Ann Cook enters her 18th season with the Penn State women’s soccer program ahead of the 2024 campaign. Cook was brought aboard at PSU as a part of head coach Erica Dambach’s inaugural coaching staff in 2007, officially joining the Nittany Lion family on March 6, 2007.
As longtime teammates and friends, Cook and Dambach combined for numerous wins on the field at William & Mary and have taken their on-field success into the coaching ranks, leading the Nittany Lions to the program’s first NCAA Championship in 2015, two Women’s College Cup appearances, five Big Ten Tournament titles and 11 Big Ten regular season titles.
As Associate Head Coach, Cook is the director of player development and oversees the Nittany Lion attack. Since she has been with the Blue & White, Penn State has had one of the most prolific offenses in the country. Under the Cook’s guidance, five Nittany Lions have scored 100 or more points over their Penn State careers. Maya Hayes finished her historic career in Happy Valley with 163 points (71g, 21a), which ranks third-best in school history. As Director of Player Development, Cook has mentored 22 players to NWSL draft selection, making Penn State one of the top producers of professional talent across all of women’s college soccer.
Cook’s contributions to the Nittany Lion program have been instrumental in extending the longest active NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 streak in the nation to seven consecutive years following Penn State’s run to the National Quarterfinals in 2023. PSU booked its first Elite Eight bid since 2018 in the 2023 season, the 17th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance in Happy Valley with Dambach and Cook leading the way.
PSU booked its best season of professional talent development in program history in 2023 ahead of the 2024 NWSL Draft, seeing a school-record quintet of student-athletes chosen. All five Nittany Lion draft registrants, namely Kate Wiesner, Payton Linnehan, Ellie Wheeler, Cori Dyke and Katherine Asman, heard their names called in Anaheim in the 2024 cycle. One year prior, a pair of Cook’s mentees in Penelope Hocking and Ally Schlegel were both selected by the Chicago Red Stars in the first two rounds of the draft. Schlegel was the most recent entrant into the Nittany Lion 100-point career scoring club, accomplishing that feat with a brace against the Michigan Wolverines on October 16, 2022.
Also on the professional level, Cook was instrumental in the development of 2021’s 12th overall draft pick, Sam Coffey, who became the first Nittany Lion NWSL draftee to garner NWSL Best XI honors in back-to-back seasons with Portland Thorns FC in 2022 and 2023. Under Cook’s tutelage, Coffey finished her collegiate career with 42 goals and 54 assists in 102 appearances, becoming the 50th player in NCAA Division I to record at least 40 goals and 40 assists.
Thanks in large part to Cook’s efforts on the offensive end of the pitch, Penn State collected the Big Ten Regular Season title, Big Ten Tournament Title and NCAA Championships in 2015, managing to outscore their opposition 20-0 during their 2015 NCAA Tournament run without allowing a goal over the final 733:32 of the season. Under Cook’s direction, Raquel Rodriguez became the second Nittany Lion in school history to garner the MAC Hermann Trophy, the highest honor bestowed on a collegiate athlete in soccer. Rodriguez scored the match-winning goal against Duke to secure the 2015 National Championship and utilized her award-winning collegiate career to springboard into the NWSL as the league’s second overall pick in 2016. Rodriguez won the 2016 NWSL Rookie of the Year Award and has established herself as the star athlete for the Costa Rican Women’s National Team as well as a consistent starter in the NWSL ranks.
Cook was also critical in guiding Penn State to its first NCAA Women’s College Cup appearance since 2005, assisting on a staff that picked up a 21-4-2 overall record in 2012 and saw PSU reach the National Championship match for the first time in program history. Maya Hayes and Christine Nairn were both critical components of one of the most prolific offensive units in the nation under Cook’s direction, with both athletes finishing in the 100-point club at the end of their Nittany Lion careers. Nairn was selected with the seventh overall pick in the inaugural NWSL Draft by Seattle Reign FC, while Hayes was selected one year later with the sixth overall pick by Sky Blue FC.
In total, Cook has helped contribute to 274 victories in Happy Valley since joining Dambach’s staff in the 2007 season, leading the Nittany Lions to unprecedented levels of success while cultivating talent at the highest levels of the game. In recognition of her efforts on and off the pitch, College Soccer News honored Cook as one of 12 assistant coaches who are difference makers in the sport.
Throughout her time at Penn State, Cook has been involved in the organization Soccer Without Borders and currently serves as a member of its advisory board. SWB’s mission is to use soccer as a vehicle for positive change in the lives of under-served youth around the world and has project sites in the U.S. as well as in Africa and Central America. Cook's primary involvement has been with its project for girls in Granada, Nicaragua.
As an early assistant project director for SWB, she helped establish what is now a thriving year-round program there. Cook has accompanied Penn State student-athletes there on multiple occasions and took the team to Nicaragua for spring break in 2018 to run camps and clinics for girls as well as coaches’ clinics. They also trained with and played against the Nicaraguan National Team.
Through her experience with Soccer Without Borders, Cook has worked with the U.S. State Department on projects in Nicaragua and in Egypt. She was also provided with the opportunity to go to Papua New Guinea to help the PNG U-20 National Team prepare for the 2016 World Cup.
Prior to her extensive career at PSU, Cook was an assistant coach at Nebraska from 2005-2007 and at Missouri State from 2004-2005. As the head coach at Drury University from 1999-2000, Cook oversaw Drury’s transition from NCAA Division II to Division I. Her squad ranked No. 5 in the NCAA Division I poll among new programs in 1999.
Active with the U.S. National Team programs, Cook was a member of the U.S. U-20 team from 1993-95 and played with the full national team in 1998. Professionally, Cook was a fourth-round draft pick (25th overall in the global draft) by the Bay Area CyberRays of the WUSA in 2000.
A member of the team that won the WUSA’s inaugural season championship in 2001, she was traded in December of that year to the Washington Freedom, which eventually finished as the 2002 league runners-up. Cook moved to coaching full-time when the WUSA folded after the 2003 season.
A three-time All-American, Cook played for the College of William & Mary from 1993-97. In the mix for the Hermann Trophy in both 1995 and 1997, she was the 1997 CAA Player of the Year and CAA Tournament MVP. The Tribe made appearances in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals two of Cook’s four seasons and concluded the seasons ranked in the top five nationally.