{"id":21016,"date":"2025-07-24T17:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21016\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T17:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:17:09","slug":"wayne-state-to-offer-womens-soccer-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21016\/","title":{"rendered":"Wayne State to offer women&#8217;s soccer in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wayne.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Wayne State University<\/a> will field a women\u2019s soccer team in the fall of 2026. It will be the school\u2019s first new varsity sport in over a decade.<\/p>\n<p>WSU\u2019s Director of Athletics, Erika Wallace, says the first order of business is hiring a head coach this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re looking at someone who has ties to the area for recruitment purposes,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re also looking at head coaching experience, assistant coaching experience, some club coaching experience as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-215204\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ErikaWallace-900x675.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"675\"  \/>Erika Wallace is Wayne State University\u2019s Director of AthleticsExpanding opportunities for women<\/p>\n<p>Wallace reviewed the athletic program when she took the job and found a need for more women student-athletes. She says adding soccer will help WSU comply with Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProportionality is one of the prongs that you look at,\u201d she says. \u201cWe have to make accommodations in order to stay relevant and in compliance with Title IX.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wallace says this will attract more students to WSU.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re the only school in our conference that doesn\u2019t have women\u2019s soccer,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople will want to come here and play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The support is there<\/p>\n<p>Wallace says funding for the new women\u2019s soccer team will come from the athletic department\u2019s general fund as well as philanthropic donations.<\/p>\n<p>She also says Detroit\u2019s soccer culture will sustain the program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have some of the best clubs in the country here,\u201d Wallace says.<\/p>\n<p>Wayne State has a partnership with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.detcityfc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Detroit City Football Club<\/a>, which fields men\u2019s, women\u2019s and youth sides.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace says WSU will make some upgrades to the soccer pitch behind Tom Adams Field before the women\u2019s team starts play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wayne State University will field a women\u2019s soccer team in the fall of 2026. It will be the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82,17687,17688,4143],"class_list":["post-21016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-wayne-state","tag-wayne-state-university","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}