Holding her son, Michele Vasconcelos (née Murphy) cried as she recalled the day she sat in Jennifer Rockwood’s office in Provo and the BYU women’s soccer head coach offered her a scholarship.
She cried that day, too.
The Sandy, Utah, native and Alta High School star had dreamed of playing at BYU for Rockwood. Her time at BYU would bring her plenty of accolades for her performance on the pitch, including the 2016 WCC Player of the Year and getting drafted 11th overall in the 2017 NWSL draft, but those aren’t the reasons she lists for why she’s grateful for Rockwood for offering her that scholarship.
“It completely changed my life. I got to get an education. I met my husband there,” she told the Deseret News. “I will always, always love BYU soccer and love Jen Rockwood.”
Ten years after her senior season, Vasconcelos’ relationship with Rockwood and BYU soccer has come full circle. The day after our interview, Vasconcelos returned to Provo to watch her daughter, Scarlet, participate in a BYU girls soccer camp, where Scarlet would be coached by her mother’s former coach, Rockwood.
This summer marked Rockwood’s final BYU soccer camp after holding 230 camps and teaching 63,000 campers — some who later became her players.
In June, Rockwood, the only head coach the program has ever known, announced her retirement. Her 32nd and final season began last week with a BYU 2-1 upset of No. 9 UCLA in Los Angeles.
The winningest active female head coach in the NCAA entered her final season with 470 wins, 26 NCAA tournament appearances, 17 regular-season titles and nine conference tournament championships.
But according to her former players, Rockwood’s legacy is more than that. She’s a head coach who inspires confidence and demands excellence. But she’s also a coach who knows when her players need ice cream instead of practice, joins in on freshman pranks or delivers chocolate to a player’s hotel room after overhearing her disappointment in the postgame meal.
“She’s won all the titles, all the championships, almost won a national championship,” Vasconcelos said. “But the influence that she’s had on each one of us that went through the program is immense, and you see that. All of us just love her.”
Establishing a culture of excellence
During Rockwood’s 31 seasons, BYU soccer had 24 All-Americans, 13 Academic All-Americans, nine MAC Hermann Trophy candidates (the sport’s most prestigious collegiate award) and 18 players reach the professional level.
The secret to that success was Rockwood demanding excellence from her players and knowing “how to get the best out of her players,” according to Vasconcelos.
“I knew what she expected, and because she did demand that excellence, I then, in turn, demanded that of myself,” she said. “I saw my teammates do the same.”
Vasconcelos learned that message the hard way after she was benched and had to make her way back into the starting lineup.
“We all knew that every time we put on that jersey, that we needed to give our best,” she said.
Ashley Hatch, a forward for the Washington Spirit and 10-year NWSL veteran, described Rockwood as “one of the most intimidating” but also “loving coaches” she has ever played for.
“She just has very high standards for herself and for her team,” Hatch said. “It’s kind of like this unspoken standard. It’s not like she’s constantly telling us ‘We need to be the best at this and this and this.’ She has this motherly presence about her that’s kind of just like, ‘I expect a lot from you guys,’ because I think she sees the potential in all of her players.”
In one of her official visits to BYU, Hatch remembered sitting in Rockwood’s office and asking her if she’d ever play a freshman.
She recalled Rockwood saying she would “put the best players out on the pitch.”
“She definitely did a good job of upholding that,” Hatch said.
Mikayla Cluff (née Colohan), who helped lead BYU to its first national championship appearance, said she and her teammates wanted to play their best for Rockwood, not just for themselves.
“Players didn’t want to disappoint her on or off the field. Players wanted to impress her,” she said. “When she’s lived the life that she does and has the charisma that she does and everything, it’s easy to respect her, and she gets that naturally. ... You just want to work really hard for her because you want her to succeed.”
Rockwood is the reason the program has its prestigious reputation, according to Cluff.
“Everyone looks at BYU women’s soccer as a prestigious program that you have to work really hard to get to,” she said. “You have to have the right values and respect and attitude off the field. You have to be a good student. If you reach that level and you’re getting offered in high school leading up to college, then you know that you’re getting invited into a very high-level program, and she’s built that culture from the ground up.”
