Taylor informed her audience of her job at the Middle Way House, which is a domestic violence program and rape crisis center. The agency aims to support those who have experienced domestic violence or abuse.

Middle Way House also offers an emergency domestic violence shelter for women and children under the age of 18, and transitional housing for those trying to escape violence and homelessness.

Taylor also elaborated on the uses of the agency’s crisis hot line, open 24/7; the Rape Crisis Center; and the euphemism used to describe victims of abuse.

“As an agency, we at Middle Way House try to use survivor as much as possible because we feel like it’s more empowering. The word victim acknowledges what one person did to someone else and sort of defines that person by someone else’s actions against them,” said Taylor.

Her presentation focused on recognizing and preventing abuse, and examining its causes and mistaken causes. The main types of abuse emphasized in her lecture were physical, sexual, emotional, economic, and the influence of children.

She addressed the listeners about some of the less obvious warning signs of abuse: withdrawal, depression, and fear of one’s partner. As students snapping pictures ducked in and out of the audience, Taylor continued to talk about the reasons people don’t always leave abusive relationships.

Usually the survivor loves the perpetrator and there are good parts of the relationship. Many times the survivor does not recognize their partner’s behavior as abuse. They are used to being told it is their fault, so they believe it, but according to Taylor, ”Fear is the number one reason people don’t leave abusive relationships.”

When it came to aiding friends or family with instances of abuse, Taylor expressed the importance of just listening to the survivor. She was adamant that allowing them to make important decisions like who to tell, whether to report the abuse, and how or when to end the relationship is essential.

She emphasized the importance of the survivor regaining control of his or her life. If it comes down to a life or death situation, the bystander can break confidence, but should talk to the survivor about it first.

“What this presentation has done is make me more inclined to see these kinds of relationships. In all likelihood, someone I know could be in one and I wouldn’t know it!” said HSJI student Conor Gearin.

After the presentation’s conclusion, numerous students took the opportunity to ask Taylor questions in a press conference setting. Many of the questions focused around abusive possibilities like mutual abuse or how much power is normal in relationship.

Taylor answered many of the questions with the definition of teen dating abuse: a systematic pattern of beliefs and behaviors when one person has power over the other in a relationship.

“If presented the opportunity, do you pass up going to the place that, for one, you grew up around, you went to, you played for, you coached at?” said Yeagley. “You don’t pass up those opportunities.”

Yeagley got his start in soccer at a young age. He was born in 1972; his father’s efforts to make Indiana soccer a varsity program succeeded in 1973. Jerry Yeagley would spend the next 31 years building a tradition of excellence, winning the first of six national championships in 1976 in addition to 10 Big Ten championships, 28 NCAA tournament appearances, 16 College Cups, and 12 national final appearances. Yeagley admired the passion and work of the IU team, and he soon became a player himself.

“You typically follow what your older brothers do. Well, my older brothers were the IU soccer team,” said Yeagley. “That environment, that encouragement—you could just see the passion. It was something that really excited me.”

His dad, however, never actually coached him besides a few pointers after games. But when the time came for college, Yeagley knew where he wanted to go: IU.

“I idolized these players and the program, so for me it was pretty easy. I knew if I was good enough I was going to come here.”

Between 1991 and 1994—Yeagley’s four years in the program—Indiana went to two College Cups but never won a championship. Yeagley, a defender, won All-American honors all four years—second-team in the first three, and first-team and Missouri Athletic Club Player of the Year his senior year.

After college, Yeagley went on to the pro game, playing one year with the Richmond Kickers in a second-tier league and, when Major League Soccer founded in 1996, seven years with the Columbus Crew. After 2002, though, he decided to retire and ended up at IU in 2003 as a volunteer assistant coach for his father.

“With my particular background, with my father as a coach, (coaching) was something that was in the back of my mind, certainly, through my pro days.”

That season developed into a storybook one. Jerry Yeagley announced his retirement during the season. Then, despite losing players to the U-20 team, Indiana advanced to the national final as an underdog and won, beating St. John’s (N.Y.) 2-1 for the national championship. Jerry Yeagley went out of the game on top with a title and a record 544 victories, and Todd Yeagley won the championship he never got as a player.

“Of moments in my soccer career, that one sticks out,” said Yeagley.

Yeagley ventured forward without his father in 2004 as a full-time assistant for Freitag and stayed for five more years. The IU soccer team posted a 91-25-23 record during Yeagley’s time as an assistant, winning another national championship in 2004.

Now back at IU, which had a 12-10-1 season last year, Yeagley hopes to carve out a winning tradition of his own with one of college soccer’s traditional powers.

“The one thing that will never change in this program is that we’re fighting for championships,” said Yeagley. “That’s an inherent goal of this program.” The next few years will determine how well Yeagley carries out that march back to the top.

The success of Yeagley’s father has certainly influenced the new coach in many ways in his soccer career.

“It’s opened doors for me. It’s given me an opportunity to experience things that other aspiring players or young coaches wouldn’t be able to do,” he said. “I’ve been around and experienced things that, unquestionably, I couldn’t receive if I wasn’t his son.”

And, in some ways, Jerry Yeagley is still watching over his son from the sidelines by giving advice.

“We have a very open relationship, and he’s not afraid to tell me something I’m doing well or something he thinks I could do better. It’s typically constructive. He’ll give me advice on what he sees, and again, it might be a really small detail, but it’s one that’s important to the program.”

