War Hawk Soccer Camps at McMurry University
Alan Riches begins his second season as the McMurry women’s head soccer coach in 2011. He becomes the sixth head women’s soccer coach in school history and comes from Lubbock where he was the Coronado High School boy’s soccer coach. In his first season as McMurry’s head coach Riches was able to accomplish something that his two predecessors were able to do, win a game. McMurry University’s women used three second-half goals to snap a 52-match winless streak defeating the University of the Ozarks 4-1 on September 24. Freshman Stephanie Nevels scored the game-winner breaking a 1-1 tie in the 49th minute and McMurry won its first game since Oct. 28, 2006. The War Hawks ended the season with two wins, which made the 2010 season the second best in McMurry history. Riches first McMurry team saw three players on the ASC All-Conference honors. Freshman Rachel Moore, and Chelsea Slay were named to the honorable mention team, while fellow freshman Nevels was named to the third team. In three seasons, Riches led Coronado's Mustangs to two playoff appearances and was named the District 2-5A Coach of the Year his first season after helping the team to an 11-6 record. In addition, he was also named the Texas Panhandle 4A/5A Coach of the Year. Riches graduated from Angelo State University in 2000 and received his master's degree from the University of North Texas in 2005. He has been an active teacher at the collegiate and high school levels. As a coach, other than his stint at Lubbock Coronado, Riches spent the 2004 season as a volunteer coach for the Mean Green of UNT in Denton where he served as the goalkeeper's coach and saw the team make an NCAA National Tournament appearance.
In 2005 he worked for both the Oscar Professional Training Center (Aguas de Lindoia, Brazil) and the Associacao Athletica Ponte Preta in Campinas, Brazil. Since 2007, he's served as an apprentice for the former Brazilian National Coach Emerson Leao at the Clube Atletico Mineiro in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Riches will take over a women's soccer program that originated in 2001. Since then, the previous five coaches including Dan Heger, Christy Cousins, Steve Allan, Stan Levrets and Tim Grove have combined for 10 total victories in the first nine seasons as a program with Allan taking five of those in his only season as women's coach in 2006. Riches and his wife Kristen have a son James (2) and live in Abilene.
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Alan Riches
He holds a professional coaching certification with the “Associacao Barsileria De Treinadores De Futebol,” which less than 100 coaches in the U.S. hold such a license. Riches has spent time in Brazil gaining coaching and administrative experience.