NPU roster posted. Lots of newcomers
https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster
There isn't any information on the newcomers listed but in reading through and looking at the surnames I would assume that NP is still getting a lot of Scandinavian athletes.
"A lot" is a relative term. NPU has regularly had Scandinavians on the women's soccer roster, going back to the program's inception in the mid-'90s, just as has the men's team. That's only natural, given North Park's historical ties to Sweden dating back to the school's founding by Swedish immigrants in 1891. Sometimes they wouldn't have any Scandinavian players on the roster, sometimes one or two or even as many as four, but there was an ongoing trickle of players coming from Sweden, Norway, and even Denmark on occasion.
But the various coaches who've run the NPU women's soccer program over the years never really made a concerted effort to recruit in Scandinavia. They more or less took potluck in terms of Scandinavian women showing up at school and wanting to participate on the soccer team. Given how devoted Europeans are to playing soccer from early childhood, their high quality of skills development and coaching in youth soccer, and thus how much more advanced in technical ability Europeans have always been in this sport, even on a walk-on basis they were usually among the best, and sometimes
actually the best, players that the Vikings fielded.
But the coaches never caught on to the fact that the stream of one, two, or three Scandinavians they'd pick up by accident every year could both be expanded and improved in per-player quality if they actually put some effort into it rather than focusing exclusively upon recruiting Americans and then taking any Swedish or Norwegian walk-ons as a sort of pleasant surprise. They could actually recruit over there and improve the quality of what they were getting, and, thus the program, if they were intentional about it. But if any of them even tried, it was a fitful try at best. Most of them, if not all, never even tried.
Most importantly, given how important Swedish and Norwegian players have been to the NPU men's soccer program in lifting the Vikings from the CCIW cellar in the late '90s to first a regional power and now a national power, you'd think that the various NPU women's soccer coaches would want to emulate that success by copying it. You'd think that ... but you'd be wrong. And so the Vikings just muddled along in the CCIW's second division every season, often in the basement. In fact, that is where they've finished in each of the last six seasons; their most recent win in league play was a 1-0 home win over Millikin all the way back in September of 2016.
Enter Emma Woodley, who took over as North Park's head coach in 2020. She herself had been one of the best American players NPU has had over the past couple of decades when she was Emma Lundeen, being named All-CCIW second team in 2013 and All-CCIW first team in 2014. A former North Park admissions counselor and assistant coach, she knew exactly
what kind of player to recruit to North Park and
how to recruit them. And she realized what none of her predecessors ever grasped; North Park has a ready-made pipeline to Scandinavian student-athletes already, and it just needs to be tapped for women's soccer by a coach who is willing to put in the work and use the things in her recruiting pitch that make NPU such an attractive place for Norwegians and Swedes to go to school there.
She's started off by bringing in a lot of quantity, and now the quality is getting better as well. For example, one player to watch this year in the CCIW is NPU's new D1 transfer, center mid Madi Häger. All it took was seeing one scrimmage to convince me that she is the real deal.
The way that the Viking men improved was to increase the quantity and quality of the Scandinavian recruits and find the right mix between them and the American players. That is the formula that Emma Woodley is seeking to use now for the Viking women. I think that it will start to pay dividends this season. I realize that the CCIW coaches have slated NPU to finish at the bottom again this season, but I'm convinced that the Vikings will not only get out of the basement in 2022 but may even make it upward to the middle of the CCIW pack. Rome was not built in a day, but it is conceivable that the Vikings could challenge for the top within the next two or three seasons if Emma can continue to recruit this well and if the NPU program maintains a strong retention rate and isn't overwhelmed by injuries. After all, the ascension of North Central is proof positive that Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan don't automatically have a lock on the league every season.
