Perhaps no other sport in the existence of Seattle Pacific University athletics generated as much fanfare as the decision to add women's soccer as a 12th varsity program. An overflow audience of more than a hundred students, staff and community representatives converged on Falcon Lounge on the afternoon of March 7, 2000, to hear President Philip Eaton announce the decision.

It was an announcement which had been some 20 years in the making. Initially the obstacle was the lack of a suitable facility. The men's team rented various fields and stadia from 1968-96. However, with the opening of Interbay Stadium in 1997 the effort to create a women's program intensified.

Women's soccer was designated as the next new sport in the athletic department's five-year plan of 1997. Funding for the program's implementation was approved by the Board of Trustees in the winter of 2000. Eaton and athletic director Tom Box then enlisted men's coach Cliff McCrath and longtime U.S. World Cup star and Seattle native Michelle Akers to help shape the program.

“I am tremendously excited about the opportunity this offers our women students,” said Eaton. “As you know, our history in men's soccer under Cliff McCrath's leadership has been outstanding. We look forward to establishing a similar tradition in the women's program.”

The sport first gained a foothold on the SPU campus in the Eighties, when a women's team prospered as a club competing in the Northwest Collegiate Soccer Conference. With the dissolution of the NCSC after the 1993 season it was no longer possible for school-sponsored clubs to regularly schedule games with local varsity teams.

It was a former player of McCrath's, Bobby Bruch, who was selected as the first head coach on Oct. 17, 2000.

Seattle Pacific opened its inaugural season Aug. 25, 2001 by tying Point Loma Nazarene 1-1 on the road and then scored its first win three days later at Vanguard. The Falcons won their home opener Sept. 8, 2001 by defeating fellow Great Northwest Athletic Conference member Central Washington 2-1.

After contending for the conference crown up until the final week of the inaugural season, SPU claimed four straight GNAC titles. Chuck Sekyra, another alum, succeeded Bruch as coach in 2003 and promptly led the Falcons to the first of four consecutive NCAA tournament berths. In Sekyra’ third season, the team finished the regular season unbeaten for the second year in a row and advanced to the NCAA championship game.