Coaching trailblazer Twila Kilgore talks about her journey from the Houston Dash to the USWNT

Twila Kilgore is no stranger to hard work. She attributes her work ethic to her mother, who owned and operated her own flower shop.

“My mom always just said, ‘if you have nothing to do — at a minimum, you're sweeping the floor,'" Kilgore told The Striker Texas. "So I'm happy to do that if that's what it takes — just whatever job is needed.”

These days, there’s very little time for Kilgore to sweep the floors. Last week, after three seasons in the NWSL, the former Houston Dash assistant coach left her role under James Clarkson to fill the vacant position of assistant coach for the U.S. women's national team (USWNT), working beneath Vlatko Andonovski.

The offer did not come as a surprise to many who cover U.S. women’s soccer. Over the past few years, Kilgore has become one of the most highly regarded up-and-coming coaches in the country. Just last year, she became the third woman and first American-born woman to earn her U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) Pro License. 

In keeping with her industrious work ethic, Kilgore achieved this difficult feat while also coaching the Dash through a grueling 2021 NWSL season and the International Women’s Champions Cup. 

“It was pretty nonstop between the online workshops, the in-person meetings, and then someone visiting us. Along with all the assignments, it was a pretty solid year of work,” said Kilgore about the USSF Pro License.

“In between the in-person meetings, there's also a learning period. So you're supposed to be applying what you learn in this in that time frame. And during that time, one of the coaching instructors flew out here and spent a week with me, in our environment, to give me feedback on the job that I'm doing here [in Houston].”

She says that a significant benefit of the course was having exposure to legendary coaches and staff in the industry, like two-time Women’s World Cup winning coach Jill Ellis and the four-time English Premier League title winning manager Arsene Wenger. 

In addition to these high-profile sessions, Kilgore emphasized that one of the “best parts” of the year was forming bonds with other coaches on the Pro License course, especially those outside of the women’s soccer world. 

“Being in women's football, I'm not always exposed to our counterparts — and in actuality, we're colleagues," she says. "So that was fantastic to be able to be exposed to a lot of information that we're not always exposed to in high performance [and] to hear how other professionals think about it and apply it in their own environment.

“In my case, I don't know how much overlap I would have had with MLS head coaches. I don't want to leave anybody out on the whole course because we all just became like a really good cohort together.”

Kilgore’s decision to assume the role of assistant coach with the USWNT has even added a neat level of symmetry with a fellow Texas-affiliated member of the 2021 Pro License graduating class: former FC Dallas head coach Luchi Gonzalez.

“Luchi was with FC Dallas at the beginning [of the course]. Now he's an assistant with the USMNT senior team," she says. "And you know, he's only a couple hours away, but outside of this course, we would have never met, and he's an amazing guy. He's become a good friend. And the course was full of people like that.”

READ MORE: Luchi Gonzalez becomes USMNT assistant

Although Dallas has a long tradition of supplying the men’s national team with elite players and now coaches, Houston has rarely had many of its luminaries break through on the women’s side. Once again, the current USWNT roster for this week’s SheBelieves Cup includes zero players from the Dash.  

That said, Kilgore will be reunited this week with New Jersey/New York Gotham FC midfielder Kristie Mewis, who has been a mainstay with the USWNT since 2020.

While working for the Dash, Kilgore was tasked with designing the attacking set-pieces. She credited Mewis’ delivery as a huge reason for her success. The Dash led the entire NWSL in goals from set-pieces in 2021. 

“I was really pleased that we put up really good numbers, a lot of that has to do with service and the quality of our players in the air,” said Kilgore about her coaching on set-pieces. “Anything that we could steal points on, like set-pieces, is right up my alley. I really love working with the individual and guiding them along.”

READ MORE: What we learned from the Dash's transfers

Being able to hone an attribute and get the most out of a specialized skill is something that Kilgore credits to Dash head coach James Clarkson. Like her former boss, Kilgore preaches that the collective is always more important than the individual. For the Dash coaching staff, not just the players, this was also the case.

"James is really good at including everybody. He gets good people and puts them in the right positions, and that gets things moving," she says. "Everybody on staff has, at a minimum, a USSF License. The Dash might be the only team in the league that can say that. We have so many people that can reach out to individuals and work on the individual things, and then collectively, we're making decisions together in the office."

The reverberations of Kilgore’s achievements and talents are also being felt around the entire U.S. soccer coaching world. Female coaches across the country are taking notice of the new USWNT assistant coach. Although the importance of being a trailblazer is not lost on Kilgore, she believes that not every coach has to mirror her path. 

“It's not that I want people to follow in my footsteps, because I want everybody to take the path that's meant for them, but I am hopeful to see more and more women in the course, holding the pro license, and then, most importantly, be out in jobs where they can use it,” she says.

“I think whether you're male or female, it's hard to get in, and it's not a guarantee that you're going to pass and I think it shows a lot about your willingness to be open to grow.”

READ MORE: 'Good vibes' as Dash begins preseason  

Twila Kilgore will begin her tenure as the assistant coach of the USWNT at this week's SheBelieves Cup. Find all the info on the tournament here.