Simon van de Loo - Field Hockey Coach - University of Massachusetts Athletics

Simon van de Loo

Title:
Assistant Coach
Email:
svandeloo@umass.edu

Simon van de Loo enters his third season with the Minutewomen, joining the program as an assistant coach in June of 2023. Van de Loo brings 16 years of coaching experience to the Minutewomen, having most recently spent the 2022 season as an assistant coach for the Den Bosch men's field hockey team.

Van de Loo served as an assistant for a historic 2024 campaign which culminated in Massachusetts' first NCAA Final Four appearance since 1992 and fifth overall. Helping earn the program's 27th overall NCAA Tournament bid and first appearance since 2016, van de Loo served as assistant for a staff which received NFHCA Northeast Coaching Staff of The Year selection. The Minutewomen finished the 2024 season with a 17-6 record and an undefeated 7-0 mark in A-10 play. Van de Loo helped coach three NFHCA All-American, five NFHCA All-Region and seven All-Atlantic 10 honors including three A-10 major awards. Paula Lorenzini specifically earned A-10 Defensive Player of the Year honors, marking back-to-back season a Minutewoman claimed the honor, with van de Loo serving a enhance role coaching the defense.

Getting off to a strong start, van de Loo assisted the Minutewomen to a 13-7 overall record and a 5-2 mark in A-10 competition during the 2023 season. He helped instruct Hannah de Gast and Myrte van Herwijnen who highlighted 11 All-Atlantic 10 honors for the Minutewomen as they claimed Defensive Player and Goalkeeper of The Year respectively. The Minutewomen finished as runners-up in the Atlantic 10 Championship while receiving three NFHCA All-Region Honors to conclude the 2023 campaign.

Before his time in Amherst, van de Loo helped Den Bosch qualify for the playoffs of the 2021-22 indoor season while finishing fourth in the 2020-21 season. In 2021-22, he also aided the KHC Dragons to a Euro Hockey League (EHL) Cup in Belgium.

Prior to his role with Den Bosch, van de Loo spent three years as the head coach of the HCAS men's field hockey team. There, he guided the team to a promotion into the Overgangsklasse, the third level of the Dutch field hockey system.

While at the helm of the HCAS club, van de Loo also was the head coach of the Hockey Academy Limburg from 2016 to 2020, where he educated and trained players of both the boys and girls U12, U14 and U16 regional selection teams.

van de Loo also took on the responsibilities of recruitment and organizing clinics, camps and tournaments as the head of Marcel Balkestein Hockeyschool from 2015 to 2020, as well as the hockey trainer for Matchplay in 2012-14.

For eight years (2007-15), van de Loo was the head coach for the top youth teams at Oranje-Zwart, coaching the boys' and girls' U12 team, the boys' and girls' U14 team and the girls U16 team.

van de Loo also worked for B2Bpro as a supervisor and a sales agent for the last three years.

As a player, van de Loo captained the HCAS club team from 2012 to 2017 after spending a season with the B.H.V. Push, where he trained at Oranje-Zwart and B.H.V. Push. He also competed for nine years with the MHC Oranje-Zwart and Dutch National Teams. He membered the U12, U14, U16 and U18 boys' teams, while also playing with the U16, U18 and U21 Dutch National team. With the U18 boys' team, he aided the team to a second-place finish. He also was a member of the EHL KO4 men's team, helping the team to its third national championship.

Van de Loo earned his Bachelor's in Sport Marketing and Sport Management from Johan Cruyff Institute in 2023 in Tilburg, The Netherlands. He earned his first-year transcript in 2012 in Commercial Economics, Sport Marketing and Sport Management at Johan Cruyff, after attending Pleincollege Sint-Joris in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on a pre-university education direction in Economics and Society.