70 years on: the female coach who took on men's soccer ... and won

When she took over the reins of the NYU men’s soccer team in September, Kim Wyant, the first goalkeeper in US women’s national team history, downplayed her role as a pioneer.

“That’s such a strong word,” she said. “I happen to be in an unusual situation because I am a woman coaching a men’s team, because it’s not common right now. It will become more common not only in soccer but in other sports. So I can’t give myself enough credit to call myself a pioneer.”

Wyant was being modest, but perhaps she had an inkling that there were other women before her who forged new paths, someone who had a connection to NYU. Such as Lydia Lindgren.

Lindgren had the distinction of coaching three boys’ high school sports teams for three years during the second world war – baseball, basketball and soccer – guiding the Bridgehampton high school boys’ soccer team to the 1945 Long Island championship.

“Unbelievable,” Wyant said.

November 11 marks the 70th anniversary of that game and achievement.

“She was a pioneer,” Wyant said. “She stepped up to take the boys’ sports at a time that needed … I suppose if they had been doing it since that time, it would be seamless now for a woman to be coaching the men, which I think that is, at least in my example. There’s no question that women can do jobs as well as men. That includes coaching.”

While Wyant secured her position on her background and expertise, Lindgren received hers because of a shortage of men. With many young American men off to war in Europe and the Pacific, women took up the slack – in factories, at desk jobs, in schools, and in coaching as well.

Born on October 17 1921, Lindgren attended Baldwin high school on Long Island, an eastern suburb of New York City. Lindgren never played any varsity sports, although swam in a water show at Jones Beach for seven years “by doing fancy diving and by being featured in elaborate aquatic shows,” the Bridgehampton News reported.

She attended Ball State Teachers College in Indiana, and graduated from NYU as a physical education major.

With a shortage of men, Bridgehampton high school, located about seven miles east of Southampton on the South Fork of Long Island, need someone to teach physical education. The school offered Lindgren a job, and she accepted, becoming coach of the soccer, basketball and baseball teams.

The Bridgehampton News reported Lindgren’s hiring in its September 13 1943 edition: “The most surprising innovation for the coming year will be the coaching and handling of the physical education courses by a girl. This is the first time a woman has coached at Bridgehampton and is being anxiously looked forward to by the girls.”

Remember, this was three decades prior to Title XI.

It also should be noted that Lindgren was 21 at the time. However, at the time, it was culturally and politically correct to call women girls. Likewise for soldiers, who were called boys.

Different times, different culture, different customs.

Lindgren realized her coaching career would be limited. “I only took up coaching as a war measure,” she said. “I shall give it up as soon as I can.”

During her short tenure, Lindgren directed the Bridgehampton baseball team to a second-place finish in Suffolk County and the basketball team to a similar spot in the Eastern Suffolk League.

In 1945, the Bridgies and Lindgren made history with a 14-player soccer team.

What made the accomplishment even more remarkable was that Bridgehampton had only 20 boys from the ninth through 12th grades, so the pickings were slim. Still, the team went 7-1-1 in the Eastern Suffolk League.

“We played together all through high school,” center forward Jake Early told Newsday years ago. “We played together during recess, stuff like that.”

Forward Vernon Mack, a vital cog, said the players were hesitant in accepting Lindgren at first. By the end of the season, Lindgren had earned the players’ respect with her knowledge and aggression.

“She’d get into arguments [with officials],” Mack was quoted by Newsday.

“She was very good,” right-back Al Musnicki told the newspaper. “She was very good. She knew her business about playing ball.”

Lindgren said she never had a problem directing boys’ sports teams.

“After all, we take the same courses as the men students at school,” she was quoted by the New York Herald Tribune in 1946. “We get all the theory of coaching and the rest is up to our common sense. Also, we have to get the material. And I have plenty of material among the potato farmers’ sons out there. The boys I had were big and strong and could run all day.”

With all due respect to American soccer seven decades ago, it was not nearly as sophisticated or respected as today’s game. Children were not playing it by the millions, and there was no true national professional soccer league from which to learn. So an athletic team could run another side into the ground.

Still, Lindgren managed to get the most out of her team. “Her sex has proved no handicap, as the Bridgehampton record attests,” Newsday reported in one story.

“She had to organize the guys,” Wyant said. “She had to gain their respect. She had to make sure they were showing up at practices, getting to the games. I’m sure there were a lot of other distractions back then, as there are now. And she won. She won. She won nine games back then.”

