The ULM women’s soccer team is off to a program-best 7-0-1 start this season, including a 1-0-1 mark in Sun Belt Conference play. The Warhawks are one of just six undefeated programs remaining in NCAA Division I women’s soccer.
Sean Fraser was hired as ULM’s head coach in January 2020 and has infused his vision and winning mentality into the team. He talked about that and more in the wide-ranging Q&A below.
Q: ULM is a program that hasn’t great deal of success in soccer in recent years. What made you interested in the ULM head coaching job?
Sean Fraser: “Precisely that. Look at my career and the three jobs I’ve had as a head coach. Midland University on the men’s side, they were a three-wins-every-season team. We played in four straight conference championships and won one. Lincoln Memorial had been at the bottom of the conference. I was there three years; we went to nationals twice and won the conference twice. Building programs in that regard is what’s fun about it. I’ve been an NAIA assistant, then an NAIA head coach, a Division II assistant coach, then a Division II head coach, and now a Division I head coach. I’ve taken every step of the ladder. What I saw here was an opportunity to build a program again – this time in Division I. The facilities were really good. I saw an administration that was going to be supportive and allow me to grow and make mistakes. In the last year, I’ve probably evolved more as a head coach than I have during my career and that has been one of the best things about ULM. The amount of opportunities here have been brilliant. I’m excited to come to work. I’ve been coming in five minutes earlier every day because it’s just more and more fun. That’s what you want.”
Q: You’re in your second year now leading the ULM program. What elements of a winning culture have you incorporated that have helped the team be successful?
Sean Fraser: “I think for us, there’s two things. The first thing I always talk about is 24-hour goals. We’re just thinking about that day and trying to seize the day. We’re not thinking about doing this this year, or getting this many wins, or anything like that. Every morning, our kids wake up to a message with their 24-hour goals and what we need to achieve that day. Second, we talk about championship habits. We want them to do everything like champions – eat food with color in it, get 10 hours of sleep the night before a game, do their rehab and prehab, make good choices in what they’re doing in their own time and make sure they’re going to class. We are talking about championship habits all the time. I’m not one of those guys who thinks we have to do X, Y, or Z. We do scout opponents and look at other teams, but I’m not really thinking about what’s happening outside of my team. We try to assemble a group of players who are fun to be around and really high-quality people. This trip we just did last weekend – the kids were really a breath of fresh air to be around.”
Q: How have you seen your team transform and buy into your culture this season?
Sean Fraser: “People are probably surprised because everyone thinks of this as a turnaround, but it’s not as big of a turnaround as people are trying to suggest. Last year, five of the games in the fall and three of the eight we lost in the spring, we probably could have won seven of those. We were in the games and we had chances to win them. The performance, the method, and the culture were already coming along nicely. We just weren’t getting over the line. Last night, we had a free clinic. Our kids were tired because they’ve been away for five days and are having to keep up with classes and homework, but they were just bringing the energy. It’s been fun.”
Q: You were hired by ULM in January 2020. How difficult was it to take over this job right as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning?
Sean Fraser: “It was difficult. We actually moved here on February 1. At the time, our daughter was about 1 ½ . We had bought a house. We were living in Knoxville and I was driving 90 minutes to work at Lincoln Memorial before that and then our daughter was born. Here, I’m 10 minutes away from work, which is brilliant. One thing that was difficult is that I had to get to know the area. Here, we have Louisiana and Texas and a couple of surrounding states with good programs and good junior colleges. And then we were thrown straight into a pandemic. What transferred with me was international recruiting and my international contacts. We went with a pretty international heavy roster right now, but we’re starting to get to a good point now domestically. We signed Peyton Pipes last year who was the Louisiana High School MVP and we have a couple of local kids coming in next year. We’re starting to get there with recruiting in the area, but it was really difficult.”
Q: How important was it for your program to go unbeaten in the first weekend of Sun Belt Conference play and snap a 30-match winless streak in league play?
Sean Fraser: “We want to put ourselves in a position every single game to be competitive. For the kids, to come away with the tie, they were disappointed to a certain degree that we didn’t win both of those games. We were up 3-1 against Georgia State with 20 minutes left and had been called offsides on another goal earlier that could have put us up 4-1. But it was good to get that weight off our backs. It had been hanging over ULM for a while.”
Q: Courtney Martin now leads the nation in goals per game and also broke the school’s single-season goals record this past weekend. How impactful has she been to your team?
Sean Fraser: “She has just been brilliant. She wants to play every play, she learns, she listens. Take (assistant coach) Will Roberts. He played for me at Charleston when I was an assistant. He was one of the top goal scorers in NCAA history and he was a four-time All-American. He came to Lincoln Memorial with me. In terms of soccer and the way Courtney is playing, I attribute a lot of that to Will. I was a striker when I played and Will was a striker when he played. We’re always on our forwards about movement and playing in areas they want to play in and making it difficult for center backs. Last year, Janet Stopka broke the same record that Courtney has just re-broken. We’ve got freshman Taylor Henry here – she’s been starting and roughing people up. And then Courtney comes on and finesses people. It’s a group effort and it’s really been fun."