So I'm not sure what to make of this. Coming off a season where they reached the MAC Championship, Western Michigan women's soccer head coach Suzie Grech resigned a mere month and a half before the 2012 season, only to accept a job for the University of Houston ... as an assistant coach.
This is weird. You know I think it's weird because the headline says so.
What in the world? That doesn't appear to be a step-up. Maybe it's kind of a promotion when you consider Houston will presumably go from Conference USA to the Big East starting in 2013, although much can change before then. Now WMU has to scramble and get a women's soccer coach, which the school says they are going to try and fill immediately.
My buddy Peter Schinkai can't understand the move either:
Despite all of her achievements though, Grech will be remembered as a coach who bailed on her team just before the season. It’s one thing to be hired as the head coach of your alma mater, Michigan, but it says something completely different to leave to become an assistant coach on Chris Pfau’s Conference USA staff.
But while the circumstances are different, the timing is very familar. Grech replaced Mike Haines three years ago, who resigned in July 2009 after being suspended for a DUI in April of that year. So, again, I'm not implying anything remotely similar to the two situations other than the timing deep into the offseason. In the Haines situation, Grech was named interim coach before having the interim tag removed. For now I have to imagine WMU will go with their assistant coach, Andy McCaslin, to act as interim coach.
I suspect we may never know why she left. There could be many reasons, and all our best speculation — and we're good at this — could leave us coming up with a wrong answer. But man, what a drag on a pretty good sports program in the MAC. Hopefully their next coach doesn't jump ship like this, and if they do, they do so, like, right after the season.