After 21 years at the helm of Notre Dame College’s women’s soccer program, Coach Mike Shiels is starting over. Although he is leaving a program where he set down many roots, the new Hiram College women’s soccer coach is bringing an energetic mindset to his new position.
“Obviously when you are somewhere so long, things become easy for you and I think when there is a new opportunity for you, you go somewhere where there is room to grow,” the first-year coach told The Weekly Villager on July 16. “There are some fantastic coaches at Hiram and I have already learned a lot by just being around them and being around some different coaches and see how they do things.”
The 10th Terriers’ women’s soccer coach in Hiram history arrives after building a strong foundation at the new closed Notre Dame College. While coaching the Falcons. He led the program to five Mountain East Conference titles, three MEC tournament championships and three appearances in the NCAA Division II National Tournament.
According to Shiels, he was aware that Notre Dame was in the midst of a financial crisis and could potentially shut down but that had nothing to do with his decision to step down. After over two decades with the Falcons, he said he was ready for a change.
Having previously coached with Jim Schweickert, Hiram’s Assistant Athletic Director, at Notre Dame and worked with Hiram Athletic Trainer Jay Garfield, Shiels used those connections to land a new coaching position.
He also will help guide the Terriers through a transition period as the 2024 fall season will be the last year Hiram competes in the North Coast Athletic Conference as it will join the Presidential Athletic Conference in the 2025-26 season.
It will not be the first time he helps transition a program into a new conference, as the Falcons left the National Association of Intercollege Athletics to join the MEC in 2013.
As distinguished as his career has been at Notre Dame, Shiels never envisioned himself becoming a college soccer coach. He planned on earning his master’s degree in teaching and return to his alma matter Mentor High School and serve as a teacher and also coach the boys’ soccer program.
Shiels said that he hails from a family that loves soccer and he started playing when he was only 6-years-old. While he loved the team aspect of the sport, he also enjoyed how competitive things could get on the soccer pitch.
As a three-year varsity starter at Mentor, the Cardinal boys’ soccer team won the district championship each season and Shiels continued his playing career at Mercyhurst College, where he was a member of two squads that advanced to the NCAA Division II Final Four.
After graduating, Shiels attended Notre Dame College as a graduate student to earn his master’s eegree. Although his playing career may have been over, he wanted to stay close to soccer and hoped to become a coach. He served as an assistant coach for the men’s soccer team for one season before he got his first chance to become a head coach.
“Coaching is teaching so I think I felt I could help people and I wanted to be around the game still and I really thought it was a good way to stay involved with it,” Shiels noted. “I had such a good experience in high school and in college and I felt it was something I still wanted to be around.”
Shiels became Notre Dame’s women’s soccer coach in 2003 when the team needed a new head coach just one month before the season. Although Shiels did not have much coaching experience, he enjoyed the coaching atmosphere.
He acknowledged that beginning as the women’s soccer coach just a month before the season started was like getting thrown into the fire. While he was new to being a head coach, one thing he strived for was to make sure each team he coached played with physical toughness the same way his teams at Mentor and Mercyhurst had.
“You try not to ignore any part of the game and physicality and aggressiveness is as much a part of the game as technical ability and all of those other things,” he said.
While Shiels’ plan to return to his alma matter and become a coach did not pan out, he carved out a nice legacy at Notre Dame College. He inherits a Hiram program that is smaller than the ones he coached at Notre Dame but plans on instilling the same toughness that his Falcons’ squads showed.
“At the end of the day that is where you want to get to but you cannot ignore one without the other so if you want to be as good as you can be you have to check all of your boxes,” he said.
