UCLA head soccer coach Tom Fitzgerald announced his resignation
Friday, citing family reasons for returning to his home state of
Florida.
Fitzgerald will also return to assume head coaching
responsibilities at the University of Tampa, where he was head
coach from 1987-1995. The need to be closer to his family, however,
was the main factor in his decision to leave UCLA.
"The decision to go back was something my wife and I made before
we came to California," Fitzgerald said. "We thought we’d come out
here and do this for quite some time but I always anticipated going
back to Florida to be with my family."
Fitzgerald leaves a program he helped to stabilize after years
of rocky coaching transitions, with such accomplishments as the
2002 NCAA Championship and, in 2003, the first ever perfect record
in the history of Pac-10 Conference play (10-0-0).
A vacancy in the head coaching position at the University of
Tampa,
however, cut Fitzgerald’s years at UCLA shorter than he had
planned.
Fitzgerald held a meeting with his players on Thursday and said
the only way to describe their reaction was to say they were like
"a deer in the headlights."
Assistant coaches Jorge Salcedo and Peter van de Ven, Fitzgerald
said, would be worthy candidates for UCLA to consider in their
search. When Fitzgerald was hired in 2002, other leading candidates
for the position included Steve Sampson, a former U.S. National
Team coach and current Costa Rica national team coach, and Paul
Krumpe, who graduated from UCLA in 1996 and was an assistant coach
for UCLA for three seasons, as well as a player from 1982-1985. He
is currently head coach at Loyola Marymount University in Los
Angeles.
For more coverage on Fitzgerald’s resignation,
including player reaction and insight into the future of the Bruin
men’s soccer program, read Monday’s Daily
Bruin.