Minnesota Aurora hires former assistant Jen Larrick as new head coach

Jen Larrick takes the phrase “student of the game” quite literally.

The Minnesota Aurora announced Tuesday that Larrick, the club’s former assistant coach, will step into the head coaching role for the USL W League team, heading into its fourth season.

“I’ve interviewed for the head coach position twice now, so at this point, when the opportunity came up, I just was thrilled, and jumped at it,” Larrick said.

Larrick is the third head coach in club history, after Nicole Lukic and Colette Montgomery, who was not retained after last season, when the team went 10-1-2, losing to Indy Eleven in the conference playoffs.

“Jen was an integral part of our on-field success in Aurora’s first two seasons as an assistant coach and we know she will bring all her skills and talents to Aurora for our fourth season,” Aurora FC interim president Allie Schmidt said in the news release.

The team kicks off next season in May, having never lost a regular-season match but still looking for its first USL W League trophy.

Larrick was on the Aurora’s inaugural coaching staff in 2022, then again in 2023. Involved even before that, she recalled standing in the parking lot of Urban Growler Brewing Company with around 50 socially-distanced people discussing the quarantine project that would eventually become the preprofessional club.

Originally from Massachusetts, Larrick became ingrained in the Minnesota soccer community after transferring to the Gophers from the University of Florida. After graduating from the U in 2015, she coached at Augsburg, then Hamline, before her time with the Aurora.

But when Aurora’s summer seasons would wrap up, and college players would scatter back to their schools, so would Larrick, hopping across the Atlantic Ocean to Wales.

There, Robyn Jones, a coaching scholar whose work frequented Larrick’s Minnesota syllabi, had started a doctorate program in coaching at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

“I just found that studying coaching academically makes me a better, more reflective, more thoughtful coach,” Larrick said.

Larrick had known she wanted to coach since she chatted about soccer tactics with her own coach — her dad — in the car after her youth games. She petitioned for and designed her own coaching undergrad degree while at the U.

“I just kind of fell in love with the cognition, the chess match of soccer from a very early age,” said Larrick, a fan of the fluid, possession-heavy “total football” style of play popularized by the Dutch.

Larrick had hopes of playing in the Welsh women’s league while working on her doctorate, but when she arrived, changes in the league’s rules prevented her from playing on a student visa. When it came time to write her dissertation, she was less geographically tied to Cardiff, and she looked elsewhere to continue her playing career.

“Elsewhere” turned out to be New Zealand.

Larrick will make the move back to the Twin Cities after living in Wellington — writing, playing for Waterside Kaori AFC and serving as the club’s girls director of coaching. She’ll end her time in New Zealand with a camper van trip through its South Island and kayaking in Milford Sound.

“I’ve always sort of felt like soccer, football, is the world’s game,” Larrick said. “So I wanted to get a flavor for the culture, the style of coaching, but just, you know, football culture in general, in other countries.”

While abroad, Larrick stayed in touch with the Aurora crew and chipped in remotely where she could. She knows her travel, while a whirlwind, has been a different type of education in its own right.

“I think a big part of coaching is just being a well-rounded person,” Larrick said. “I could spend all night watching soccer and YouTube videos, analyzing the latest Premier League match, but the players you coach, they’re real people with whole, full lives.

“So for me, just becoming a well-rounded, globally-aware human — I think it’s important, not just as a person, but also as a coach.”