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The University of Mississippi Athletics
From The Pressbox
11/12/2002 | Soccer
Nov. 12, 2002
By Lamar Chance
Associate Sports Information Director
The big Hotty Toddy that went up out of Oxford Monday afternoon was from the Ole Miss Rebel soccer team as it celebrated its invitation to the 2002 NCAA Women's Soccer College Cup. The Rebels learned Monday they would be a part of the NCAA Tournament field of 64 for the first time in the program's short history.
Not only is the 2002 Ole Miss squad the first in the program's history to play in the postseason, but also the first Division I team from the state of Mississippi to make the NCAAs. What a tremendous accomplishment for head coach Steve Holeman and his Rebels.
The Rebels (13-4-2) will begin tournament play Friday, Nov. 15 when they travel to Tallahassee to meet the Florida State Seminoles. No matter what the outcome of that game, this bid to the NCAA Tournament is another step - this time, a huge one - for the women's soccer program at Ole Miss.
To see how big this accomplishment is, let's take a short lesson back to how the program started.
Holeman was hired as head coach in December of 1994, and in seven months, he had to build a program from scratch, assembling a staff, recruiting players, making a schedule and ordering uniforms and equipment to begin the first season of play in the fall of 1995. A "make-shift" field was made for that team, which is now the football team's third practice field. The team now plays at the 1,500- seat Ole Miss Soccer Stadium, located behind the Gillom Sports Center.
That first team - as a result of some injuries - had only 13 players most of the campaign, and finished with a 6-12 record. That record did not even begin to reflect the competitiveness of that team. Of the 12 setbacks, half were by one goal, including a late-season 2-1 loss to Kentucky that had Wildcat head coach Warren Lipka feeling fortunate his squad took home the win.
After a 9-9-1 mark the next year, Holeman's plan for building the Ole Miss women's soccer program began to take shape. The 1997 squad - the third year of the program - went 11-9 and earned a bid to the Southeastern Conference Tournament for the first time. The Rebels posted another winning mark in 1998, and then the program took off with back-to-back SEC Western Division titles in 1999 and 2000.
In that 1999 season, the Rebels also advanced to the SEC Tournament championship game for the first time in the program's history. The Rebels came out on the short end that day, but established Ole Miss as a program to be reckoned with.
I was in attendance at that SEC Tournament title game, and one of the players on that inaugural squad, Elizabeth Lee (1995-98), said she wished her teams could have accomplished what the 1999 squad did. I quickly reminded her that the 1999 team would not have been in the title game had not Lee and her teammates stuck with Ole Miss program during the early - and yes, lean - years. It was their perseverance, desire and dedication - along with all the players that have been in the program since - that has made Ole Miss one of the top 64 soccer programs in the nation in 2002.
So, while the big celebration was in Oxford Monday, there should be several smaller ones around the nation as the news spreads to the former players. They deserve to celebrate just as much because they too are going to be in Tallahassee this weekend - if only in spirit.
