(September 4, 2002)                                                                                          Hot News Main Page

With GM Hired, Spirit Begins Search For Coach

SAN DIEGO CA (September 4, 2002) Dave Presher was named general manager of the San Diego Spirit yesterday. He has a lengthy background playing and coaching soccer. The Spirit is still looking for a head coach, and former Spirit GM Kevin Crow doubled as the team's coach for the second half of the season . .

Presher will work with Crow, now the WUSA's chief operating officer, to hire a head coach and then let that person run the soccer side of the franchise.

"I'm the general manager," Presher said by phone from Dallas, "so eventually, to misquote Harry Truman, the buck stops here. But if you hire a top coach, they're going to want the full authority that comes with it. My job is to hold them accountable."

After firing Carlos Juarez in June, Crow said he planned to have a replacement hired by the end of the August. On Aug. 11, after the season finale, he moved up that timetable to "seven to 10 days."

Alas, it is early September, and the Spirit might be further away from finding a head coach than it was back in June. Crow's two finalists - Santa Clara women's coach Jerry Smith and Philadelphia assistant Pia Sundhage - both passed, meaning the Spirit essentially must start over.

The difference with Presher in charge is that he's not setting any timetable.

"I won't rush," Presher said. "I'm determined that we will hire the best possible coach. I think the most important thing a leader does is surround yourself with great people, and I refuse to be rushed into that."

Besides a background in soccer, radio/TV and marketing, Presher, 43, also has ties to San Diego. He played soccer at Mesa College in the late '70s and took classes at San Diego State.

Most of Presher's soccer experience comes from Sacramento, where he was an amateur player and coach. He has primarily worked in radio since, serving as general sales manager at KTWV-FM in Los Angeles from 1996-99 and then as general manger of three Viacom/Infinity Broadcasting stations in Dallas. He was laid off in November as part of industrywide cost-cutting measures.

"I was a solid coach and a solid amateur player," said Presher, who officially starts with the Spirit on Monday, "but I hope I'm a better general manager."

[Source: Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune]