Citing a need to explore new options, field hockey head coach Liz Tchou resigned her position Tuesday.
Tchou, a seven-year head coach, recently led the team to the NCAA quarterfinals for the first time in Duke history, where it lost to Wake Forest. In her time at the helm of the field hockey program, Tchou has led the team to three NCAA tournaments and has compiled a 76-67 record.
"She's a coach who has left the program in better shape than it was in when she came," said Associate Director of Athletics Chris Kennedy. "Some of it has to do with budget and facilities, but I think Liz has moved the program forward. She's been a good representative at Duke on and off the field."
Athletic Director Joe Alleva echoed those sentiments in a statement, noting that he accepted Tchou's resignation with both regret and gratitude.
Yet team members acknowledged that some on the team had been dissatisfied with Tchou's coaching decisions this year.
"There were a lot of people who had some issues," said sophomore Morgan Dall. "It's a very sensitive topic for everyone on the team, but I feel with her resignation, it will not only be best for the team, but for her as well."
Tchou declined to comment on specific issues with her players.
"There were definitely playing-time issues," she said. "I just can't comment on that. I think the staff did the best we could and the team did the best it has ever done this year, so there's got to be some positive there. I can't really comment on the kids, though. All I can say is you're always going to have that kind of thing."
Kennedy added that any dissatisfaction from team members had nothing to do with Tchou's decision. He said that it is routine for players to complete evaluations at the end of the season and that on virtually every occasion, there are a group of players who are not happy.
"For the players to suggest that they made a lot of complaints and that's why Liz got fired is completely not accurate," Kennedy said, who affirmed that the resignation was Tchou's decision-not the administration's.
Athletic department officials will hold a meeting today with team members to discuss the search for a new coach and what the team can expect in the coming days.
"[The meeting will be a] clarification as to the course of events that happened, because we haven't been contacted by her or contacted her since the end of the season," Dall said. "So we'd really like to know what she's feeling, what she's said to the administration, what the administration's said to her."
Kennedy said that there is no official timeline for finding a new head coach, but that he hoped the replacement would be in place by the beginning of the spring semester. He anticipated that the department would interview candidates between Christmas and the start of the new semester.
Among the program's assistants, Cindy Werley is a four-year assistant, and Lori Stark and Sally Bell finished just their first seasons. Werley works primarily with the offense and is a 1998 graduate of North Carolina.
Kennedy said that anyone would be welcome to apply, including assistants, and that the search would try to find the best person to take the program forward.
"With the resources we put into the program, the demographics from which you recruit, I really believe that [being a perennial championship contender] is the next step, and I am interested to find someone who thinks the Final Four isn't enough," Kennedy said.
A recent athletics department mission statement identified field hockey as one of several potential national contenders based on its current resources.
Tchou also expressed hope that the team would thrive next year.
"Overall, the team's performance this year was very consistent," she said. "They can only get better. The first-years did a great job. This is the best year we've played as a team. With the recruits coming in, I think they're on the up and up."
Its last NCAA berth came in 1999, when the team finished the season ranked eighth in the nation. In her first year, Tchou led the Blue Devils to a 12-10 record, its second-ever NCAA tournament and a final No. 10 national ranking. Tchou played for the American field hockey team in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta as well.
Tchou, a 1988 graduate of Iowa, was part of two Big Ten championship squads, went to three Final Fours and was a member of Iowa's 1986 national championship squad.
An Iowa assistant from 1989-90, Tchou crisscrossed the ACC as a Virginia assistant in 1992 and a North Carolina assistant in 1993 before landing an assistant coaching position in 1994 at Duke, where she assumed the head coaching position in 1996.
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