After her team’s strong showing in the NCAA tournament, women’s soccer coach Brianne Weaver has made a strong impression in her first year at Bowdoin.
Weaver, who left her alma mater, St. Mary’s College in Maryland, to coach the Polar Bears, has developed a midfield-based attack on a 4-4-2 formation. The team had run a 4-3-3 before, like much of their competition, but Weaver felt the shift would be more conducive to the current roster, which lost its leading scorer last year. The 4-4-2 features four midfielders instead of the usual three, at the cost of an additional forward.
This new approach allowed many different players to participate in offensive production, particularly early in games, when opposing teams struggled with Bowdoin’s new look.
“I don’t think we had anyone on the roster without a single point,” Weaver said of the new offense. “It made it very difficult for opponents because they couldn’t just mark one player.”
Captain Toni DaCampo ’13 noted the impact Coach Weaver and her new offensive strategry had on the team’s confidence.
“She is a very positive coach and she definitely raised the confidence of the team quite a bit,” she said.
The result was a team confident in its ability to hold the ball and attack mismatches with precision.
Coach Weaver’s first experience with Bowdoin came on a visit ten years ago, where she said she was “struck by the community and the spirit of the people on campus.”
The heart of Coach Weaver’s style is letting the players take control of the program.
“She let the team come to many of our own decisions and was very flexible,” DaCampo added.
“I like to think I’m a positive coach,” Weaver said of herself. “I try to find the strengths within my players. There are a lot of lessons that can be taught through the game. I like to say we’re a co-curricular activity rather than an extracurricular activity.”
While Weaver was brought to Bowdoin by former Athletic Director Jeff Ward, interim Director Tim Ryan remembers serving on the search committee whose purpose it was to measure each candidate’s ability to fit in with the school. The committee referred its findings to Ward, with input from the team’s captains, who then passed that on to the Dean of Student Affairs, Tim Foster.
“It was clear from the interview process, that [Weaver] cares deeply for her athletes and their entire experience beyond just soccer,” Ryan said. “One of the important things we look for is interest in students away from athletics and she’s been a fixture at events across campus in the short time she has been here.”
Despite her early success, Coach Weaver emphasizes how lucky she is to have the taken over the team that she did. She says she believes the youth and complimentary personalities of the current Bowdoin squad and the lack of serious injuries were integral to the team’s decade-best success this year.
She was also thankful that the College has offered a supportive environment for new coaches.
“It’s a great environment,” she said, “I’m surrounded by successful programs and I have confidence in the support network. We have a lot of fan support… It was a special year. You know as a coach that these years don’t come around all the time.”