Yeagley said that he and his father share certain coaching characteristics, too, based on personality.

“The way we approach (the game) and the way we interact with the players is pretty similar. You got to coach within your personality. Some are high-octane and in your face and running up all over the place, and that works for them. That’s not my style. When the players hear me, they’re going to hear me, but it’s not all the time. I really like to teach and instruct, and that part just is very fun for me.”

But Yeagley is by no means his father all over again. He says that he disagrees with his father on some tactical matters.

“Defending was a main priority (for my dad), and it is for me too,” said Yeagley. “However, the emphasis put on it might be a little bit more that he would do than I would. I might skew things a little more attacking.”

As for how he will approach the traditional college coaching challenge of recruiting, Yeagley said that camps, showcases, and tournaments, including the United States Soccer Federation  (USSF) Academy, allow the top players to rise, even when soccer is not the country’s most popular sport.

“The way that our youth are pulled together with teams, it allows the cream to rise, and we have a lot of events that allows us to see a lot of the best players at different times of the year,” he said.

Also, Yeagley said, soccer’s popularity is steadily increasing in the United States, as evidenced by the media attention paid to the recent World Cup in South Africa.

“It’s tough in our culture to break into the top three (sports), and, that said, there is a niche for soccer in this country. And we’ve already carved out some,” Yeagley said. “Without a doubt, the World Cup, our pro league in particular has given us a larger exposure and a bigger window. With ESPN and ABC providing the coverage that you saw this World Cup, they understand that there are young fans—our fan base is growing.”

That exposure may, Yeagley speculated, advance the sport so that some of the best young athletes do choose soccer over football, basketball, and baseball, as almost all do in other countries.

“The question is are the best athletes playing soccer. That you can’t say yet,” Yeagley said. “We have great athletes that are playing, but the 10-, 11-, 12-year-old that is the best athlete in his area, whatever community you look at, if that boy or girl decides to go to another sport, you never knew how good they could have been in soccer.”

But, for now, the recruiting pool is still big. Only 200 Division I programs exist, each pulling five or six recruits per class—meaning that only the very few best make the D-I level. This abundance of talent will allow Yeagley to build up the Indiana program in the next few years.

For now, though, signs after the spring training season are good. The team capped off its spring run with a victory over Mexico’s U-20 national team.

“The strides we made from day one to our final test, which was our Mexican game, where we beat the under-20 national team from Mexico. That gave me a pretty good indication that they’re doing a lot of things well.”

The team reports for camp August 17, with the first game coming in early September. Yeagley does not want to quantify goals, but rather stresses achieving “everyday excellence.”

But if Yeagley’s demeanor—poised, one leg crossed over the other, a soccer enthusiastic who still wears black Adidas shorts and a red IU soccer shirt—is any indication, then wins and championships will be coming back to Indiana in the next few years.

Yeagley is taking over a Hoosier squad with a 2009 record of 12-10-1. Yeagley said in an interview in his office that his personal goals are to continue to enhance the program, help win championships, and elevate an “already phenomenal” program.

Yeagley says he just wants to continue to grow, a cliché that really depicts his laid-back personality. He describes his coaching style as hard-working, but not loud. In games, he’s a talker, he doesn’t choose to yell at his players, he said.

Many soccer fans would describe Yeagley as having a modern coaching style, according to his explanation. Yeagley says most of his coaching is done in practice. He also said that “I’m not one that would like to coach out of fear.” He adds “When the player hears me, they’re going to hear me.” Yeagley says he likes to “teach and instruct.”

Being the son of one of the best coaches in American soccer history, one may wonder how his coaching style compares to his father’s. Yeagley contrasts his coaching style from his dad’s. “Every coach sees things a little bit different,” he says.  Yeagley remarks that his father has a similar personality to him though. “That’s what it comes down to as well though; you gotta coach within your personality. When explaining his dad’s coaching style contrary to his, he claims his father emphasized defense, as he emphasizes his style as a mixture of attacking and defensive play.

Yeagley describes his coaching as hands-on, being a unique experience. Not being a screamer or a yeller, he comments “When players hear me, they hear me.” In addition, he describes himself as fair, but not overbearing.

Yeagley also gave his viewpoint of the season ahead. He said that the “team looked good.” He adds that being a fall sport, his disadvantage lies in the fact that the team’s last practice was in late May.  According to Yeagley, the team will report five days before their first exhibition on August 22^nd. The team’s best indication on their future success lies in the Spring, where they defeated a under-20 Mexican team. Yeagley remarks that the win was “a very positive note to go into summer break with.”

When asked about how he would use Junior Will Bruin, the Hoosier’s returning top goal-scorer (9), Yeagley jokingly remarked that his job would be to “score goals.” He also adds that Bruin has the ability to be the next 20 goal scorer. He said that Bruin has “physical size, athleticism, and a scoring touch that’s rare.” Positionally, Bruin will be a striker. Yeagley says though that last year, the team was at times the “Will Bruin Show.” Yeagley plans to fix this, saying that the team “Cannot affectively do that to make a deep run.”

Overall, Hoosiers’ coach Todd Yeagley looks promising. He’s genuine, and truly understands what he’s going to do next season. The key to the Hoosiers’ future success truly lies in their ability to recruit. This theory stems from Yeagley’s father’s remarkable success with recruiting. This being the case, it seems like Yeagley won’t have a problem then, being the son of the great Jerry Yeagley, coaching at historically one of the best college soccer programs of all time, and being host to over 60 All-Americans.