By Jamie Rogers
On-line Forty-Niner
Looking for experience
during the offseason, the Long Beach State women's soccer
team hit the jackpot when it hired Pete Reynaud as head coach.
Reynaud came to
LBSU from Fresno State, where he was selected Western Athletic
Conference (WAC) Coach of the Year in 1999, and said he hoped
to breathe new life into the 49er program.
"I've only
been here for five months," Reynaud said. "It's
hard to turn a program around in five months, especially when
most of the recruiting was already done, but I feel it will
be a strong season.
"I am very
happy."
At Fresno State,
Reynaud led his team to a 68-58-8 record. In 1999 his team
won the WAC title and appeared in the NCAA tournament.
Reynaud chose to
leave the Bulldogs for The Beach for recruiting purposes.
"This is a
great area to live," he said. "[LBSU] is right by
the beach [and] it's easier talking students into going to
Long Beach than Fresno."
It wasn't only
in Fresno that Reynaud made his mark, however. For the first
four years of his career he coached at Sonoma State, where
he led the Cossacks to a league title and two second-place
finishes in the NCAC.
He moved on to
University of California, Berkeley as an assistant coach in
1985, then moved into the head coach position in 1986. The
Golden Bears made a NCAA tournament appearance under Reynaud
that year, but the coach was on the move again.
Reynaud returned
for a second stint at Sonoma State in 1987, winning a NCAA
Division II championship in 1990.
Moving around is
nothing new to Reynaud -- he was born in England, lived there
for seven years, moved to Brazil for six years, went on to
Holland for four years before finally settling in the United
States.
"[I have a]
big soccer background," Reynaud said. "In Brazil,
we would play on the beach all day. When the sand got too
hot we would put our shoes on and go play inland."
His background
prepared him well for his future as a coach. He graduated
from Cal State Hayward in 1972 and received his single-subject
teaching credential one year later, both in kinesiology.
Now that he found
his way to The Beach, the players on the team are excited
to work with him.
"He really
knows where he wants to take us," freshman forward Kristin
Travis said. "He is going to work us very hard to the
point [we'll be] very competitive. He does a lot of fitness
to get us to that point.
"He is awesome."
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