At the beginning of the 2023-24 school year, Jotwan Daniels — a respected teacher at Summit High School who also served as head coach of the boys and girls soccer programs — decided to leave the school for a position at Colorado Mountain College.

The Summit High School athletic department quickly hired Daniels’ assistant, JJ Bosgraaf, to take over the boys team, but the girls head coaching position remained open until a few weeks ago when Summit athletic director Bob Bodor hired Makenzie Meade. 

Meade brings a lot of knowledge to Summit High School not only from a coaching perspective, but also from an athlete standpoint. Prior to moving to Colorado, Meade grew up in Wyoming but often made the commute down to Colorado to play in club tournaments and games.

Meade played high school soccer for Laramie Senior High School, where she was selected four times for the all-state team, chosen as Wyoming’s women’s soccer Gatorade Player of the Year and secured the title of all-time leading scorer for the high school with 64 goals.

These accolades led Meade to have several college offers, but Meade decided to stay in state at the University of Wyoming, where she earned a starting spot on the team from 2010-12. 

“I really picked (the university) because I believed in the values and the coaching philosophy,” Meade said. “The coach we had then, Danny Sanchez, is actually down at CU. Very good coach. Very talented. He really sold me on all the things, and I wanted to play for him.”

After a foot injury brought an unexpected end to Meade’s playing career, Meade served as an assistant soccer coach for a single fall season at Gillette College and the head junior varsity coach/assistant coach at Campbell County High School for a little over four years.

“I moved back to my hometown after college in Laramie, and the head coach at the time at the high school pulled me in and taught me a whole lot,” Meade said. “I really like to coach because I like to see the kids grow and learn. Regardless of what they are learning, I really enjoy watching them enjoy something.”

Meade officially moved to Colorado in August of 2020 after securing a job at Eagle County School District’s Homestake Peak School as a special education teacher, which she did previously in Wyoming.

Over the last three-plus years, Meade moved to West Grand High School in Kremmling to be a special education teacher and served as a head cross-country coach at West Grand Middle School. 

After being a special education teacher for two school years, Meade was hired as an instructional coach within the West Grand School District while continuing to be a head cross-country coach since there wasn’t a soccer program.

With roots in Kremmling and Grand County, Meade was drawn to the open head coaching job at Summit High School because of the team’s drive and pursuit for success on and off the field.

Meade takes over a Summit program which had high expectations under Daniels.

“It sounds like he had really high expectations for their performance, so I would love to keep that,” Meade said. “I would love to keep rolling on that. I think all of the girls are bought in with that. They are very talented athletes. Obviously a lot of them play rugby and are quite successful in that program. I think they have that hunger of wanting to be successful.”

Meade officially met the team for the first time on Friday, Dec. 1, and will keep the girls connected to soccer in the weeks leading up to the start of the spring sports season on Feb. 26. 

“They have a great schedule here with all of the turf time and the weight room time,” Meade said. “They support the student athletes quite extensively, which is awesome. Just continuing to promote going into the weight room for injury prevention, being ready for the season, being fit so we don’t have to work on that fitness as much during the season.”

Meade is looking forward to getting the season underway and starting to get a grasp of the group of athletes she is now coaching. From strengths and weaknesses to the team unifying as a group, Meade can’t wait until the the winter sports season gives way to spring sports.

“Truly just teach the love of soccer and the game at its simplest form,” Meade said. “I think that breaking it down and it coming down to the simple love of soccer — and the very simple skills — is where we will succeed.”

The Summit girls soccer team went 6-8-1 overall and 1-8-1 in league play last season. 

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