Volume 78/Number 4
Fall 1998
Tennessee Alumnus
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Holden Gets a Kick Out of Her Work
What do an emergency room doctor and a soccer coach have in common?
Both have to know how to take control.
"To be successful in the emergency room you have to be able to make order out of chaos," says Dr. Ruth Holden, the former emergency room doctor turned women's soccer coach at UT Martin.
Holden, who hails from Colorado, spent 11 years in the ER. During her time off she would play soccer and coach. She coached as many as five teams at one time. As a player, she enjoyed three seasons at Metropolitan State College in Denver, then coached the team for two years. She played for the Colorado women's state team and coached an under-12 boys team for seven years.
"As an emergency room doctor you have two really good benefits, the money and the time off," Holden says. "I was spending all my time off on the soccer field. Soccer was my outlet."
So she gave up the emergency room and traded her stethoscope for a whistle. She took a head coaching job at a small private high school in Denver. She led the team to the state quarterfinals the third year she was there. The year after she left, the team advanced to the state championship.
Soccer became Holden's way of life. When she wasn't coaching or playing, she would scout players. On the eve of a trip to Sweden for the World Cup, she got a call from the athletics director at St. Andrews College in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He wanted Holden to interview for the head coaching job at the private school in the heart of cotton and tobacco country.
"I told him 'no thanks, I'm leaving for Europe for five weeks,'" Holden says. "He told me 'We can't wait for five weeks.' "
The first morning she was back, he called again. She took the job.
Holden stayed for three years. She volunteered to teach a class in biomechanics and ended up serving as an acting department chairman and taught four classes in addition to coaching soccer.
One of her former players recommended Holden to UT Martin athletics director Benny Hollis when he needed a soccer coach. Holden was looking for a new challenge and liked the idea of starting her own program.
For his part, Hollis was fascinated by the application from a former emergency room doctor who was interested in coaching soccer at UT Martin.
Holden signed on last year and with a nucleus of 19 players played a club season. The squad opens Ohio Valley Conference action this fall. Five OVC teams, including Tennessee Tech, Middle Tennessee State, Morehead State, and Eastern -Illinois, will be on the Skyhawks schedule. The teams will vie for an invitational tournament bid at the end of the season, but in 1999 the teams will compete for the conference championship.
If there is chaos, Holden will make order of it. Her team will be following doctor's orders.Top of Page
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