Aggie Soccer and the Texas A&M Lettermen’s Association will honor ‘Early Years’ players on October 20-21.
Women who played on Aggie soccer teams from 1980-92 will be recognized at a reception and dinner at Kyle Field on Saturday, October 20. The highlight of the event is the presentation of letter jackets to the former players. The Lettermen’s Association has identified approximately 140 players from the era who qualified for letterman status.
“This is an exciting time,” Aggie head coach G Guerrieri said. “We’ve done great things with Texas A&M soccer since becoming a full varsity sport in 1993, but these women are the pioneers who established a great foundation that showed the administration that the sport could thrive in College Station. I’m excited to formally welcome them back into the Aggie Soccer family.”
The players will be recognized at Sunday afternoon’s match against the Tennessee Volunteers. Game time is 4 p.m.
In 1980, as the seventh-ranked women’s team in the nation, the Aggies, competing as a club team, qualified for the United States Women’s Soccer National Collegiate Championship and finished the season at No. 5. The Texas A&M Athletic Department acknowledged the efforts of the 1980 squad by approving a temporary one-year non-scholarship status for the program in 1981. That same year, the Aggies, led by All-American Carol Smith, posted a 16-4-0 record and an eighth-place finish at the AIAW National Championship.
But the following year the temporary varsity status was revoked. Although the 1982 team was ranked as high as sixth nationally, Texas A&M was ineligible to participate in the inaugural NCAA national tournament due to its club status. Later that year, the Texas A&M Athletic Department created a new Varsity II status for the women’s soccer team. Varsity II was separate and distinct from the University’s other three levels of athletic competition (varsity, club and intramural).
Sponsored by the Texas A&M recreational sports department, the Varsity II level provided an opportunity for outstanding student-athletes to compete in NCAA national championships, yet it carried no promise of full varsity team status or financial commitment from the Texas A&M Athletic Department.
Texas A&M competed as a Varsity II program from 1983 to 1992 against many of the top women’s programs in the nation. During those years, the Aggies compiled a 65-62-12 record under coaches Jim Butts, Laura Johnston, Todd Shoemaker, Debbie Michaels and Troy Farrar.
In November 1992, then Texas A&M Athletic Director John David Crow announced the athletic department’s decision to elevate the women’s soccer program to full varsity status.
