⚽️ LADY VOLS SOCCER

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Congrats to Maya Neal


Dual-Sport Standout Neal Named 2022 McLendon Scholar

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July 19, 2022
Tennessee two-sport star Maya Neal, who excelled in both soccer and track & field from 2015-19 has been awarded one of eight 2022 McLendon Foundation Postgraduate Scholarships.

While rehabbing from a sports injury, Neal spent the past year gaining valuable real-world experience in collegiate athletics administration with Tennessee Athletics' Vol Fellows program.

Before further pursuing a career in athletics administration, Neal plans to continue her professional soccer playing career, which includes a previous stint in France.

Her future educational plans include pursuit of an Executive Master's in Sports Business at Temple University.

Neal received a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Tennessee in 2019 after serving as captain of both the soccer and women's track & field teams. On the pitch, Neal earned All-SEC honors for four consecutive seasons and led UT to its first-ever NCAA quarterfinals appearance in 2018. As a track & field athlete, she competed in the combined events and was a second-team All-American in the heptathlon at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships.

She also represented her teams on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and served as Community Service Co-Chair within SAAC. And in 2018-19, Neal participated in the prestigious year-long VOLeaders Academy leadership curriculum.
The McLendon Foundation, established in 1999, is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded and administered by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). Through the scholarship program and leadership initiative, the McLendon Foundation provides minorities educational resources, practical experiences and serves as a vehicle for networking, career advancement and advocacy on behalf of the profession. More information regarding the McLendon Foundation can be found at MinorityLeaders.org.

Neal and the other McLendon Postgraduate Scholarship winners each receive a $10,000 grant to be used toward postgraduate studies in athletics administration. Funding for the scholarship program has been provided in part by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA); the Cleveland Cavaliers; Major League Baseball (MLB); the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC); the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA); the National Basketball Association (NBA); the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA); Capital One; and Sears, Roebuck and Co.

As of the 2021-22 academic year, the John McLendon Minority Postgraduate Scholarship Program had awarded more than 120 scholarships, totaling more than $1.2 million.

Tennessee men's basketball coach Rick Barnes is one of the McLendon Foundation's Minority Leadership Initiative Ambassadors, funding an academic coordinator position in the UT Martin athletics department.



Dual-Sport Standout Neal Named 2022 McLendon Scholar - University of Tennessee Athletics
 
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National Signing Day
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Huge congrats to Ainsley Loyd on committing to play soccer and further her education at the University of Tennessee on scholarship!

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Wow: I can find almost nothing on Loyd online,which is rare. All I've learned is that she plays for the Roosevelt Mustangs in Eastvale,California--southern California, near Anaheim. It's an area where the Weeklys got a lot of players for our softball program. I assume she plays club soccer but don't know for whom. I saw one local article that mentioned her as a defensive player. She doesn't appear to play for an ECNL club, and I think that's the reason that Top Drawer has nothing on her. The vast majority of P5 recruits play for ECNL programs, and that gets them on TopDraw and generates material on the prospect. I'm not sure we've ever had a player from California.
 
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I saw where Pensky announced his new assistant coaches. Interestingly, neither of them have any high-level coaching experience. One of them was a longtime player in Major League Soccer who retired recently. As far as I can tell, he has no coaching experience at all.

The other assistant is named Aaron Brunner, who has been longtime coach and, most recently, director of the Richmond United ECNL program. Pensky had a good relationship with Brunner and Richmond United, as evidenced by the fact that three of our incoming freshmen played together on some good Richmond United teams. It will be interesting to see if we can still recruit top players from Richmond United going forward. I think it's fair to say, it's going to be more difficult. These guys could work out well for Pensky, but I like our hire of Becky Edwards a bit more and hope she can help us continue to recruit some top-level players.
 
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Proud of Maya Neal for earning the postgraduate scholarship, and proud of her for her strong Tennessee career and the work she did helping to get shoes to Liberia. That said, it's unfortunate that Neal didn't drop track early on at Tennessee and give soccer her full attention. If she had she might still be playing professionally.

She was a heptathlete for the Tennessee track-and-field program--and by all accounts a decent one, and I think she enjoyed all the "two-sport" athlete attention she received. Thus she spent her every spring in college practicing track and not practicing soccer. Had she dropped T&F and really concentrated on soccer, she could have perhaps been a lot better than she was.

What, you say? She was, as I recall, a two-time ALL SEC soccer player. Yes, she was. She was a good centerback--strong and extremely fast and athletic. She could chase down and stop an opposing forward closing in on our goal with the ball. Terrific closing speed. But IMO she was quite a bit overrated: Her excellent speed and athleticism camouflaged the fact that her soccer skills, game awareness and positioning were not very good. Her passing was poor. (I'll leave it at that.) She didn't get drafted but did, after a time, catch on with Le Havre, one of the low-ranked teams in the senior French league. It was a good opportunity, and she got some playing time, but the team was bad and I don't think Neal was all that good either. I saw her in one French League game and she was beaten twice for goals. I think by her second year Le Havre was relegated--meaning dropped down to a lower-league in France, which is what happens in Europe to the bottom two or so league teams and not long after that Neal was not playing anymore.

