Soccer Coach Feature- Kendyl Baird
Ada Lambert | October 6, 2022
The Warren Wilson College (WWC) athletics department has grown steadily in the past couple years with increased staffing and opportunities. This academic year marks a new beginning for the men’s soccer program with a new Head Coach, Kendyl Baird.
Callie Aerni
Kendyl Baird
Baird started at WWC halfway through last year as an assistant coach, recruited by former head coach Mathes Mannell. As a female coach, she was looking for more opportunities to coach men’s soccer, and Mannell was eager to offer her a place in the WWC soccer department.
“The soccer Twitter communities are really big and crazy and so I said something about ‘who would hire a woman to be a men's soccer coach?’,” Baird said. “When I posted that, I got a response from Mathes Mannell, the coach here before me. He just messaged me saying ‘would you want to come work for me? I would love to have a woman on staff.’”
Baird was enthusiastic about the offer to be a part of the program. She grew up near Asheville, and knew a bit about WWC beforehand.
“I’m from Boone, NC so I had been to campus a few times — I had friends who were playing sports here,” Baird said. “The past few years I was living in Montana, but when this opportunity came up, my partner and I jumped in the car and drove across the country. Since WWC is close to home, it was like a welcoming back.”
When Baird was in college, soccer was a large part of her life.
“I wanted nothing to do with coaching,” Baird said. “I was like, ‘once I graduate, I think I'll be done with soccer and take a break.’ Then, in my junior year, my coach was like, ‘hey, you should try coaching and just kind of see how it goes, I think you’d be good at it.’”
With no clue where to start, Baird was eager to test the waters by coaching different groups. She found that each time she explored jobs, it became clearer where she wanted to take her career.
“I started coaching little kids, and that's where it started,” Baird said. “I was like, ‘well, this is actually kind of fun.’ So then I moved up to the high school level, and then I wanted to try college level so I could keep moving my way up. I got my first college job at Emory and Henry College in Virginia and it just kind of went from there.”
She had only been an assistant coach at WWC three months before Mannell informed her he would be leaving, and encouraged her to apply for the head coach position in his place.
“He told me that he thought it would be a really good opportunity for me and I had a good chance of getting the position,” Baird said. “I hadn’t expected it, so I was like, ‘alright, you're throwing me into the fire but I think I can do this.’ It was all about having confidence in myself. I felt like I knew the team and could help it grow.”
Baird took over the head coach position at the start of the 2022 fall semester.
“I love coaching the men's team because it's a fast-paced and intense game,” Baird said. “When I was a head coach for a boys high school team, I just fell in love with it then. I really enjoy the dynamic with the team and with the guys. Getting this job was the best possibility.”
Being a female men’s soccer coach has been a unique experience for Baird, especially because of gendered ideas around coaching. She’s dealt with both ends of these ideas throughout her career thus far.
“At the high school level, I would have refs that would come up to my high school players and be like, ‘hey, coach, where's your roster?’” Baird said. “And I would be standing right beside them and I’d have to tell them ‘It’s me, I'm the coach. ’There's been moments where I’ve gotten ‘oh, a woman is coaching men, what is that? She probably doesn't know what she's doing.’”
Baird was shocked at the amount of support and encouragement she has received through the WWC Athletics Department.
Baird is one of three collegiate-level female head coaches in the country. A part of her mission is to grow those numbers by defying gender stereotypes and showing others that it’s possible.
“You look at the women's game and there's men coaching, right?” Baird asked. “It’s not seen as a weird thing. So what's the difference between a woman coaching a men's team compared to men coaching women? A part of this is showing younger girls that they can coach a men's team since other people have already done it. I want to continue to change the narrative.”
Even though there is a scarcity of female soccer coaches, Baird has never had difficulty gaining the respect and trust of her players.
“As a woman, it’s no different because they see that I know the game and that I can coach them,” Baird said. “Something I remember from my interview when I was at the high school level was that I asked what they thought about a woman coaching them and they told me, ‘they just want you to know soccer and they want to get better — they don't care if you are a woman.’”
Baird has learned how to foster meaningful connections with her players, and has created those bonds this year with her team.
“I'm big into personal relationships, and getting to know the person and what their life goals are,” Baird said. “Coming here, it helped a little bit that I started as an assistant first. I got to know the core of the team before I got the head position, so I had already gained their trust. It's so important as a new coach to get to know your players, that's something I value a lot.”
Now, as a head coach, Baird hopes to make a significant impact in the program and help her players grow in mindset and skill.
“This program has so much history,” Baird said. “I want to help get it back to where it used to be. Of course, that's every new head coach’s dream, but I think I have the best opportunity here, because I have such a supportive group around me.”
She has high hopes for the future of the men’s soccer team, and intends to support the program as best as she can. Baird strives to reinforce confidence in her team to help them win more games.