Campus, Arches

Women’s soccer coach Stephanie Cox brings an impressive pedigree—and an introspective approach—to the job.

For Stephanie Cox, books are an essential teaching tool. This spring, not long after the “interim” tag was removed from her title as the head women’s soccer coach, she held a book club with her players. They discussed Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection, to better understand how they needed to rely on each other and embrace their vulnerabilities.

But Cox also likes to assign books to herself. And the one she recently chose was Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self-Promotion, by Meredith Fineman. “I’ve always tried to be humble about my accomplishments,” Cox says. “But as I’m recruiting athletes, I realized I can’t be hesitant to talk about my experience in a way that’s genuine, and that resonates with our core values as a program.”

Women's soccer coach Stephanie Cox.

Logger women's soccer coach Stephanie Cox wants to inspire her team to think big.

That experience—including a national championship as a player at the University of Portland, a gold medal as a defender for the U.S. Women’s National Team in 2008, and a long career with OL Reign, Seattle’s women’s pro team, not to mention a year as an assistant under former Loggers coach Randy Hanson and a stint as coach at Gig Harbor High School—is what landed her the interim job at Puget Sound after previous coach Kim Calkins left after the 2021 season. And after leading the team to a 16-4-1 record in her first season and a berth in the NCAA Division III tournament, there was little doubt that Cox deserved the permanent job.

Now the challenge is to keep the program’s longtime success going, while expanding the meaning of the word success. “I want them to see that their work on the field isn’t just about wins and losses,” Cox says. “It’s about something bigger than that. I see it as an opportunity for them to launch well as adults—to go out and impact the world.”