She could yet catch on with another team in another league--she's athletic and pacey enough to catch eyes. But I think she's been out of the game for two years now, and it will be tough. My point is, had she thought about which sport offered the best long-term potential for her, she might have dropped track and played spring soccer for three or four years. She could have then improved the basic soccer skills and IQ that one needs to play at a decently high level professionally. To play professionally, your overall soccer skill level really needs to be quite high even BEFORE you get to college--see Huff. But spring soccer would have helped her. But track-and-field meant a lot to her, I respect that, and these are the decisions one makes in life. I wish her well going forward. I bring all this up because every year for three years, I'd watch Neal on the soccer field--doing something impressive one minute, and then flubbing some basic pass the next minute, and thinking: "Gee, she REALLY should have played spring soccer."
 
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turbovol said:
Proud of Maya Neal for earning the postgraduate scholarship, and proud of her for her strong Tennessee career and the work she did helping to get shoes to Liberia. That said, it's unfortunate that Neal didn't drop track early on at Tennessee and give soccer her full attention. If she had she might still be playing professionally.

She was a heptathlete for the Tennessee track-and-field program--and by all accounts a decent one, and I think she enjoyed all the "two-sport" athlete attention she received. Thus she spent her every spring in college practicing track and not practicing soccer. Had she dropped T&F and really concentrated on soccer, she could have perhaps been a lot better than she was.

What, you say? She was, as I recall, a two-time ALL SEC soccer player. Yes, she was. She was a good centerback--strong and extremely fast and athletic. She could chase down and stop an opposing forward closing in on our goal with the ball. Terrific closing speed. But IMO she was quite a bit overrated: Her excellent speed and athleticism camouflaged the fact that her soccer skills, game awareness and positioning were not very good. Her passing was poor. (I'll leave it at that.) She didn't get drafted but did, after a time, catch on with Le Havre, one of the low-ranked teams in the senior French league. It was a good opportunity, and she got some playing time, but the team was bad and I don't think Neal was all that good either. I saw her in one French League game and she was beaten twice for goals. I think by her second year Le Havre was relegated--meaning dropped down to a lower-league in France, which is what happens in Europe to the bottom two or so league teams and not long after that Neal was not playing anymore.

She could yet catch on with another team in another league--she's athletic and pacey enough to catch eyes. But I think she's been out of the game for two years now, and it will be tough. My point is, had she thought about which sport offered the best long-term potential for her, she might have dropped track and played spring soccer for three or four years. She could have then improved the basic soccer skills and IQ that one needs to play at a decently high level professionally. To play professionally, your overall soccer skill level really needs to be quite high even BEFORE you get to college--see Huff. But spring soccer would have helped her. But track-and-field meant a lot to her, I respect that, and these are the decisions one makes in life. I wish her well going forward. I bring all this up because every year for three years, I'd watch Neal on the soccer field--doing something impressive one minute, and then flubbing some basic pass the next minute, and thinking: "Gee, she REALLY should have played spring soccer."
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It seems like a lot of soccer players were two sport athletes in high school but end up focusing on just the one when they get to the university level. Thanks for updating us on Maya’s playing status, had wondered if she was active or not.
 
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Nice article on the new assistant coach.

Five things to know about Tennessee soccer assistant coach Becky Edwards' professional career

What to know about Tennessee soccer assistant coach Becky Edwards


Excerpts:

Decorated college career at Florida State

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She has won three professional championships
Was on the path to USWNT senior team
Had a nine-year professional career
Longtime teammate of Alex Morgan
 
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Edwards certainly seems like an absolutely great hire. She's played for an elite program, with an elite coach, and was one of its top players. She had a 10-year pro career--playing with and against some of the best players in the game. She then coached at a good college program and was most recently an assistant with the U.S. U20 team. She will relate to our young female players and bring a sharp eye to individual and team performance and how both can get better. And wonderful to have a female coach on the staff. I'll bet she's also a big help with recruiting.
 
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mad4vols said:
With this link.

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I'm curious to know how she was even spotted--given that she's in a California and plays for a club is not in the ECNL, and ECNL Showcase tournaments are where most (but not all) college prospects are scouted. She is far removed from our usual recruiting grounds. You can get a sense of how strong a club program is, and the quality of its players, by seeing where various players at the club are signing. I saw about six other college announcements for this Rebel program, and they were all for extremely small schools--Antelope Valley college, to name one. Doesn't mean, of course, that Loyd is not a good player, and our coaches obviously think she is.

Maybe one of our coaches spotted Loyd at a tournament where our incoming freshman centerback, six-foot-ball Tierney Bailey, was also playing. Bailey is from Utah. I don't think we've ever had a player from Utah, which is not exactly a hotbed of top-level youth soccer. Bailley is not only tall but seems to have a solid build--and in video highlights of her that I've seen, when she puts her body on opponents, they often go down. So that kind of physicality can be a good thing in a centerback--but she's got to be mobile and athletic as well. Bailey is mobile and athletic for her size, has a big leg, and seems to have a good soccer IQ. She could be good IF she is agile enough to stay with quick, athletic forwards at the college level, who are going to be a lot quicker and faster than the players she's been playing against in Utah.
 
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turbovol said:
Edwards certainly seems like an absolutely great hire. She's played for an elite program, with an elite coach, and was one of its top players. She had a 10-year pro career--playing with and against some of the best players in the game. She then coached at a good college program and was most recently an assistant with the U.S. U20 team. She will relate to our young female players and bring a sharp eye to individual and team performance and how both can get better. And wonderful to have a female coach on the staff. I'll bet she's also a big help with recruiting.
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Is she the same Becky Edwards that was dating PGA golfer Brooks Koepka?
 
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Tennessee doesn’t have a number 19 on the squad this year so for the countdown we honor our new assistant coach who wore #19 in college.

Countdown 19 Days- #19 Becky Edward’s


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