UI Tabs Cwu Coach To Begin Soccer Team Foster Will Direct Vandals Through First Season In Fall

Larry Foster was hired Wednesday as the first soccer coach at the University of Idaho.

Foster, who has been at Central Washington University since 1994, is charged with building a women’s program that will begin intercollegiate competition in the fall of 1998.

“It’s exciting,” Foster said. “It’s a great challenge. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to be able to put your stamp on something, something that is your very own program. Not many people get a chance to do that.”

His coaching and playing background, which dates to his founding of the Midnight Sun Soccer Association as a teenager in Fairbanks, Alaska, impressed the selection committee.

Foster will hit the recruiting trail immediately. From his Jan. 5 hiring date, he has four weeks until the official letter-of-intent period begins. He plans to recruit heavily in the Northwest. Foster has six scholarships available for 1998 with the program increasing to the full complement of 12 in three seasons.

“Right now, Washington is the territory I know,” said Foster, who also plans to make contact with the youth programs in Boise and Coeur d’Alene. “I need to let people know there is a program here. I need to get out and sell myself and sell the university.”

Foster has a reputation for program building. At Central Washington, he put together four successive winning seasons at a school that had had only two winning seasons in the previous seven years. His 6-5-4 mark in 1994 earned him Pacific Northwest Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors. His 1997 team was 12-5-2, which pushed his four-year mark to 34-23-11.

Idaho opens the season at Washington State on Aug. 30.

, DataTimes