Rockwood also expected that hard work and excellence to translate to her players’ classes and grades, because as Vasconcelos said Rockwood taught her, “if you’re half-in on a bunch of things, then you can never be fully in.”
But even in her culture of excellence, Rockwood knew when to make it fun. Ice cream, bagels, bowling and floating the Provo River deserve a sliver of credit for BYU’s success.
Around NCAA tournament time, players would show up to practice, and Rockwood would instead hand them a credit card and send them to Baskin-Robbins to treat themselves. Leaving an away game, Cluff remembers Rockwood instructing the bus driver to stop at Baskin-Robbins along the way.
During the summer while players ran the BYU camps, Rockwood would show up with Einstein Bros. Bagels for her players.
“Jen was just great to be around, too,” Vasconcelos said. “I’ve had some coaches where they were just super intimidating and you didn’t want to even sit at the same table as them at meal time. But Jen was fun.”
The fun included pranks.
Vasconcelos recalled when the players took the freshmen to Rockwood’s home and told them that it was the house of one of the players’ ex-boyfriends and that they were going to toilet-paper it.
The head coach was in on the prank. Dressed in all dark clothes, including a hoodie, she surprised the freshmen.
“She came out and just scared them so bad,” Vasconcelos said. “It was really funny.”
Rockwood would occasionally hold competitions in practice, such as if a player could “chip the ball to the table,” then she would buy the team new sweatpants, according to Vasconcelos.
“I kind of really appreciated that balance and that work ethic that she ingrained in us but also to not take things too seriously. Like, it’s OK to have fun but also to take your job seriously,” Hatch said.
‘My biggest mentor’
Cluff first met Rockwood when she was in middle school while playing in the Olympic Development Program championships. Rockwood was there scouting Cluff and some of the other players.
Cluff had to temporarily leave the game after an injury. The trainer assessed her right next to where Rockwood was sitting. Rockwood checked in on Cluff before returning her attention to the game.
Their paths crossed again after the game when Rockwood told Cluff, “You’re fun to watch. I’m sure we’ll be in touch soon.”
“I felt like I was in the most successful person’s presence ever,” Cluff said. “I was starstruck a little bit and just wanted to make a good first impression on her.”
Cluff went on to play for Rockwood at BYU, spent five seasons in the NWSL and now is Rockwood’s right-hand as the program’s director of player development.
In her new role, Cluff gets to share some of the lessons she learned at the professional level with her former coach, “biggest mentor” and now, “friend.”
“What’s always stood out the most to me about Jen is the person that she is, and how she makes you want to be a better person,” Cluff said. “Through my playing career at BYU, I left a better soccer player, but even more than that, I grew in life and left as a better person and felt more equipped to move on to the next chapter of life.”
That’s Rockwood’s goal for her program, according to Cluff.
“She wants your life to be better after playing at BYU,” she said.
In 2021, BYU advanced to its first national championship game. Prior to that season, the program had never advanced past the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament, but entering that season, the team knew it had “a realistic chance of winning the national championship,” according to Cluff.
The national championship game against No. 1 seed Florida State was scoreless through regulation and extra time, which meant penalty kicks would determine who won the title. BYU ultimately lost, 4-3.
Despite the heartbreaking loss, Rockwood “didn’t show any sort of anger or disappointment,” Cluff said. Instead, the head coach exuded pride in her team.
“When you lose in the championship the way we did in PKs, it’s really hard to not just be totally down, defeated, all of that,” Cluff said. “I think she helped every single one of us recognize how amazing of a season we had and how much we had to be proud of, rather than just feeling disappointed.”
Rockwood has kept her office door open to her former players long after they’ve left Provo, always willing to share wisdom and support.
“Whenever I was struggling in the league or struggling with certain things, I knew that I could text her and either ask for advice or just lean on her for things, and she was always a good sounding board,” Vasconcelos said. “It’s funny, I feel like I leaned on her more for that stuff when I was out of BYU rather than there.”
