Erica Dambach on Building a Coaching Legacy and a Family

Women’s soccer coaching legend Erica Dambach (aka Walshy) joins Sara & Vee on the pod this week! Erica is the head women’s soccer coach at Penn State. She is a two-time National Coach of the Year and five-time Big Ten Coach of the Year. She has led her teams to 17 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, 11 Big Ten regular season titles, five Big Ten Tournament titles and the 2015 NCAA National Championship. In 21 years as a head coach and 17 seasons leading Penn State, Erica has accumulated 314 career wins with a .708 winning percentage, one of the most dominant marks in all of college athletics. Erica is also no stranger to the US Women’s National Team. She was a top assistant coach when they won Olympic gold and bronze in 2008 and 2020, respectively, and when they reached the finals of the 2011 FIFA World Cup. Incredible!

AND she is a mother of two. 

In their conversation, Erica talks about how she got her start as a head coach thanks to the vision of another female head coach (and mother), how more than anything she always wanted to have a family, what it’s like to navigate being a coach at the highest level of sports AND a mother (with no example to follow), the critical role her husband plays in making the whole system work, and how she “saw gold” when she integrated her kids and her team. Erica also speaks out about the intense pressures we often place on ourselves to show up at our best no matter what (even days after delivering a child), learning to ask for help and – the hardest part – accepting it.

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