‘They’re going to fight for everything.’ New women’s soccer coach discusses vision for UK.
When Troy Fabiano’s father finished his day job at a factory, his job of passion began.
He would leave the factory and go coach high school soccer practice five days a week, for two hours each day. In the spring he would coach semi-pro soccer three times a week.
Fabiano’s father was born and raised in Italy, immigrating to the United States when he was 18 years old. He brought his passion for soccer with him across the Atlantic Ocean, and by coaching he helped pass that love to his son.
Fabiano tagged along to high school practices, took pride in shagging balls for the players and absorbed everything he could about soccer from his life that was born into it.
The biggest challenge and opportunity of that life is now right before Fabiano’s feet, as he was named the next head coach of the Kentucky women’s soccer program on Nov. 30.
“The biggest thing is I just want to add some stability to the program,” Fabiano told the Herald-Leader in a wide-ranging interview. “Adding that competitive culture where the players can grow and thrive in that environment.”
Fabiano’s success prior to arriving in Lexington is as accomplished a résumé as anyone in collegiate soccer.
Over seven seasons at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Horizon League, Fabiano and the Panthers went 101-16-13 (W-L-D) with a 58-2-4 record in conference play. Milwaukee won six Horizon League regular-season titles during Fabiano’s seven seasons as head coach, including five undefeated seasons in conference play.
Fabiano was named the Horizon League Coach of the Year six times.
Milwaukee won the Horizon League Tournament in each of the last four seasons, securing an automatic spot in the NCAA Tournament. By comparison, Kentucky hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2014, which was also the last time UK posted a winning record in Southeastern Conference play.
Milwaukee’s dominant success this season came with eye-catching statistics. The Panthers went 19-2-0 overall and 11-0-0 in conference matches and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The 19 wins tied the school record for a season.
To what did Fabiano attribute his long-standing success at Milwaukee?
Adaptability, rather than a rigid commitment to one formation or style of play.
Through time spent coaching club soccer and attaining United States Soccer Federation coaching licenses, Fabiano said he absorbed information from other coaches and learned to prioritize making adjustments based on the players at hand.
“I think the biggest thing as a coach is you obviously have to evaluate, but in the same sense you have to be flexible basically (with) the personnel,” Fabiano said, referencing the lessons learned during his first full-time head coaching job with the women’s soccer program at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, an NCAA Division II school.
“We want to be flexible in our approach and that’s changing different styles, formations, but we’re going to be super organized and we’re going to have players to compete,” Fabiano continued, noting that he prefers practices to be shorter, but more intense to mimic game situations. “That’s the biggest thing. I don’t do well with players that feel like they can’t compete or they’re entitled to something. They’re going to have to earn it.”
Despite being the son of a soccer coach, Fabiano stumbled into the profession himself somewhat by accident.
Fabiano played collegiately at Robert Morris University just outside Pittsburgh and then played professionally for indoor and outdoor lower-league teams in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh.
While Fabiano served as a men’s soccer assistant coach at Robert Morris and as the interim head men’s soccer coach at Eastern Illinois, his coaching career really began when he returned to his native Wisconsin.
Fabiano was playing with the Milwaukee Wave indoor team when he was given the chance to help the Parkside women’s program, which led to him becoming the head coach soon afterward.
Starting in 1998, Fabiano spent 17 years as the head coach at Parkside, stringing together 16 consecutive winning seasons and making eight NCAA Division II Tournaments before leaving for Milwaukee in 2015.
So why make another big jump now to Kentucky?
“We did almost everything we could possibly do with what we were provided (at Milwaukee),” Fabiano said. “You look at the facilities, top-notch facilities, the support that they have for the (Kentucky) program, here in the SEC the most powerful conference in the country.”
Another aspect that swayed Fabiano was the people he interacted with at Kentucky, specifically UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart.
Fabiano said Barnhart wanted him to come to Lexington on the weekend of Nov. 20, just a couple days after Milwaukee’s season ended with a loss at Virginia in the NCAA Tournament second round. But that weekend coincided with a chance for Fabiano to watch one of his three sons, Marco, play in the NCAA Division II Men’s Soccer Tournament with Parkside.
“I said, ‘Mitch, I really want to go see him play, I haven’t seen him play all fall,’” Fabiano recalled. “And (Mitch’s) exact wording was, ‘We want you to go see him play.’ And that was pretty important to me because obviously you always preach family, family is my number one priority. So that said a lot.”
“We visited with a lot of folks. There’s one person that kept rising to the top of every conversation and of everything that we looked at,” Barnhart said during Fabiano’s introductory press conference on Dec. 7. “The interview and the process to get a chance to know Troy did not disappoint. He was absolutely who we thought he was and who we wanted in our program and to lead our program.”
Fabiano will be dealing largely with the same recruiting area at Kentucky that he did at Milwaukee, with a five- to six-hour radius that encompasses the Midwest, but also with the chance to recruit the South.
What lies ahead for Fabiano at Kentucky is a daunting task to push the Wildcats back up the SEC table.
Under former head coach Ian Carry, who assumed his post before the 2017 season, UK went 27-52-8 overall and 7-37-4 in conference matches, including matches played this season under the guidance of interim coach Paul Babba after Carry was dismissed in October.
This season UK went 7-10-2 overall and 1-9-0 in SEC matches. The Wildcats haven’t finished a season with a winning overall record since 2015.
Fabiano said he will wait until the spring semester to evaluate the players currently on the UK roster, which features players Fabiano has seen play before while recruiting and players he’s less familiar with, like the nine international athletes on the UK team.
“They seem to be competitive, (a) couple games maybe not as competitive as they would like, but it seems like they’re close enough there and there’s some pieces that are in place,” Fabiano said of his early impressions of the UK team. “It’s more or less, ‘How many pieces need to be added?’ Which we’ll sort out quickly come spring.”
Fabiano has already gotten to work adding players to the Kentucky roster, though.
On Dec. 20, it was announced that two players would be transferring to UK for the 2022 season: Hailey Farrington-Bentil and Taya Hjorth.
Farrington-Bentil is a graduate transfer from Mississippi State who tied for the Mississippi State team lead in goals last season. Hjorth redshirted the 2021 season as a freshman as part of a Florida State team that won the NCAA title.
Another priority for Fabiano will be flipping the mindset of the UK program to be able to turn close losses into draws and wins. Over the last three seasons, UK lost 17 games by a one-goal margin.
“The competitive piece that we’ll always have at practice where we’ll always compete and play for something will hopefully carry over to the game field,” Fabiano said. “To me, it’s about flexibility being efficient. ... We’re going to come out and compete and if that’s not in their nature (then) it’s going to be difficult for players that are not built like that to be on the field.”
Changing the trajectory of the UK women’s soccer program won’t be done overnight, not in an SEC that had seven participants in last season’s NCAA Tournament and two schools that reached the Elite Eight.
“Right now Kentucky is at the bottom of the table. We have a lot to gain on everybody else in the SEC, but in the same sense we’re not going to back down,” Fabiano said.
Between using the transfer portal to get immediate help and laying a long-term foundation through traditional high school recruiting, Fabiano plans to form a team that is competitive, gritty and physical, something he hopes is as apparent to Wildcats fans as it is to opponents.
“They’re going to fight for everything on the field. That’s the biggest piece,” Fabiano said of his vision for his UK teams. “I want people to realize when they step on the field against Kentucky they’re going to be in for a battle. ... The whole point is this program is going to be built by hard work and by players that want to compete. That are not scared to get dirty and are willing to grind and put the work in because I think that goes a long, long way, no matter what the rosters look like and who you’re competing against.”
