Women’s soccer coaching pair hope to put the fun, and victory, back into MSU Denver’s team
Katie and Jeff Hooker bring decades of experience as both players and coaches to their roles.
This story appears in the fall 2026 issue of MSU Denver Magazine.
Katie Hooker may be Metropolitan State University of Denver’s new head Women’s Soccer coach. But she’s hardly new to soccer.
MSU Denver grabbed her — along with her husband, Jeff Hooker, who serves as a volunteer assistant coach — after she’d spent two decades coaching with the University of Denver team and years on the field as a professional and collegiate player.
Joining MSU Denver “was super appealing,” Katie Hooker said, “We’re a college family. And working together again was one of the most appealing parts.”
The couple met while he was head coach of the University of Denver men’s soccer team and she joined the staff as an assistant women’s coach.
“Katie’s strength is that she doesn’t feel like she knows everything. She’s always learning new things,” Jeff Hooker said. Also a former professional player, and a member of the 1984 U.S. Olympic soccer team, he racked up a winning record and half a dozen championships with the Pioneers.
Jeff Hooker said he encouraged Katie to take the Roadrunners head job. “This is a different situation, with our roles reversed — now she’s working full time.” That’s something she was hesitant to do when their three kids — now 9, 11 and 13 — were younger.
A major key to coaching success, Jeff Hooker said, is being able to teach, and knowing that “players have many different learning styles.”
Katie Hooker is excited by the possibility of matching the former glory of the MSU Denver women’s team, which brought home a Division II national championship in 2004. And she’s grateful for the backing of the University administration and athletics department. “They’ve all been super supportive, and that’s been wonderful,” she said.
After her first season at MSU Denver, she turned her attention to bolstering the team roster, an essential step after losing 10 seniors last year.
“Locally, a lot of players don’t know what MSU Denver has to offer,” she said. “One big piece (of recruiting) is just reaching out to local clubs and making sure they know what a good option MSU Denver is.” The new MSU Denver student housing complex, expected to open in 2027, will help considerably, Hooker said.
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So will the presence of the Denver Summit FC women’s team, which is playing its inaugural season just down the street at Empower Field at Mile High.
“Any relationship we’re able to get with that team is going to be great. I think it’s exciting for the players,” Katie Hooker said. “Whether they’re interested in playing professionally or not, they can see there are many job opportunities ” in a sport that’s growing rapidly.
Soccer’s profile and popularity have skyrocketed since the Hookers began playing. For Katie Hooker, her playing days started when she was a 5-year-old in Bakersfield, California. “I lucked out, I had someone who wanted to coach me.” She loved the fun of the sport, the running up and down the field, and went on to play in college and professionally.
Juggling Katie’s full calendar of practices, games and travel during the soccer season with the schedules of three active kids, who themselves play soccer and “are always going in three different directions” takes patience, planning and a little help from friends and family, Jeff Hooker said.
The same is true for many of the Roadrunners on her team, Katie Hooker said. “A lot of the kids here come in and work really hard and practice, and then they go to work. Or to class. Their days are full.”
She never loses sight of what drew her to soccer in the first place: fun. “We’re there to win, that’s the goal. But we’re also there to have fun.”
