Petrucelli out -- Kelly in

Chris Petrucelli era over

Chris Petrucelli’s contract with the University of Texas has not been renewed. Effective today, the Texas Women’s Soccer team is without a head coach while a search begins for a new coach to lead the program. A more detailed article will follow on this site this afternoon.

A_Fan wrote:It will be interesting to see where Petrucelli ends up.

Announcement on New Coach Expected Soon
Posted on December 13, 2011 by Bobby
Word in Austin is that an announcement is expected either Wednesday or Thursday from Chris Plonsky regarding the new women’s soccer coach at Texas. Angela Kelly is expected to be named as the new head coach of the program.

Kelly, a graduate of North Carolina, recently completed her 12th season as the head coach of the University of Tennessee women’s soccer program. She has a 64% winning percentage during her tenure at Tennessee, the same winning percentage as Chris Petrucelli in his time at Texas.

Kelly graduated from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1994 and served as an assistant coach at North Carolina in 1995 before moving to Knoxville to become an assistant soccer coach at the University of Tennessee. Kelly served in that role for four seasons before becoming the head coach at Tennessee in 2000.

In Kelly’s four seasons as a player at North Carolina (1991-1994), the Tar Heels were at the tail end of their nine consecutive National Championships. Carolina won their 12th overall NCAA Women’s Soccer National Championship in Kelly’s senior year.

Two weeks ago when it was announced that Chris Petrucelli’s contract had not been renewed with Texas, speculation swirled that Randy Waldrum was the likeliest candidate to become the next soccer coach at Texas. This speculation did not pan out, though.

by CHRIS HENDERSON on DECEMBER 17, 2011
When you’ve been around the world of college soccer for a while, you tend to become numb to words like “shocking” and “stunning” which have become commonplace in the lexicon of some when describing the sometime turbulent world of the sport. But make no mistake, Texas’ hire of Tennessee head coach Angela Kelly to be the new head of their program is both of those things and then some.