Win No7 came on October 12 when the Bridgies defeated Center Moriches 5-1 for the right to meet the Western Division winner, Bay Shore High, for the county title.

Three days later, Bridgehampton suffered its lone setback, dropping a 3-2 loss to Mattituck, but the school already had booked a spot in the Suffolk County championship game.

On November 2, Bridgehampton defeated Bay Shore 1-0 for the county title as Mack converted a feed from Pete Huser before a paid crowd of 300 at Islip High. Mack’s celebration was muted because he fell to the ground, colliding with an oppsoing player as he scored the game-winner. Keeper Joe Turner, who came back from serious injuries suffered in a car accident, excelled, recording the clean sheet.

“I’m well pleased with my boys,” Lindgren said. “They played a fine game. It was such a clean game. Why, we have had to battle our way through a maze of rough games down East to come this far.”

The Bridgies took on Sea Cliff high school for the first Long Island championship at Islip on November 12, 1945, which turned out to be Armistice Day.

It was a classic confrontation between superior defensive and offensive teams.
The Bridgies, led by Early’s county-best 11 goals, had allowed only seven goals. They also tallied 29 times

The Cliffmen were a juggernaut, connecting for 39 goals behind the one-two punch of Dick Shur (11 goals) and Bob Wiez (10). They entered the confrontation with 15-game winning streak over two years, coming off a 2-1 win over Lafayette High. They were backstopped by goalkeeper Carl Braun, who would grow to 6ft 5in and went on to star for the New York Knicks in the National Basketball Association.

Mack provided the scoring heroics again at 2:28 of the 10th period. Early and Richard Sayre helped set up the goal. This time, he did not collide with an opposing player, but was mobbed by many in the paid crowd of 340.

Years later Mack described the goal. “I remember getting it from the left wing, who passed to the center of the field,” he told Newsday. “Jake Early stopped it. He set it up. I was coming a long behind it. As a matter of fact, I yelled at him and made him get out of the way. I felt I had the better chance of getting it in.”

(As for the extra-time periods, don’t worry: the players weren’t run into the ground. High school soccer games in those days lasted 40 minutes in regulation; generally four 10-minute quarters. Playoff matches usually were followed by five-minute periods, although they could vary in length. According to reported accounts, the match lasted 62:38, still short of today’s 80-minute high school matches).

As it turned out, Lindgren never coached another boys’ soccer game. The war was over and men were returning to their jobs. Lindgren resigned her position in early March 1946 and married Sergeant Norman Ullrich of Forest Hills, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, on March 16.

“Coaching men’s sports is a man’s job and there are plenty of men around now,” Lindgren told the Herald Tribune.

Unfortunately, not much is known about Lindgren after she left Bridgehampton. She went on to teach at Baldwin junior high school in her hometown. She died in Vero Beach, Florida in 2002 at the age of 80. Her husband, Norman, died in 1973 at the age of 51. It was not known whether the couple had children.

Regardless, Lydia Lindgren left her mark on soccer history.

“It’s really wonderful that you shed light on this,” Wyant said. “At least I would hope so there are descendants out there from her and maybe they have stories, maybe they have clippings.”

Wyant, a four-time W-League goalkeeper of the year and championship game MVP who played for the US national team in 1985, and the Violets haven’t enjoyed the same success as Lindgren and the Bridgies. At least not yet.

She took over the NYU coaching responsibilities in September only days prior to the Violets’ season opener after longtime head coach Joe Behan resigned to “attend to family health reasons.” So the team never had a pre-season under its new coach.

“My relationship with the team is very good,” Wyant said. “I’m obviously getting and have gotten to know the players at a much deeper level in terms of their ability on the field, how they are individuals, It takes a long time to get to know somebody, to get to know their tendencies, and what can motivate them as a player, as a person. There’s 27 of them, so its getting to know one player at a time. The coaching staff and myself. I’ve had a very small window to look at the team and to decide what the best shape to play in.”

Still, Wyant has been pleased with the team.

“Our performances have been quality performances,” she said. “We’re in games, very much in games. We’re competitive in games. But we just haven’t found that winning formula. The guys look good. They’re working very hard in practice. The culture is good. The locker room is good. Their effort and work rate is excellent on the field.”

Whether Kim Wyant will duplicate Lydia Lindgren’s achievement by winning a championship remains to be seen. One thing is certain: both women have secured their places in soccer history as pioneers.

Michael Lewis acknowledges the help of Julie Greene, the curator/archivist of the Bridgehampton Historical Society, and Stacey Cagno-Schilb, reference librarian of the Hampton Library, in researching the story.