Mark Mayorga
Staff Writer
The University of Houston has football, basketball, baseball and other sports, but it is about to enter unfamiliar territory with the inaugural year of women's soccer in 1998.
And whose task will it be to build this program from the ground up?
Coach Chris Huston.
This young energetic coach is being given the reins to build this new addition to the Cougar family into a national power.
And build is what she will have to do.
With the practice site an early question and home games to be played in the antique Robertson Stadium, she will definitely have her hands full.
"Early on, there wasn't much happening," Huston said. "We didn't even have uniforms. But now things are finally starting to happen. A lot of the early questions are starting to be answered."
Huston, who is originally from Philadelphia, came to Spring, Texas when she was seven. Her father got her playing soccer shortly after they arrived.
"There was an area team that needed a coach," she said. "My dad told them if they had two open spots he would do it. After that, he told us we were going to learn to play soccer."
Attending Klein Oak High School, she displayed her talent as an athlete, but it wasn't until her junior and senior years that she narrowed to soccer as her only sport.
Her talent for soccer was enough to take her to the University of North Carolina. There she played two successful years until they came to an end with a tragic injury.
"I went there in 1988," she said. "I played there two years, and we won a national championship, but my career came to an end when I injured my neck."
After working three years for a shipping company and coaching on the side, she accepted a position to coach the Challenge Soccer Club.
"I was getting sick of my job," she said. "The University of Georgia contacted me for an assistant job, at the same time the Challenge did. It was more of a gut feeling to go with the Challenge. It's like I wanted to contribute to a club that gave me so much when I played."
Huston then got the opportunity to be the head coach at UH, and she took it.
"It just felt right," she said. "The people that I met here were great, and the facilities here are awesome. And the fact that it was here at home didn't hurt."
Competing with established programs around the country has been tough, so Huston has had to use all the resources to bring in some recruits.
"I've been pretty lucky since we currently don't have a team," she said. "All the other sports and their players have helped me recruit. It would of been much harder without their help."
For a program starting from scratch, entering Conference USA is the perfect situation for a team in its first year of existence.
"C-USA will give us a good mix," she said. "Games are going to be tough, but I think some of them we're going to win."