Raleigh DeRose coaching ISU soccer is a ‘full circle’ job for her family

NORMAL, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — She is in the first month of her first season as college soccer head coach.

And Illinois State’s Raleigh DeRose she says it feels right.

“When this job opened up it was something to go after. Not only is central Illinois a great place to live but I think ISU is place you can bring great athletes. And train great athletes,” said DeRose. “It was a no-brainer.”

The Peoria Notre Dame grad played college soccer at Knox and came to ISU after an eight-year stint on the Brown University coaching staff. She says the first time she really started thinking about a coaching career was when she was a teenager working the soccer camps of her father Jim, the former Bradley soccer coach.

Dunlap’s Sammi Cenek attended those camps as a young girl.

“I recognized her and remember her being very good. I was about 6-years-old,” said Cenek, now a sophomore at ISU. “I told my friends, ‘I’m going to be like her.’ Now it’s full circle because she is my college coach.”

DeRose said she didn’t volunteer to work at her father’s camps, she instead was “voluntold.” But it turned out to be invaluable experience.

“I’d say that was one of the first times I really enjoyed working with young women, teaching young women and being around the game I love,” DeRose said. “When I grew older, I saw soccer as a vehicle to teach other life lessons.”

Thirty years ago, Raleigh’s father was an assistant men’s soccer coach at ISU. When ISU dropped men’s soccer, he was fired as Bradley’s head coach and stayed at BU for 28 years, retiring in 2023.

Now Raleigh DeRose heads up the women’s program at ISU where she has an office at Horton Field House, just down the hall from where her father’s office was located.

“It feels full circle but it also makes me and him feel really old,” DeRose said with a laugh. “Whatever way you want to spin it. It’s crazy how things work out.”

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