CONWAY — The University of Central Arkansas has turned to a familiar face to turn around its women's soccer program, tabbing former assistant Jeremy Bishop as the third head coach in program history, UCA Director of Athletics Dr. Brad Teague announced on Monday.
"We had a great deal of interest in the position and there were many qualified candidates," Teague said. "At the end of the interviews we were faced with a tough decision in choosing among several quality coaches, and in the end we decided to hire Coach Bishop. He will bring a great soccer knowledge and experience to our program. He is highly motivated to run a successful Division I soccer program and laid out a plan for how he would operate."
Bishop had two previous stints at UCA, serving as an assistant for both men's and women's teams from 1998-2001 before returning later to serve as the women's assistant for two seasons in 2009 and 2010. He served as the head coach of the men's program at Harding University in Searcy in 2011, inheriting a two-win team and making a four-win improvement in his one season there.
"Dr. Teague called me this morning, and I was very excited and I'm ready to get to work," Bishop said. "There are so many positives to this job. Having been at UCA for those two years, I knew the potential of the program and knew the people there, the players, administrators and other coaches on staff. I also know that UCA is a great place to be, and as soon as I knew Coach (Tina) Banham was stepping away I knew it was a job I'd be very interested in. I'm eager to begin doing what we need to do to move this program forward."
Among the things Bishop outlined as things to tackle from the outset were recruiting, communication and enthusiasm.
"Recruiting never stops, and with signing day approaching we've got to make sure we're in good shape with the ones who are committed, and the ones already here, and then get busy with the next class," he said. "And I think with any program, one of the most important things is communication and letting players know what the expectations are going to be. We want to be excellent at everything we do – on the field, in the classroom and in our personal relationships. We're going to set up an environment that will expect that and foster that.
"And another thing is enthusiasm for the program," he said. "I feel like that's something that's maybe been lacking. We want to have pride in playing for the University of Central Arkansas and being Bears. That will help us get to the point where we can be excellent on the field, in the classroom and in our personal lives."
Bishop succeeds Tina Banham, who he coached under in his previous stint with the Bears, following her resignation in November after 11 years at the helm. As a member of Banham's staff, he has coached and/or recruited the vast majority of the current roster – which he believes will make his transition smoother than most.
"I know the girls, and there won't be a lot of time spent figuring out what kind of players they are or what kind of person each individual is," he said. "I already have a pretty good idea about that. There are probably only two or three that I don't have some experience with either coaching or being involved in their recruiting process, so that's exciting. There are a lot of good players in place and success can come soon."
Some of those student-athletes made up part of the search committee that made the recommendation to choose Bishop to lead the program.
"I appreciate our committee for their hard work and the amount of time they devoted to hearing from a strong candidate pool," Teague said. "Our student-athletes on the committee truly represented their team well and made us all proud with their professionalism and commitment to being the voice of the women's soccer team. We are pleased to welcome Coach Bishop and his family back to Conway and look forward to many years of success in women's soccer."
"I want to thank the committee and especially Dr. Teague and Coach (Natalie) Shock (UCA's Assistant AD and Senior Woman Administrator) for their support and the opportunity," Bishop said. "I also want to thank Coach Banham for the opportunity to work at UCA for two years with her which gave me the opportunity to really get to know the situation here, and the work she put into it to get it to the place where we can build on it."
Bishop has a history with building programs up, having started the men's program and assisting with the start of the women's program at Lyon College in Batesville. Coaching the Lyon men, he recorded an overall record of 54-64-6 with the program in its infantile stages and finished strong with a 43-42-6 mark over the final five seasons with two conference tournament semifinal appearances. He also started programs as the head women's and assistant men's coach at Barton County Community College in 2001-02. He served two years as the head coach of both the boys and girls programs at Central Arkansas Christian in 1999 and 2000.
He graduated from Harding University with a BA in Kinesiology in 1997 with a minor in Management. He then received his MS in Kinesiology from UCA in 2000.
