As a three-year starting midfielder, Leland Strang helped the Baylor girls’ soccer team win two state championships from 1999 to 2001.
Now she hopes to duplicate similar success – for her alma mater’s rival.
Strang recently was hired as GPS’s soccer coach. She succeeds Dave Barrueta, who was released after the school expressed a desire for a coach who was also a full-time member of the school faculty.
Strang, who teaches seventh-grade American Studies, is entering her second year teaching at the school.
“I’m extremely excited about this opportunity,” she said. “There is a lot of talent here at GPS, and I feel we have a bright, successful future. I’m just honored to be a part of it.”
After her prep career at Baylor, she went to Sewanee and played for four seasons, graduating in 2005 and moving to Jackson, Wyo., and both coaching and playing for a traveling soccer team.
But her desire to coach moved her back to Chattanooga – and GPS, where she coached the middle school team.
The Bruisers varsity finished 6-7-6 last year with 11 freshmen and only four seniors on a 20-player roster.
“I’m just hoping to create a competitive practice environment that breeds team bonding,” Strang said. “We host the state tournament, and we want to be in it. I think we have the talent to do it.”
A trip to the state tournament, which the Bruisers have missed out on the past two seasons, probably would pit Strang against her former coach, Jimmy Weekley.
When asked how she would treat the game, she said she would “go hug [Weekley], but after that I wouldn’t look at him again. He’s going to be another coach after that.”
Said GPS athletic director Stacy Hill: “Our goal – when we can – is to have full-time employees as coaches. We do have nonfaculty coaches, but it seems to work out best when they’re employed here, so it’s what we try to look for in each sport. Leland has a great soccer background, and we just loved her enthusiasm for soccer.
“We’re appreciative of the time and commitment that Dave put in. For the past three years, he stepped in and gave it his best.”