Emily Hester is in her first season as an assistant coach for the Chicago State women’s soccer program.

Hester comes to CSU after serving as an assistant coach at NCAA Division II Southwest Minnesota State University, where she helped the Mustangs finish the 2014 season with a 10-8-1 record and advanced to the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) postseason tournament. She also served as an assistant coach on the varsity girls’ team at Omaha (Neb.) North High School in 2014 before her appointment at SMSU.

In addition, Hester spent the last five years as an academy camp coach at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and coached three years in Olympic Development Programs in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Prior to her coaching career, Hester was a four-year letterwinner in soccer as a defender for Bellevue (Neb.) University, where she helped the Bruins capture three straight Midlands Collegiate Athletic Conference (MCAC) regular-season titles and four consecutive MCAC tournament championships in addition to four appearances in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) national tournament.

She garnered All-MCAC second-team honors in her final three seasons at Bellevue while capturing MCAC Scholar Athlete honors all four years and received the NAIA Champions of Character award in her senior season in 2013. Hester was also named Bellevue’s Female Student-Athlete of the Year following the 2013-14 school year.

Hester received her Bachelors’ degree in Health and Human Performance from Bellevue and is currently finishing up work towards a Master’s degree in Physical Education at Southwest Minnesota State.