Jacob Pickard returned for his second stint at Menlo College just before the beginning of the 2024 fall season, helping guide the program through its first year at the NCAA Division II level in the PacWest Conference. He brings two and a half decades of coaching experience at nearly every level of the game.
Prior to rejoining the Menlo College coaching staff, Pickard was the first assistant at Cal State Bakersfield, helping the program earn its first-ever wins over Long Beach State and UC Santa Barbara in the Big West Conference in 2023. Before joining the Roadrunners, Pickard was the assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Cal State East Bay from 2018-23, winning a CCAA Conference championship during the program’s first-ever conference tournament appearance in 2021.
Pickard’s first stint with the Menlo College women’s soccer program was from 2017-18, when the Oaks defeated No. 4 Westmont for the first time in program history, marking the program’s first victory over a nationally ranked Top-10 opponent. His first college coaching experience came in 2015, when he simultaneously worked as an assistant coach with the women’s program at Cañada College and as the goalkeeper coach for the University of San Francisco men’s team. In his two years at Cañada, the team went 22-15-2 after the program had gone 2-45-1 over the previous three seasons and reached the 3C2A playoffs for the first time in seven years in 2016. During that same time, USF came within one game of winning the West Coast Conference championship in 2015 and defeated Stanford in 2016, the second of the Cardinal’s three consecutive national championship seasons.
Returning to Menlo College in 2024 marked Pickard’s third coaching stint in Atherton, as he was also the head coach of the Menlo-Atherton High School boys’ varsity program from 2006-15. During his tenure, he won four league titles, received Coach of the Year honors from the San Jose Mercury News and Palo Alto Daily News, and led Menlo-Atherton to its highest-ever national ranking of No. 18 in the ESPN/Powerade FAB 50 rankings in 2012.
Pickard also has extensive experience at the youth level, having worked with U.S. Soccer’s youth national program at Market Training Center sessions and served as a head coach for State teams in the Olympic Development Program. He currently coaches teams at Pleasanton RAGE Soccer Club and trains goalkeepers at the Girls Academy, MLS NEXT and club levels for Silicon Valley Soccer Academy/Palo Alto Soccer Club.
His experience spans player development, recruiting, goalkeeper training and building competitive programs at the collegiate, high school and youth levels, bringing that breadth of experience to the Menlo College women’s soccer program.
