Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Scandals highlight lack of female coaches at top of US football
Twila Kilgore, assistant coach on the U.S. team watches players warm up prior to a CONCACAF Women's Championship soccer semifinal match against Costa Rica in Monterrey, Mexico, Thursday, July 14, 2022.

TWILA KILGORE knew her career path when she was just 12 years old, thanks to a youth soccer coach who used to drive her to practice.

During those rides, she got to hear “all the behind-the-scene things that were happening” and was “exposed to what a coach actually does,” she said. “I pretty much knew then that when I was done playing, I would coach.”

Now she’s an assistant for the US women’s national team and one of just four women in the United States who hold the US Soccer Federation’s elite pro licence.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
A girl, who was injured in the overnight cross border fighting between Pakistan and Afghan forces, receives treatment at a hospital at Khar, in Bajaur, a district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering with Afghanistan, February 27, 2026
International Women’s Day 2026 / 7 March 2026
7 March 2026

Afghan women living under the Taliban are navigating a system that makes their public existence conditional on male approval, writes SHUKRIA RAHIMI

England players celebrate with the trophy, July 31, 2022
Women’s football / 27 June 2025
27 June 2025
Detroit Prowl's Toya Shinaul, from left to right, Kelly Bernadyn, Sydney Hebel, Jasmine Hamilton and Allie Gorcyca walk out for the coin toss at the start of an AWFL women's football game against the Lansing Legacy, in Allen Park, Mich., Saturday, May 10, 2025
Tackle Football / 24 June 2025
24 June 2025

LARRY LAGE writes about the growth of tackle football and how it provides female athletes opportunities in a game previously dominated by men