Kirsten Koester’s coaching philosophy

If you walk into head women’s soccer coach Kirsten Koester’s office in the Charles Benson Bear `39 Recreation and Athletic Center, there are a few things that will immediately catch your eye. First will be the rows of accolades collected by Grinnell teams and players framed on one wall. There is also a large whiteboard on the same wall with note cards depicting every player’s name and uniform number, arranged in formations Koester is considering. 

But on the wall opposite the whiteboard and framed awards is something more curious. There are two pieces depicting the 2004 Grinnell women’s soccer team, who made it to the first round of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division III national championship. At the time of those photographs, Koester was not at Grinnell –– she would not arrive for 10 more years. The coach, however, made it very clear to me that Grinnell women’s soccer is a lot more than a four-year experience –– the stories of past successful teams live on as legends idolized by players. 

“There’s a sense of pride there that we want to uphold,” Koester said. 

Even before I sat down with her, Koester had been thinking about what she loves about coaching. Earlier in the day, she said she and Head Women’s Basketball Coach Dana Harrold “went and did a career fair at the middle school this morning where we were trying to convince young people, ‘Hey, what we do is really fun and cool.’” 

To exemplify the enjoyment she gets out of the team, Koester showed me two photos –– one of women’s soccer players gathered at the Les Duke Invitational, Grinnell’s home cross-country meet, to support their peers participating in the race, and one of Grinnell women’s players celebrating a goal together. 

For a team that won the Midwest Conference (MWC) title in 2022, advertising off-the-field activities might seem strange. Instead, Koester told me that those activities are critical.

“We want to win championships, we want to play really good soccer, but we want those small moments, too,” Koester, the 2022 MWC women’s soccer coach of the year, said. Koester, who lives in town with her husband Parker Koester, who previously coached men’s soccer at Grinnell, and three children, emphasized how proud she is of every team. In a similar way one might bring a long-term partner to dinner with parents, Koester said she “brought a team home to meet my family,” an event she remembered fondly.

Women’s soccer head coach, Kirsten Koester, coaches during half time on Sept. 28, 2024 against Lake Forest. (Meilynn Smith)

According to Koester, this togetherness is a unique and special quality of the women’s soccer team. “I’ve been showing every recruit that comes through my door a picture of a bunch of women’s soccer alums at a wedding, and that spans five years,” she said. “So you have some people in that picture that never even played together, and many people who played only a couple of years.” 

Koester has been here long enough to see many players come through and buy into the Grinnell community, and she herself has progressively settled more into the identity of a Grinnellian. “I think when I first got here, I had a pretty good picture of what it meant to be a Grinnellian,” she said. “But I think that that definition is ever expanding and evolving.” 

There was one thing I found interesting about Koester’s journey as a Grinnellian. Few Grinnell coaches come from similar schools, and even fewer come from direct rivals. Koester was Cornell College’s head women’s soccer coach until she joined Grinnell in 2014. I was curious about her feelings towards her former employer, and while she reports little sentiment now, there was certainly an initial rivalry. 

“One game, I had a purple hair tie on my wrist, and [Grinnell players] were like, ‘Take that off.’” Against Cornell, you cannot have a purple hair tie on your wrist,” she said, as purple is one of Cornell’s main colors. 

Even if her rivalry with Cornell has died down, Koester made it very clear that she is still as competitive as ever. Koester described next year’s team as having a “chip on their shoulder” after losing two MWC games last season, while the 2023 team lost none. Rivalries with successful programs like Lake Forest College and Lawrence University, who knocked Grinnell out of the MWC tournament last year, have replaced the personal rivalry against Cornell. 

To drive home her competitiveness, Koester told me about part of her mindset on game days. “I want the players from the other team to look over at our team and be able to see how much we love the game, how much we love each other, how hard we’re working and how much fun we’re having,” she said. “I want our opponents to be able to see that and say, ‘Oh, I wish I would have looked at Grinnell.’”