I am delighted to announce that I had the honor of interviewing coaches Dean Wurzberger and Carlos Juarez over the weekend. Both coaches were kind enough to let me have some of their valuable time as they were staffing the USSF National B license at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.

Husky coach Dean Wurzberger resigned on Dec. 12, 2010 after 19 years at UW with a 220-112-41 record. The 2004 Pac-10 Co-Coach of the Year and the all-time winningest coach in program history, Wurzberger spent nearly two decades building the Husky program into one of the nation’s finest, fielding teams that annually compete for conference and national championships.

In 2004, Wurzberger – the longest tenured Pac-10 head coach at the time he resigned -was named Co-Pac-10 Coach of the Year for guiding UW to a second-place tie in the conference standings. His 2000 squad tore through the initial season of Pac-10 play, posting an undefeated record on the road, recording upsets at perennial powers Stanford and UCLA. In 1996 and 1998, he was named the NSCAA Far West Region Coach of the Year, and he was the MPSF Mountain Division Coach of the Year in 1996 and 1999. He also was MPSF Coach of the Year in 1998. His MPSF record of 43-6-6 (.836) was the best in the Mountain Division since its inception in 1992.

Under his tutelage, the Huskies reached the NCAA Tournament 11 times in the last 15 years, including back-to-back second round appearances in 2006 and 2007, as well as a school-record Sweet 16 trip in 2003. UW was one of only seven schools in the country to make seven-straight NCAA trips from 1995-2001. His 2000 team won the inaugural Pac-10 Conference championship, on the heels of two consecutive Mountain Pacific Sports Federation titles. After reaching the 200-career win milestone in 2007, Wurzberger became the first Husky coach to collect 200 victories at Washington in 2008.

Coach Carlos Juarez has a wealth of experience at all levels of soccer, having served as a staff coach for the U.S. Soccer Federation since 1989 and as a coach for the U.S. U-17, U-20, and U-23 teams at various times. Most recently, Juarez was with the Claremont Stars Soccer Club as the organization’s technical director, and has formerly served as the head coach of the San Diego Spirit of the WUSA from 2000-2002 and both the men’s and women’s teams at Cal Poly Pomona from 1997-2000. Juarez has over 25 years of experience at the youth, collegiate, and professional levels, and the Los Angeles native holds a U.S. Soccer Federation ‘A’ license. Coach Juarez was hired as an assistant coach for the Chivas USA MLS team in Jan 2010.

So, as you can see from the above, both coaches have a massive amount of experience at the highest level and I am delighted with how well the interviews went.

I just purchased a new iMac computer and will be learning how to edit the videos and should have a couple of posts up later this week.

So, make sure you return to the blog in a couple of days and Let’s Talk Soccer!