Jump to content

Danielle Fotopoulos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Danielle Fotopoulos
Fotopoulos with the United States national team
Personal information
Full name Danielle Ruth Fotopoulos
Birth name Danielle Ruth Garrett[1]
Date of birth (1976-03-24) March 24, 1976 (age 48)
Place of birth Camp Hill, Pennsylvania
Height 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
Position(s) Forward
Team information
Current team
Eckerd College (coach)
Youth career
1990–1993 Lyman High School
College career
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1994–1995 SMU Mustangs 44 (52)
1996–1998 Florida Gators 48 (66)
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1998 Tampa Bay Extreme 4 (6)
2001–2003 Carolina Courage 53 (27)
2005 Central Florida Krush
International career
1996–2005 United States 35 (16)
Managerial career
2004 LSU
2010–2022 Eckerd
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Danielle Ruth Fotopoulos (née Garrett; born March 24, 1976) is an American soccer coach and former player. Fotopoulos holds the all-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I records for goals and points, and was a member of the University of Florida team that won the 1998 NCAA women's soccer championship, and also the United States national team that won the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. She was the head coach of the Eckerd women's soccer team until 2022.

Early life

[edit]

Fotopoulos was born in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania in 1976, the daughter of Bill and Donna Garrett. She grew up in Altamonte Springs, Florida, and attended Lyman High School in Longwood, Florida from 1990 to 1994. While in high school, she was a varsity letterman in six different sports—basketball, cross country, soccer, tennis, swimming and track & field. Her high school soccer team won three Florida state championships during her four years on the team.

College career

[edit]

Fotopoulos initially attended Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, where she played for the SMU Mustangs soccer team from 1994 to 1995. After her sophomore year, she transferred from SMU to the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where she played for coach Becky Burleigh's new Florida Gators women's soccer team for two seasons. She suffered an ACL injury before the start of the 1997 season and returned to the Gators for her senior year in 1998. She helped the Gators win the 1998 NCAA Women's Soccer Championship, scoring the winning goal against North Carolina in the final of the NCAA soccer tournament. During her 1996 and 1998 seasons with the Gators, the team also won both the Southeastern Conference (SEC) regular season and tournament championships, and she was twice recognized as the SEC Player of the Year. Fotopoulos finished her college career as the NCAA's all-time leader in goals (118) and points (284). She was the 1998–99 recipient of the Honda Sports Award for Soccer, recognizing her as the outstanding collegiate women's soccer player of the year.[2][3]

She graduated from Florida with a bachelor's degree in 1999, and was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great" in 2008.[4][5]

Professional career

[edit]

Fotopoulos played professionally with the Carolina Courage of the Women's United Soccer Association, winning the league championship in 2002. She was also a member of the United States Women's National Soccer team.

Coaching career

[edit]

Fotopoulos is married to former Louisiana State University (LSU) women's soccer team head coach George Fotopoulos. In 2004, she served as co-head coach with her husband at LSU.[6][7] They finished with an 8–11–1 overall record (2–8–1 in the SEC).[8] In 2006, she became an assistant coach for the Florida Gators soccer team at the University of Florida, her alma mater. She currently lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband and their four children. She coached multiple teams at the Tampa Bay United Soccer Club and currently coaches at Florida Premier FC where she is the GIRLS ECNLR Director. She is also a partner for the semi-pro team, Tampa Bay Hellenic; her husband is currently the head coach. From 2010 to 2022, Fotopoulos was the head of coach of the NCAA Division II women's soccer team at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida from 2010 until stepping down in August 2022.[9]

Honors

[edit]

Individual awards and honors

[edit]
  • WUSA All-Star team selection: 2003
  • Second-team All-WUSA: 2002
  • Honda Award: 1998[10]
  • NSCAA National Player of the Year: 1998
  • ESPN.com/Soccer Times National Player of the Year: 1998
  • Soccer America Player of the Year: 1998
  • NCAA Final Four Offensive MVP: 1998
  • Southeastern Conference Player of the Year: 1996, 1998
  • All-American: 1995, 1996, 1998
  • SEC Tournament MVP: 1996

Team honors

[edit]

Statistics

[edit]

College

[edit]
Year Team GP/GS Goals Assists Total Points
1994 SMU 20/19 20 5 45
1995 SMU 24/23 32 19 85
1996 Florida 22/22 34 13 83
1997 Florida did not play
1998 Florida 26/26 32 11 75
Totals 92/90 118 48 284

WUSA

[edit]
Year Team GP/GS Goals Assists Total Points
2001 Carolina Courage 21/21 9 5 23
2002 Carolina Courage 21/20 11 10 32
2003 Carolina Courage 12/12 7 6 20
Totals 54/53 27 21 75

W-League

[edit]
Year Team GP Goals
1998 Tampa Bay Extremes 4 6
2005 Central Florida Krush 9
Totals 15

National team

[edit]
Year GP/GS Goals Assists Total Points
1996 2/1 3 2 8
1997 6/0 1 1 3
1998 1/0 0 0 0
1999 17/1 7 4 18
2000 did not play
2001
2002 4/0 1 0 2
2003 did not play
2004
2005 5/1 4 0 8
Totals 35/3 16 7 39

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Fotopoulos earns time to shine". Sports. York Daily Record. Vol. 209, no. 13. York, Pennsylvania. January 13, 2005. p. 1B. Retrieved August 4, 2022.
  2. ^ Collegiate Women Sports Awards, Past Honda Sports Award Winners for Soccer. Retrieved December 21, 2014.
  3. ^ "Florida's Fotopoulos Wins Honda Award for Soccer". Florida Gators. Retrieved 2020-03-20.
  4. ^ F Club, Hall of Fame, Gator Greats. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
  5. ^ "Nine Members Inducted Into University of Florida Athletics Hall of Fame," GatorZone.com (April 11, 2008). Retrieved May 23, 2011.
  6. ^ "LSU History". lsusports.net. p. 19. Archived from the original on 2018-07-30. Retrieved 2018-07-29.
  7. ^ "Danielle Fotopoulos". lsusports.net. Archived from the original on 2018-07-30. Retrieved 2018-07-29.
  8. ^ "LSU Soccer coaches step down". 247sports.com. Retrieved 2018-07-29.
  9. ^ "Fotopoulos Steps Down as Women's Soccer Head Coach". Eckerd College Athletics. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  10. ^ "Soccer". CWSA. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
[edit]