Where Are They Now? Bev Yanez

This story originally appeared in the Fall 2024 edition of Hurricanes Magazine.

Her career had already been filled with its share of memorable moments.

At Miami, she’d made history, scoring the game-winning goal against then-national champion North Carolina and serving as a team captain before becoming the first Hurricane women’s soccer player to be drafted by any professional league.

She played professionally in the United States, Australia, Finland and Japan, winning multiple titles along the way and while with the Seattle Reign, in particular, she was a part of two National Women’s Soccer League Shield-winning campaigns.

Now, just four years removed from her retirement as a player – and four days after giving birth to her daughter Cali June – Bev Goebel Yanez was at the job interview of her life.

And it was a surreal experience.

“I had the baby and four days later, I came in to have my final interview in person. I’ll never forget it,” Yanez recalled with a chuckle. “I had just gotten out of the hospital. … I kind of just put myself together, came in, did the final interview and hoped for the best.”

Days later, Yanez learned her best – and her resume as both a former player and assistant coach – was more than enough when Racing Louisville FC of the NWSL offered her the opportunity to be the team’s new head coach.

Yanez, who’d served as an assistant coach with Louisville the previous season, was ecstatic.

“If you had told me that at 35 years old, I’d be in a position like this, I would say, ‘What? You’re crazy,’” Yanez said. “I’m so very grateful for my journey and I’m very accepting of the different paths my journey took, how I invested and knew it would take me where I was supposed to be. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason in your journey. You learn along the way for it to make you as best as possible, to fit your role, and do everything you can in your role.”

Yanez recently wrapped up her first full year as a head coach in the NWSL, with Racing Louisville posting a 6-5-2 mark.

The team opened the season with four straight draws, but earned its first win under Yanez on April 20 when it notched a 5-1 home victory over the Utah Royals.

And as she has since being named coach, Yanez reveled in the moment with her family, including baby Cali June, her older daughter 3-year-old Noemi-Rae, her husband Othaniel Yanez, a former midfielder for the Columbus Crew, and both her mother, Tori Goebel, and her mother-in-law Noemi Yanez, whom she credits with helping her balance the demands of her job and motherhood.

“My family has been incredibly supportive throughout this whole journey, and it means the world that my girls see this,” Yanez said. “I’m a firm believer that if you see it, you can be it. So, having this, growing up with their mom being in such a role, seeing these women compete every day, seeing women in roles that they are in across this club and this league is really important for me. I travel with [my daughters] sometimes. They come on the field after games, and they get to interact [with the players] and it’s really positively influencing them and showing them that they can be anything they want to be. It’s so special for me to have them around.”

Getting to that moment was, as Yanez described it, a “journey.”

The California native started her collegiate career at Sacramento State University before transferring to Miami as a sophomore.

It was a move Yanez believed would challenge her to grow, as both a player and a person. She started 51 of her 53 games in Coral Gables and as a senior, totaled three goals and a pair of assists.

More importantly, though, it was during her time as a Hurricane that Yanez realized she wanted to make soccer her lifelong career.

She was selected by the Washington Freedom in the third round of the 2010 Women’s Professional Soccer Draft and started nine games for the Freedom before being drafted by the Western New York Flash in the 2010 WPS Expansion Draft.

In 2011, she won a WPS with the Flash and that same year, she won the Finnish Naisten Liiga title with Pallokoher-35.

Yanez went on to play in Japan, where she won a Nadeshiko League title in 2012 and finished as the league’s top scorer in 2013.

It was in Japan, too, where an idea began to take shape.

After a transition period during which she sometimes struggled to adapt to the technical style of the Japanese game, Yanez couldn’t help but wonder if there was an opportunity for her to teach that style to younger American players when she returned home.

“I remember saying, ‘How many people are out there like me, that feel this way? That go into a new environment and [ask] why was I never taught this? Why do I not comprehend this? Why can’t I understand the most basic principles of the game?’,” Yanez said. “And that’s where I said, ‘I want to educate. I want to teach.’”

Yanez returned to the U.S., joined the Reign for the second season of the NWSL in 2014 and, while playing, began the process of securing her coaching licenses.

Eventually, she and Othaniel opened a coaching business where they ran small group sessions for aspiring soccer players.

It wasn’t always easy – especially given that Yanez was still playing and balancing the physical demands of her own career.

But she says the experience solidified her love of coaching.

“Because I was so tired from playing, [Othaniel] was running a majority of the sessions,” Yanez said. “But on the weekends, or on off days or lower-end days, I would jump in and run a session here and there and it would be very position specific. This entrepreneurial side started to come out and I was thinking, ‘Man, I’ve got to run this thing …’ But I get to do actually what I love outside my passion for playing.”

Still, despite the long hours between her coaching work and her playing career, Yanez found incredible success on the pitch during her six seasons with the Reign.

She scored 25 goals, won two NWSL Shields, earned Best XI recognition and was an MVP Finalist in 2015.

Yanez retired in 2020 and soon after, joined the NJ/NY Gotham FC as an assistant coach. There, she helped lead Gotham to the NWSL playoffs and a berth in the UKG Challenge Cup Final in 2021 before joining the Racing staff in 2023.

Last November, Yanez was elevated from assistant to head coach and has embraced the opportunity to start her head coaching career and share her knowledge and expertise with the current generation of NWSL players.

That she’s been able to do that during an especially memorable time for women’s sports is something Yanez says she doesn’t take for granted.

“I think it’s so special. If you look back from a playing career perspective, you see me being part of the 0.01 percent that was trying to progress and push the women’s game,” Yanez said. “I was part of the league at a time when I needed to buy my own gym membership. I was part of the league at a time there was no maternity protocol put in place. I was part of the league at a time when we didn’t get housing provided.

“I was making very minimal money but had to pay my own rent. I was part of, in a very small capacity, helping progress the women’s game. That’s something I’m incredibly proud of and now, making this transition over to the coach’s world, I want to do the same thing.”

And as Yanez continues moving forward in her new role, she credits her time at Miami with helping give her the strength to pursue her dreams, both as a player and later, as a coach.

“Being there at Miami, I felt supported, and I felt understood,” Yanez said. “It was a chapter in my life that I went on and it was probably the phase right before my first jump of saying ‘I want to do this. I want to pursue this. I want to be a professional athlete.’ And I was able to do it there. I was able to compete and get a degree. …

“It was a huge part of my journey, and I went on from there to play professionally. It was the jump I needed. I got drafted from the school and to know and all the work I put in as a player and as a collegiate athlete, to be rewarded and to have that was something I was so grateful for. It was really the first jumpstart of my career and so, it’s got a special place in my heart for sure.”