Head women’s soccer coach, Kate McArthur’s expectations for this upcoming season are very high. She is hoping that the team will be very hardworking. McArthur said “the team is very coachable and they want to improve.” McArthur said that the team is ranked last in the conference, but she believes that they can be better than that. The team has one win and one loss so far this season, making it is hard to tell what the end will look like.

McArthur believes that the competition in the CCIW conference is strong this year, but foresees her team in the tournament. As a new coach, she said that she’s not afraid to play anyone because everyone is beatable. She hopes to get on the new field, play people in the conference and “squash” them.

When I asked McArthur if she had a motto or philosophy that she coached by, she said that she doesn’t have anything set in stone because it differs based on who the team plays, the day they play and the girls themselves. She changes her strategies based on the needs of the team. McArthur said that she always tells the girls that she does everything with a purpose and for a reason.

In McArthur’s opinion, success is measured by giving your absolute best. She doesn’t believe that there is more than 100% effort, that the best you can do in the classroom and on the field is 100%. She encourages her athletes to do their best no matter what in the classroom and on the field.

McArthur has been an assistant coach, an associate head coach and now she is a head coach. McArthur said that she now gets the opportunity to teach her ideas and see them in action. She believes that coaching soccer is fun at Millikin and she loves being here because it’s unique. McArthur said that her view of the campus is that it has a wide variety of people and if she were a student, this is where she would want to go. Kate has played soccer since she was four years old and soccer makes some of her earliest memories. Soccer was the first sport her mom ever let her play and she hasn’t quit since the day she started. McArthur said that some of the best things she has learned have come from soccer as well as some of the hardest obstacles that she has ever had to overcome.