TAMPA, Fla. — A new professional women's soccer team coming to the Tampa Bay area next year has announced its first-ever head coach.
USF women's soccer head coach Denise Schilte-Brown has been tabbed as the inaugural leader for the new club that will begin competing in the USL Super League in August 2024, the team unveiled Saturday afternoon.
Schilte-Brown, who has been with the Bulls program since 2007, will begin her duties as head coach for the Tampa Bay-based team in November of this year, giving her time to complete her 16th season with USF.
"I am incredibly honored to lead the first Super League Tampa Bay team and commend this ownership group for committing and investing in women's professional soccer," Schilte-Brown said in a statement. "This team will be part of sports history. My family and I love USF and are incredibly proud of the women's soccer program we have built here and the outstanding young women who have played for the Bulls, excelled on the field, graduated and gone on to positively impact their communities and the world.
"It is hard to leave, but I feel good knowing we have built a very strong program and, as I will be remaining in the Bay Area, look forward to a front-row seat to watch USF women's soccer continue to excel on and off the field."
Schilte-Brown has had impressive seasons with the Bulls.
From 2017-2021, she led her team to five straight American Athletic Conference Championships and in 2020, the Bulls won both the regular season and tournament championships in the same season for the first time in program history.
Schilte-Brown helped USF get to its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2010 and only missed out on two postseason conference championships.
“We are extremely pleased Denise has decided to join our club," Super League Tampa Bay co-owner Darryl Shaw said in a statement. "She is leaving behind an incredible legacy at USF, and we look forward to watching her build and shape our team from its beginnings.”
An impressive Bulls product that was mentored under Schilte-Brown was Olympic gold medalist and recent USF Athletic Hall of Fame selection Evelyne Viens.
Viens won her prestigious medal with the Canadian National Team at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.
Overall, Schilte-Brown has posted a 174-91-41 record with USF.
"We are saddened by Denise's departure from the USF program, but also excited for her tremendous opportunity to coach the first women's professional soccer team in the Bay Area," USF Vice President for Athletics Michael Kelly said in a statement. "Denise has guided USF women's soccer to outstanding conference success, national prominence and a long string of outstanding student-athletes that thrived as Bulls and garnered All-American recognition and numerous conference awards.
"Her selection as the first head coach of Super League Tampa Bay speaks volumes not only of her coaching acumen but the strength of our program and the heights to which she has led it, including winning a conference title in five consecutive seasons, All-Americans, conference players of the year and an Olympic gold medalist," Kelly said. "We thank Denise for her tremendous service to the University of South Florida and look forward with great optimism to her final season at the helm. She will be greatly missed, but we are also excited to see her flourish in the professional ranks right here in Tampa Bay."
Super League Tampa Bay also announced Sarasota-based Christina Unkel as its first club president, who is a former FIFA referee and NCAA collegiate soccer athlete.
The new franchise will compete at the highest level of women's professional soccer in the U.S. and is the first time the Tampa Bay region will have a top-tier women's pro sports team.
Once sanctioned by U.S. Soccer as a division one league, the USL Super League will be equivalent to other professional sports leagues across the world and will look to bring in international players who have competed in the FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic Games.
Since the new league plans to play its season from fall through spring, all players will still be able to represent their national teams while also competing in the league.
The Tampa Bay-based team will decide its name, colors and crest later this summer after receiving input from an advisory board that includes community voices and soccer fans created to give guidance on connecting with the region and presenting a positive impact.
A temporary location for the inaugural season also has to be decided until a soccer-specific permanent stadium is built -- which will also be used as a year-round venue for a wide range of activities, including opportunities for youth and community soccer leagues and non-soccer events.
Sports fans across the local area can now place a season ticket deposit that costs $24 per person for priority placement and selection when season tickets become available. To learn more, click here.
There will be 10 to 12 teams competing in the USL Super League with other confirmed host cities including Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas/Fort Worth; Lexington, Kentucky; Phoenix; Spokane, Washington; Tucson, Arizona, and Washington, D.C. The additional franchises will be announced at a later date.
The Super League also has plans for five more franchises, pending stadium agreements, that won't be part of the original group. Those would be in Oakland, California; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Indianapolis; Jacksonville, Florida, and Madison, Wisconsin.
The new league said it hopes to close the “opportunity gap” between men’s and women’s professional soccer in the United States. There are more than 100 men’s pro teams in contrast to 12 women’s teams.
The Tampa Bay area is home to three soccer organizations, two of which are professional clubs -- USL Championship's Tampa Bay Rowdies and NISL's Tampa Bay Strikers -- and the other a semi-professional team -- USL League Two's St. Petersburg FC.
Schilte-Brown and her new team will hope to establish a winning culture that has not only been replicated by the Rowdies and Strikers in the past year but also by the other pro sports teams in the Tampa Bay region, such as the Rays, Lightning and Buccaneers.
To learn more about Super League Tampa Bay, click here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.