This stuff happens everywhere!
After 17 seasons at Our Lady of Lourdes (Miami, Fla.) and guiding the girls soccer team to a best-ever Class 5A state runner-up finish this season, Ray Walden is out as coach, he confirmed to ESR Wednesday morning.
Walden recently was named Class 5A State Coach of the Year by the Florida Dairy Farmers Association. Lourdes finished 20-3 this season, losing on penalty kicks in the state final. The team will finish in the ESR top 25 for the first time in school history.
Walden said he was "shocked" after being told by the administration that it wanted to take the program in a "different direction."
Until this season, Miami large school girls soccer programs were not much of a factor on the state scene. But that image changed after Lourdes handed Palm Beach Central (Wellington, Fla.) a 4-0 state semifinal defeat just days after Central defeated perennial state power St. Thomas Aquinas (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.).
During Walden's tenure at Lourdes, the program played in seven of the last eight region finals -- winning four. He guided the program to its first district title in 2000 and added district crowns in 2006, '07, '08, '09, '10, '11 and '13. The three-time Miami Herald Coach of the Year compiled a 17-year record of 247-53-38.
Walden said will explore opportunities to coach elsewhere next school year.
