Nicole Van Dyke Position: Assistant Coach Experience: First Season

Nicole Van Dyke, former head coach at Cal State Bakersfield, was named assistant coach on March 7, 2011.

Van Dyke joins a program that has won the past two Pacific-10 Conference championships, reached the NCAA College Cup the past three seasons, and played in the past two NCAA finals.

Van Dyke coached the Roadrunners for five seasons, after a head-coaching stint at Cal State Stanislaus from 2003-05.

She became the first full-time women's soccer coach at Cal State Bakersfield, overseeing a five-year transition from NCAA Division II to Division I, and compiling a 27-55-13 record as the team played as an independent. In 2010, the Roadrunners beat one NCAA tournament team, Sacramento State, while drawing against two others, San Diego and Fresno State.

Van Dyke's Roadrunners twice won the Kegley-McCall Award for the Cal State Bakersfield team with the highest grade-point average and were runners-up last season. Their scholastic achievements earned Bakersfield recognition as an NSCAA's All-Academic Team Award recipient, in 2009 and '10.

Van Dyke began her collegiate head coaching career at age 23 at Division II Cal State Stanislaus, leading the Warriors to a combined 35-19-7 record, and winning a California Collegiate Athletic Association North Division title in 2005. That team went 15-4-2 and Van Dyke, who also served as an admissions counselor, earned CCAA Coach of the Year honors.

Immediately after her collegiate playing career ended, Van Dyke joined the Cal State Bakersfield staff, serving as an assistant coach in 2001-02 after playing there from 1998-2000. Van Dyke set a school single-season goal-scoring record (17) in 2000 while leading the Roadrunners to the CCAA Central Division title. She remains No. 1 in career points (88), No. 2 in goals (36), and No. 5 in assists (16), and was an All-Far West Region selection in 1999-2000.

A native of Palm Desert, Calif., Van Dyke starred at Palm Desert High School and played a year at College of the Desert in the same town. She graduated from Cal State Bakersfield with a degree in liberal studies in 2002 and earned her masters in education there as well, with an emphasis on curriculum and instruction, in 2008.

Van Dyke played professionally in Sweden and was an all-league selection for the California Gold of the Women's Premier Soccer League. Van Dyke, who also coached the girls' under-13 Bakersfield Gunners, holds a USSF `A' coaching license.