At 3:15 Tuesday afternoon NIU Assistant Athletics Director Stacy Allie journeyed out to the soccer field to let the NIU men’s soccer team know about its new head coach, Steve Simmons.

“We’re ecstatic,” Allie said. “He’s going to bring so much passion to the team.”

However, the players already knew before Allie arrived. They already had read the press release on the NIU Web site earlier in the day.

The team’s five rising seniors, Jason Sullivan, Vraham Kadkhodaian, Matt Stukenberg, Brandon Smick and Nate Terry had a good idea that Simmons would be their man as they all interviewed the former Oregon State assistant last week, along with two other candidates. All five unanimously let the NIU athletics department know they felt Simmons was their favorite.

Bucknell University’s head coach Brendan Nash and Akron’s assistant coach Chad Flanders were the other two coaches in the running.

“The seniors [of next year] interviewed him on behalf of the team and, overwhelmingly, they voted for Steve,” Allie said.

Simmons will fly into DeKalb on Monday to watch his team play Wednesday and next Sunday for their games and to meet with the players individually.

“Our head coach [at Oregon State, Dana Taylor] was from the Midwest and knew that NIU had a position open,” said Simmons, from his OSU office. “He recommended for me to apply for the job.”

Though Simmons has spent all of his coaching career on the West Coast, he is familiar with the teams and soccer clubs in the Chicagoland area.

Simmons works with the Region IV Olympic Development Program, and will use those contacts to aid in his recruiting at NIU.

“We recruit nationally in the Pac-10,” Simmons said. “Chicagoland has so much talent.”

NIU’s coach for the past 16 years, Willy Roy, who didn’t have his contract renewed this year, was known for bringing in players from out of the country.

NIU senior Rasih Pala and 2002 NIU graduate Andrew Conti, who were on the last NIU team to make it to the MAC Tournament Championship game in 1999, strolled down from Ontario, Canada, and current players Bernhard Hagevik and Thomas Meiner hail from Oslo, Norway.

Simmons will look outside of the United States as well, having contacts in Norway, Sweden and England. But he is not going to take a player just solely on his athletic ability.

“We’re going to find the best student athletes that get it done on the field and in the classroom,” Simmons said.

Looking at the roster, Simmons knows he has a young team to work with and realizes he’s losing three seniors.

“He watched game tapes of us before he came and did his homework and knew about us,” said junior goalkeeper Nate Terry. “He’ll bring a very good commitment to the program.”

Simmons said he is looking forward to getting to know the players better in the spring. The style of play his team uses will be determined by what abilities the players possess.

“We want to have have a chance to win every single game,” Simmons said. “As we evolve, our style of play will change.”

Simmons’ has yet to name an assistant, but said he already has a coach picked out, but is not 100-percent sure yet.

Simmons has put together a record of 67-49-5 as a head coach, and this past year with OSU he helped the team post a 13-8 mark, an improvement from the 5-12 record the year prior. OSU ranked as high as 18th in the nation in 2002 and earned a trip to the NCAA College Cup.

Having been an assistant coach at Gonzaga (Wash.) in 1994, and then a head coach at Division III Whitworth College (Wash.) for one year and Linfield College (Ore.) for five years, Simmons does not see the move halfway across the country to DeKalb as being a hassle.

“Everything’s on the rise [at NIU],” Simmons said. “We want to catch the wave while it’s breaking out.”