On June 2, Iowa soccer named Erin Rubright as its new Director of Operations.

Prior to working for the Hawkeyes, Rubright had made stops at Liberty and Temple’s football programs as a student worker and graduate assistant. In 2021, Rubright was named the Director of Operations for women’s lacrosse at Xavier University, leading the Musketeers in their inaugural season.

A native of Long Valley, New Jersey, Rubright had always been surrounded by sports. Her parents were both head coaches at Roxbury High School, with her father leading the softball and swimming programs while her mother took charge of the women’s basketball team. Rubright played softball as a youth and later starred on West Morris High School’s field hockey team.

The realm of college athletics was no mystery to Rubright either, as every Saturday in the fall she dedicated to watching Penn State University football. With multiple alumni in the family, the Rubrights had season tickets and even owned a townhouse up at College Station.

“We grew up watching college athletics, loving college sports,” Rubright told *The Daily Iowan.* “I think I had always, just because of that, wanted to be part of that world. And kind of somewhere along the way, I didn’t really think it was possible.”

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Entering her freshman year at Liberty, Rubright was a youth ministries major. Yet during her first semester that year, Rubright met a woman who worked for the Seattle Mariners in high school.

That encounter was enough evidence for Rubright to pursue sports management, changing her degree to coaching education and athlete development, and becoming a student worker for the Liberty Flames’ football team where she specialized in recruiting.

“I love that I got my start in football because football is just a different animal,” Rubright said. “I learned how to think really quick on my feet. I learned to kind of not let changes in schedule and that stuff rattle me because that was always going to happen and just how to work with a lot of people with a lot of different personalities and people doing different jobs.”

After graduating in May 2020, Rubright faced a job market drastically hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rubright had interned for the Temple University football team as a video assistant the summer of her junior year, and all it took was one email to be brought back on the Temple Owls’ staff as an equipment manager, eventually working her way up to the player development department.

Rubright said working on the gridiron was accompanied by a lot of pressure, people, and moving parts, not to mention the ever-changing politicking of recruiting.

“Obviously in every job, you’re going to want to do your best and there should be a little bit of pressure to do what you need to do to help the program,” Rubright said. “But college football is different, and so I just started to realize that I didn’t enjoy that as much. I also wasn’t really able to enjoy college football like I always had because I was working in it.”

In June 2021, Rubright departed the football world when she was named the Director of Operations for women’s lacrosse at Xavier. Not only was the sport new for the school but was unfamiliar to Rubright as well.

During practices and games, Rubright could be found on the sidelines, asking assistant coach Grace Beshlian and players why certain calls were made and the strategic reasoning behind specific plays.

“Just that willingness to learn and not letting [unfamiliarity] stop me from taking a position or making a move,” Rubright said. “So that’s kind of what went into the thought process behind doing all of that.  Just being a sponge, being willing to soak everything in and learn as much as you can.”

After leading the Xavier Musketeers in their inaugural season last spring, Rubright was informed of the Iowa job by Xavier women’s soccer head coach Nate Lie, who knows his Hawkeye counterpart Dave DiIanni well. After Lie spoke highly of DiIanni and the program at Iowa City, Rubright got to confirm his recommendations firsthand.

On her visit to campus, Rubright was struck by the “Iowa hospitality” of the Hawkeye athletics department, noting how even women’s gymnastics coach Larissa Libby stopped by to introduce herself.

“It was just some of those little things, like every person that I met was great, friendly, and welcoming,” Rubright said. “And it was a very genuine friendly, not just like, ‘Clearly, you’re on your interview and we want to be nice to you.’”

DiIanni said in a press release Rubright would be responsible for team travel, recruiting, and supervision of the support staff. In her new role, Rubright hopes to continue what previous director Stephanie Burak started as well as expand her knowledge of soccer.

Aside from ‘being a sponge’ and embracing the learning process, Rubright also wants to be someone who players are comfortable with and want to confide in.

“I’m not determining their playing time in any way. I have no say for what happens with them on the field,” Rubright said of her non-coaching role. “Just kind of being able to be that person that gets to know the athletic department really well so that if [players] have questions about where they need to go for this or that, I can be that person for them.”