Heather Nelson, SEMO Soccer going strong in 25th season

Southeast Missouri State coach Heather Nelson kicks a ball during a recent practice in Houck Field.

Carrie Trovillion ~ special to the Southeast Missourian

Among Southeast Missouri State's 13 athletic programs, over almost 120 years, only one program has had a head coach from the beginning to the present day.

Heather Nelson was hired to both create and coach the SEMO women's soccer program in 1999 and has been here for 25 years and counting.

Redshirt senior Megan Heisserer said the 25th season of Redhawks soccer is a huge milestone, and she is excited to be a part of it. Heisserer also spoke highly of the teams that came before this year's squad and the example they set.

“For the first team that played for SEMO, I hope they are able to see the program now and be proud of what it has become and what the Nelsons have built,” Heisserer said. “All of the past teams have set such great examples for current players to look up to, and we only hope to continue to improve and grow the program even more.”

Nelson and the Redhawks began their season this fall at home. The Redhawks defeated Grambling State 4-1 at the updated Houck Field and later tied with Evansville 0-0 that same week.

Nelson said the renovated stadium will not only have a positive impact on and improve the experience of spectators but will also have a positive impact on her players and SEMO as an institution.

Nelson had experience starting a soccer program from scratch at Florida State University, where she was the head coach of the Seminoles from 1995 to 1998. She said early on at SEMO, the main struggle was recruiting.

“I hit the ground running. I had to recruit one athlete a week, on average, to put a team on the field in the first season,” Nelson said. “I went back and forth on I-55 to St. Louis an incredible amount of times. I just lived on the road that spring.”

Nelson said her pitch to get these athletes to come to a school whose program was new was getting to play Division I soccer and the success the other SEMO teams were having at the time. Softball had just won its fifth-straight Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Championship in 1999, women’s indoor and outdoor track and field had won the OVC in 1997 and 1998, and the women’s volleyball team had won the OVC tournament in 1998.

After getting a team together and playing the 1999 and 2000 seasons, Nelson wanted to make sure the team had chemistry and camaraderie. She did this by taking her team on a trip to her home country of Canada where they saw Vancouver, British Columbia, and went even further north to just past Whistler, British Columbia, where her brother owned a cabin. Nelson said she believes the team got much closer on that trip, and the results of the next few seasons proved it.

“That was in 2001, and that program had some fantastic success in 2001 and 2002,” Nelson said. “I am confident that many of them would tell you that it's still, other than them having a family and being parents now, one of the best experiences in their entire life.”

Throughout Nelson’s tenure at SEMO, she has had the opportunity to coach all three of her daughters. She coached her oldest daughter Jordyn from 2015 to 2019. Her middle daughter Taylor is currently on the team, and her youngest daughter Justi joined the team as a freshman in 2023. She has also had the same assistant coach her whole career at SEMO, her husband Paul Nelson.

Nelson said she was terrified that her kids would hate soccer because they lived it all the time and were such a soccer family.

“I think we were just really fortunate that they had excellent teammates and parents in the local area, amazing people that really got them off to a great start socially and competitively,” Nelson said. “We were really blessed with that, and a lot of kids that they played with actually have gone on to play college soccer.”

Nelson’s coaching career at SEMO has not always been easy, and the team has gone through hardships throughout the years. According to Nelson, the biggest struggle has been the death of senior defender Meg Herndon on Sept. 20, 2012. Herndon was involved in a vehicle accident on Sept. 9, 2012, and remained in the hospital before she eventually passed away. Herndon made 39 starts in the 55 games she appeared in and was also a nursing major, making the OVC Commissioner's Honor Roll three times.

In the 2013 SEMO soccer alumnae match, the program retired Herndon’s No. 2 jersey. The university currently offers the Meghan Herndon Memorial Scholarship, which goes to a member of the team each year. To be eligible, the student must have a GPA of 3.5, a commitment to earn a nursing or health sciences degree, and demonstrate community service.

Nelson said going through this experience with her team and Meg Herndon’s family taught her the biggest lesson of her time at SEMO.

“I want to make sure that the players in our program understand how important they are to the program and the ability to have a positive impact in this community or their local communities and to not take that for granted,” Nelson said. “Because women’s sports, in general, don’t tend to get the same hype or media attention as men’s sports do, but we do make a huge impact on our communities.”

The Redhawks (2-2-1) will travel to Murray State for a game at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10.