“Coaches Need To Be Held Accountable”, SLU’s Katie Shields Opens Up About The Yates Report Fallout And Her Role In US Soccer

Katie Shields walked into the week on a high, her SLU women’s soccer team had finally broken into the top 10 in 2 separate NCAA polls off the back of another dominating performance in the A-10. SLU finds themselves in the driver’s seat for an at large bid to the NCAA tournament, a position that matches their preseason ambition. However, after Monday saw the release of Sally Yates’ 300+ page report on abuse within the NWSL and US Soccer — her mood quickly changed.

“It’s heartbreaking, it’s disturbing, it’s unacceptable.”

— Katie Shields

Shields occupies an interesting spot in the American Soccer landscape. A Harvard alum, Shields started her coaching career as an assistant coach at UC Irvine, her alma mater Harvard, Northwestern, and finally as an assistant at SLU under previous coach Kat Mertz. Her rise through the ranks is mirrored by SLU soccer’s return to national prominence.

SLU men’s soccer was once known as a national powerhouse in a soccer mad city, but the SLU women never really had the resources necessary to compete at the same level. SLU had finished 12th in the A-10 in 2012 and had only qualified for…