UCF Press Release [+]

Friday, April 16, 2010

ORLANDO, FL - The University of Central Florida Hall of Fame Class of 2010 will be inducted this evening. The list of inductees includes football player Elgin Davis, baseball and football player Michael O’Shaughnessey, tennis player Alexander Wood, soccer player Kim Wyant and philanthropist Wayne Densch as an honorary inductee. Wyant enjoyed a 12-year affiliation with the USL W-League’s Long Island Lady Riders as, at various times, a player, coach and general manager. As a pro player, she minded the net for national champion teams in 1995 and 1997 and was the league’s goalkeeper of the year four consecutive times. 

Her numbers are outstanding. In eight seasons from 1995-2002, Wyant posted a 48-14-1 record with 30 shutouts. Most impressive is the fact that over those eight seasons, Wyant never allowed over a goal per game. She finished her W-League career with a goals against avaerage of 0.808.  

At UCF, Wyant was a four-year starter, a goalkeeper of UCF’s acclaimed women’s soccer team (1982-85). In 1985, she was a first-team All-American and the team MVP. She led the Knights to the finals of the first NCAA Division I women’s soccer national championship in 1983. She was a member of the first ever U.S. national women’s soccer team, playing in their first official match in Italy in 1985 and making 16 career appearances (caps) for the team. She played well into the 1990s in the W-League and continued to rack up awards. Along with fellow UCF alumnus Michelle Akers, she is widely believed to be among those who is responsible for the rise of women’s soccer, and has served as a staff coach consulting with FIFA.

Big Apple Soccer Feature on Kim Wyant [+]

Wyant began and ended her UCF women’s soccer career in similar fashion. The Miami-native was named the team’s rookie of the year as a goalkeeper in 1982. In her senior season in 1985, Wyant was named the team’s MVP, while earning NSCAA first-team All-American honors. Wyant went on to great things in women’s soccer, as a member and starter on the first United States women’s national team and then became a prominent pro in the U.S.-based W-League.

As a UCF freshman, Wyant started in the first-ever Women’s NCAA National Championship, a game the Knights lost 2-0 to North Carolina. Despite the loss, she was named the tourney’s Most Valuable Player. The championship game marked one of many soccer ’firsts’ for Wyant, and helped grow the sport for women. In the early 1980’s, there were less than 100 schools nationwide fielding college women’s soccer teams.

A story once led off, [Wyant] "is to U.S. Women’s soccer what Ringo Starr is to Rock and Roll, an original member of the group who set the stage for today’s soccer mega-stars. Before there was a Mia Hamm, or even a Brandi Chastain, there was Kim Wyant and the rest of the first-ever U.S. Women’s National Team."

In 1984, top players from across the country were invited by the U.S. Soccer Federation to play in a tournament in Washington, D.C. At the weekend’s end, a national team was selected. Wyant made the squad. The following year, after playing at the Olympic Festival in Baton Rouge, another national team was selected. Again, Wyant made the cut.

Wyant would make 16 overall appearances for the U.S. National Team and started the very first U.S. women’s international match in 1985 in Jesolo, Italy. She would carry the distinction of being the first goalkeeper in U.S. history and record America’s first win and first shutout.

Wyant was the head coach at Florida Atlantic from 1995-98 has also served on the Region I U.S. National Team’s goalkeeping staff, as an FIFA staff coach, and as the head coach for the Long Island Girls’ Select Program. She was also the creator and founder of Above-All Goalkeeping camps and has been a Nike-sponsored athlete for more than six years. Above all, Wyant is a goalkeeper, eager to get back in the net. Since the W-League’s inception back in 1994 until her retirement, Wyant had been the league’s dominant goalie. She won Goalkeeper of the Year honors for four consecutive years between 1995 and 1998. She was the MVP in the 1997 Championship series.