CCNY Women’s Soccer Coach Yanique Newman Brings Passion and Big Plans

“I want when people say City College of New York, they’re worried about us. And when I say worried, it means we’re coming and you have to be ready,” Yanique Newman said. 

The head soccer coach at The City College of New York (CCNY) brings a lot to the team. As an alumna, former student athlete, CCNY Athletics Hall of Famer, she not only understands the game, she understands and identifies with the students. She is also the only female head soccer coach in the CUNY Athletic Conference. 

Newman became the head coach in August 2025, and she remembers exactly how she felt as a player on the team before she graduated in 2015. “I wanted to do things. I wanted to break records. I was talking to my coach about the current records and goals for a game, all these different things. I wanted to kind of leave a legacy playing there,” Newman said.

She came to CCNY, like many of today’s students, with the passion of her family and culture.

Newman grew up playing soccer in Kingston, Jamaica. “I started learning from just like the streets,” she said, “I would watch videos or I would just have a ball in the middle of the street. You put the goals out, the cars come in, you got to move out of there. Yeah, it was the best way of learning.”

She went on to make the hometown team and was the only girl playing with the boys. She would find all times of the day to practice including lunchtime and afterschool. She played and watched soccer as she continued to build her skills and develop her athletic ability. “I just started, just loving it and falling in love with it more and more,” she said. 

When she was 15-years- old, she moved to the United States and played soccer for Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, New York. She earned the title of captain that first year, and stayed in the position until she graduated. 

In 2011, she enrolled at CCNY and started playing for the Women’s Soccer Team. She worked throughout college to pay for school, and built her resume by coaching 18-month to 2-year-old children at Sonic Soccer.

At college, she began to rack up the honors. She was the 2014 City University of New York Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) Player of the Year, a CUNYAC and Eastern Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) All-Star, and ranked second in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in goals per game. Newman still holds three program records for CCNY for goals in a game (6), season (28), and career (56). 

CCNY inducted her into the Athletics Alumni Group Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019. 

“I had a great experience playing at City College. I feel like they helped me through a lot. Like when things were hard with me outside of soccer, being able to play made my college experience so great,” she said.

After City College, she earned her masters degree  in kinesiology and sports management at Brooklyn College. She worked at the YMCA and was promoted from personal trainer to coordinator, to director of sports and fitness, and she coached soccer at Monroe College.

It all felt just right to her. “Being able to make a meaningful difference in the lives of the people that you work with. Helping them see their potential and just being a mentor to some of the players. I think I just wanted to be the coach that I always wanted,” she said. 

After COVID, she started working in the soccer club scene. She coached the Girls Gotham Football Club and FC Select.

“I’ve always had a passion for creating a girls program, right? Because you see the girls coming in, they would shy away. They’re like, oh, the boys taking the ball.” So I wanted to create programs where girls feel comfortable. Whatever you’re able to do for the boys, you should be able to do for the girls,” she said. 

In December of 2023, Newman set in motion plans for her own all-girls soccer club called United Ballers Football Club (UBFC).  It  focused on accessibility, mentorship, and empowerment. “I wanted to provide access for girls, regardless of their socioeconomic background. Like I want you to be able to play,” she said.  

Starting UBFC wasn’t easy. People around her warned her it would be too difficult. “Everyone I spoke to was like, ‘Why would you do that? That’s hard.’ But if my spirit is telling me to do this, I’m just gonna do it,” she said. So she kept working at her goal. She got a grant from the U.S. Soccer Foundation and got equipment to create a free program in the community for girls. She applied for permits to run the program in city parks and when she sent out registration, fifty girls applied. 

“We try to turn no one away, regardless of their skill level. We have a scholarship application, so if you make below a certain amount, you go fully free. If they’re not ready to travel, we have just ball.  We have other programs for them because we want players to fall in love with the game,” she said.  “We’re trying to create a community that’s invested in just developing young women, not just for the game. It’s not just about soccer for us. It’s all about empowering these young women to be the best version of themselves.” 

Before founding UBFC, she had been volunteering in Jamaica and holding free clinics for children in her old community.“I’d worked in two areas of soccer. I’ve worked in the affluent, where every kid has a soccer ball when they’re playing, and I’ve worked where it’s like one ball for 20 kids. And I was placed in a group once where I was like, wow, the resources here are not as much. And it reminded me of Jamaica,” she said. “I remember what it was like not to have, and I’m in a position right now, if I’m able to support and help the kids, like, I’m going to do that.”

The summer after she graduated college, Newman gathered a few friends and reached out to family in Jamaica to help secure fields. She reached out to different schools in the community, and held GoFundMe campaigns to raise money  to support the free clinic. Newman was able to get friends to send in items like signed jerseys to raffle off. That first summer, they raised over $2000 and had more than 75 kids sign up. Their free clinic got attention and local news covered it.

Newman continues to volunteer every summer, even getting old classmates who are now doctors and police officers to  give talks to the kids. “I want to make sure I go back and let these kids see that regardless of where you come from, you could do great things,” she said. 

The same drive that takes her back to Jamaica year after year, now fuels her mission at CCNY. She wants to empower  young women and bring up the level of the women’s soccer team. She’s passionate about building a team to win championships and hopes to  make it to NCAA tournaments. 

“I got to continue to push even when it’s hard. It’s a male dominant career that I am in, and I have to just stay grounded in everything,” she said.