It's no secret that the Marquette women's soccer team calls itself a family. The word written on the team's shirts, and moreover, family is a cornerstone principle of the program's philosophy. In her latest blog for NCAA.com, Amy Farnum gives fans and readers a little insight to how it started and what is exactly the women's soccer team's family. 

We Are Family 

When Markus Roeders took over a very young Marquette University women's soccer program in 1996, he knew that to build a successful program he needed to create a close-knit, family-like atmosphere for his players.

Roeders and his associate head coach Frank Pelaez played together with a very close-knit group of guys at UNC Asheville and learned that those strong bonds between players were an integral part of fielding a winning team.  Roeders and Pelaez came to Marquette in only the fourth year of the program's existence - a program that had yet to have a winning season - but inherited a group of 10 seniors. 

"We were able to pull them together and create something for them, and we ended up 16-6-1 and won the regular season Conference USA championship that year," said Roeders.  "The idea that came out of that year was the concept of family.  We're going to go through highs and lows. We're going to go through everything together - just like a regular family."

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