‘An unwavering belief in me’
When Hatch left BYU in 2017, Rockwood gave her a soccer ball.
Hatch was off to the NWSL as BYU’s highest-ever draft pick after being selected second overall by the North Carolina Courage. Surely, Carolina would have enough soccer balls for Hatch to train and play with.
But this wasn’t just any soccer ball.
Months prior, in October 2016, Hatch made her debut for the U.S. women’s national soccer team at then-Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah. Rockwood, who was the one to inform Hatch of her call-up, sat in the stands. She had brought all of Hatch’s BYU teammates to watch her big moment in person.
Rockwood bought an exact replica of the ball used during the match. She then wrote details and stats from the match on the ball to turn it into a keepsake for Hatch to always remember her first cap.
“She bought it for me and held on to it until after I had left so we didn’t break any (NCAA) rules,” Hatch said. “She was always really good, I feel like, at little things like that.”
Hatch described Rockwood as the first coach and person outside her family to have “an unwavering belief in me as a person and as a player,” she said.
Rockwood didn’t express that belief through words of affirmation, but Hatch said she always felt it, and that fueled her own self-belief.
“I could just feel that sense of belief, and that gave me a lot of belief in myself and confidence, too, to do what I did at BYU but also to continue to play after my time at BYU,” Hatch said.
Brecken Mozingo, who was drafted fourth overall by Utah Royals FC in the 2024 NWSL draft out of BYU, felt the same way. Rockwood was the first coach to extend an offer to Mozingo, who committed verbally to the program at 14.
“She was the first one to let me know that she had my back and she believed in me,” Mozingo said.
After getting an offer to play at UCLA, Mozingo called Rockwood and de-committed. During that call, Rockwood told her that she would always have a spot at BYU.
Mozingo only spent her freshman season in Los Angeles before transferring to BYU. At first, she didn’t think there was room for her on the team, but Rockwood kept her word.
“I just couldn’t have been more grateful,” she said.
Mozingo had what she described as “a little bit rocky” start, but Rockwood continued to believe in her.
“She never really told me that I need to be a certain player. She just told me, ‘You need to be Brecken out there, and Brecken is what’s going to help us win games,’” Mozingo said.
Rockwood helped players develop their self-belief by also reminding them of their divine nature. She tied teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU’s sponsoring institution, into her coaching “very naturally” through the quotes and messaging she shared with her players, according to Hatch.
“She talked a lot about us being daughters of God,” Hatch said. “... Obviously, it’s going to be the only time in my career that I’ll probably ever play for a coach that is the same religion as me, so I definitely remember those moments because they’re so unique.”
Rockwood’s confidence in herself served as a blueprint for her players.
“She taught me to be confident in who I am as a person and as a player, and I feel like because of the way she carried herself, I had a really good example of what that looks like,” Hatch said.
That confidence and “steadiness,” as Mozingo described it, was the biggest lesson she took away from her time at BYU.
“That has been the No. 1 thing I’ve had to implement as being a pro, because I’ve been, in the past three years, a starter, a sub, a player that’s actually impacting the game, a player that isn’t impacting the game,” Mozingo said. “I need to just show up each and every day, day in and day out, as the same person and believing in my name, because Jen believed in her name.”
Now three seasons into her NWSL career, Mozingo’s gratitude for Rockwood hasn’t faded.
“I’m forever going to be in debt to (the coaching staff) and in debt to Jen Rockwood especially.”
Whatever happens in her final season, Rockwood’s real BYU legacy won’t be found at South Field, but in the lives of the athletes she coached.
Quoting her teammate, Bizzy Bowen, Vasconcelos called Rockwood “the mother to all of us.”
“We all just love her and adore her, and I think that it’s not always easy to say that about a coach because coaches have to make really hard decisions and not everyone gets to play all the time,” Vasconcelos said. “But even those who didn’t play all the time that were just lucky enough — all of us that were lucky enough to be brought into the program, we all just love her.”