The most influential coach you've never heard of
Full Time: A show about women's soccer
The Athletic
4.8 • 808 Ratings
🗓️ 7 May 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Full Time, hosts Tamerra Griffin and Meg Linehan sit down with Lisa Cole for a special feature interview.
Cole has had an eclectic journey to now being the head of player pathways at the USWNT, and a backroom staff member under Emma Hayes. Over the past 20 years, her journey has gone from the college game to the fall of the WPS, the creation of the NWSL, to Papua New Guinea and Fiji, as well as a recent influential spell at the Zambian football federation.
On the show, the trio also discuss the challenges women face as they try to become head coaches in the professional game. Why don't more pathways exist for female coaches? What has changed or not changed in the past 20 years? How can the industry change and start providing better opportunities?
While Cole may not be a household name, she remains one of the most respect names in the industry. She is someone revered by her peers, the most influential coach you've never heard of.
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Articles mentioned on the show:
Only two NWSL teams have a woman as head coach. Could expansion exacerbate the issue?
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HOSTS: Tamerra Griffin, Meg Linehan
GUEST: Lisa Cole
PRODUCER: Theo Lloyd-Hughes
VIDEO PRODUCER: Lia Griffin
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Emily Olsen
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, welcome back to full-time presented by Amazon Business. I am Tamara Griffin, and this |
| 0:18.4 | week category is Pathways. |
| 0:21.7 | We will be speaking with Lisa Kohl, not only about her professional pathway, beginning with a college game, through the birth of the NWSL, literally all around the world, internationally as a coach, and now working with U.S. Women's National Team head coach Emma Hayes as a player |
| 0:38.2 | Pathways scout. To do that, of course, I have to be joined by my co-host Meg Linnehan. |
| 0:45.1 | Meg, how's it going? It's going well. I'm excited to have Lisa on the show as someone, you know, |
| 0:50.2 | who you guys go way, way, way, way, way back. Yeah the the WPSL elite days which as my role as local |
| 1:00.2 | historian the interim league between women's professional soccer one of the second short-lived |
| 1:06.6 | professional league and then NWSL i mean Boston Breakers are one of a handful of kind of |
| 1:12.6 | professional teams that year where, you know, Heather O'Reilly was out here running laps around |
| 1:18.3 | college kids and then getting sworn for photos after. But yeah, I mean, Lisa Cole is just someone |
| 1:23.9 | who, you know, I remember talking to her about her time with Tony DeChico, right, legendary head coach of the U.S. Women's National Team, who coached them in the 99 World Cup, but also, again, another big Boston Breakers person. But Dr. Colleen Hacker, who was also super influential with the 99 team, very big on the mentality piece of things. And I mean, |
| 1:46.4 | she even goes back to times with, you know, Leslie Gallimore, who we've had on the show previously, |
| 1:51.5 | a general manager of Seattle Ray. It's a small world, Tamara. And I think that's going to be the |
| 1:56.5 | fun part about this conversation. Yeah. And for me, as someone who's entered this game as a journalist, |
| 2:02.5 | much, much more recently, these conversations are always so enriching for me because it really |
| 2:07.5 | helps me contextualize the moment that we're in right now, the amount of work it took to get here, |
| 2:11.9 | all of the stuff that happened silently, quietly behind the scenes that we now get to shine |
| 2:16.4 | even a bigger spotlight on with these platforms |
| 2:18.6 | that we have. So I am pumped for this very special feature interview. But before we get there, |
| 2:25.1 | make sure that you are subscribed to our full-time newsletter where you will get this and more |
| 2:30.8 | about what's going on in the women's game around the world. It's also free, |
| 2:34.8 | 99, which we love to hear in this economy. Make sure that you also rate and review the show. |
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