Sean Nahas has been named the North Carolina Courage’s head coach, the team announced Wednesday. Nahas has been with the Courage as an assistant coach since 2017 and transitioned to interim head coach this September after former head coach Paul Riley was fired by the team following allegations of sexual coercion made by several former players.
“To be asked to be the next Courage head coach, here in my hometown, and to work with these amazing women has made me both humbled and honored,” Nahas said in the release. “I am excited for what the future holds.”
Nahas helped the Courage win two NWSL Championship titles, three NWSL Shields and an ICC Championship title. Following Riley’s firing, Nahas led the Courage through the remainder of the regular season and into the NWSL quarterfinals, where the Courage were defeated, 1-0, by the Washington Spirit.
Nahas’s developmental experience includes a stint as the director of the Courage’s Girls Development Academy prior to joining the coaching staff. He’s also held coaching and scouting positions with U.S. youth national teams.
The Courage finished the 2021 regular season in sixth place behind Gotham FC with a 9-6-9 record. They recently traded USWNT star Sam Mewis to the Kansas City Current in exchange for defender Kiki Pickett and a first-round draft pick in the 2022 NWSL Draft.
(Photo: Ira L. Black Corbis / Getty Images)
What did Nahas do as interim to earn the full-time role?
Steph Yang, Women’s soccer writer: More important than on-the-field performance, Nahas seems to have the confidence of the locker room off of it, as Courage players have been vocal in their support of Nahas in the head coach role.
After an October game against the Washington Spirit, Courage player Kaleigh Kurtz told media that Nahas had been “phenomenal” and had been good about making the players feel supported and heard. Nahas himself told media after that game, “This is a result-oriented business. But it shouldn't be the priority in terms of certain things and how players are treated.”
And they did make the playoffs in the end, despite the massive disruption they experienced mid-season, though they ultimately lost in the first round to the Washington Spirit.
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What to expect from the Courage next season?
Yang: Given the recent loss of Sam Mewis and other inevitable roster changes, the Courage may not set as lofty a goal as returning to the championship but simply finding some stability and looking like a team that’s more comfortable in competing for playoffs, as opposed to having to sneak into the No. 6 seed based on other teams’ results.
Was anyone else in the running once he was promoted to interim?
Yang: It’s unknown who else the Courage might have been looking at for a coaching search besides Nahas, especially given that any newcomer would have the tough task of earning the trust of that locker room. It wouldn’t be surprising if the Courage simply deleted “interim” from Nahas’ title at the end of the season as opposed to going through any kind of coaching search.
The players have said they trust Nahas tactically as well as off the field, and his history with the Courage as an AC tends to support that trust. Of note, Nahas nearly got poached by Angel City in July, months before the allegations against Riley came out.
How does he help North Carolina move forward after the Riley allegations?
Meg Linehan, Women’s soccer writer: Here, it all comes down to the players and their trust in Nahas. Courage captain Abby Erceg said the team had advocated for Nahas as interim head coach, and even by mid-October, the players were already tweeting that interim should be removed from his title.
Courage owner Steve Malik can call Nahas "player-first" in a release, but the players are the ultimate judge of that — and so far, they've been pretty clear in their support of the move.
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