On January 18th 2024, Averett’s women’s soccer head coach, Meghan Mauzy-Fleming announced she was stepping away from coaching to focus on family. A little over a month later, Averett announced the hiring of the new women’s soccer head coach Tye Cole. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Cole has made the decision to move both his career and family to Danville, Virginia.

“My overall goal was to accept a position that would hopefully be the final stop in my career,” Cole said. “With a company that would allow me to successfully continue my coaching career in an environment that is conducive to growth. A place where I could spend the next 20 years and be perfectly content along with my family.”

Cole launched his coaching career in 1999 after playing soccer for Lee university and later Belmont University. Previous to joining the Averett family, Cole had been an assistant women’s soccer coach at University of West Georgia. Cole has coaching experience all over the east coast, from head coach for Palm City FC, a semi-professional team in Florida, to coaching for the New York Red Bulls. In his career as a coach, Cole has known a lot of success that he is also looking to bring to Averett’s women’s soccer program. 

“Teams under my direction would achieve several Florida State titles, two US Regional Champions, and a National Final-Four appearance,” Cole said.  “I believe that I am a solid pick for any program that is looking to cultivate a successful culture, winning mentality, and strong work ethic within the sport.” 

Cole is looking to cultivate a successful environment that consists of trust, strong relationships, respect, and a culture that desires to win in the many facets of the sport. He is a coach who is very intentional about his philosophy, system, style of play, players that contribute, and subtle details such as formation and implementation of the system of play.

“It is important to me that players express who they are on the field,” Cole said. “And understand how to moderate their creativity, so that it contributes to the overall team. In a training session, I am very engaged with the players and the activities. My game management style is less pointed because I prefer the players to deal with the pressure of the game instead of additional pressure from the coach. 

Cole has been working with the Averett women’s soccer team, who are now in their off-season, since early this March and is looking forward to getting to know both the team and players. Cole already has some goals in mind for the team and season. However, he believes it is important to focus on learning the players and team first so they can create well-defined goals together. 

“I think one of the most important goals this team will experience,” Cole said. “Is to understand the true definition of winning. I believe that winning needs to be an achievable goal, mostly within areas we can control, and well-defined.”