Auburn soccer head coach Karen Hoppa has been at the helm of the Tigers’ soccer program longer than most of Auburn University’s current undergrad students have been alive.

“This is my 25th year,” Hoppa said in a meeting with the media Tuesday. “I’m officially the longest-tenured head coach at Auburn and current head coach. So that makes me feel old.”

And yes, sure, Hoppa’s 25 years with the Tigers’ soccer program might date her some. But it’s also a testament to her consistent success. In 2021, Hoppa became one of 20 active head coaches with at least 300 career wins and at least 250 wins at their current program.

Following a season-opening scoreless tie with Samford Thursday night at the Auburn Soccer Complex, Hoppa’s record at Auburn is 272-181-52 — a mark that has turned the Tigers into an SEC power. Auburn’s 272 wins in 24 seasons ranks as the fifth-highest clip in the SEC since 1999 and the second-highest in the SEC’s western division.

Hoppa has also led the Tigers’ to 17 NCAA appearances and was an eyelash away from another in 2022.

It goes without saying that Hoppa has seen Auburn change tremendously in the 25 years that she and the soccer program have been synonymous with each other.

“It’s changed in every way,” Hoppa said. “The campus, when I got here, you could drive through every road. It was all driving. There was no concourse, it was road and we could drive. Our recruit tours are now with a golf cart instead of in a car.”

At a larger level, Hoppa has had to navigate the changes that college athletics as a whole have seen, such as the transfer portal and NIL.

Remaining consistent through all the change, however, has been the Auburn Soccer Complex, which was built in 1994.

But that could change.

In one of the first conversations Hoppa had with Auburn athletic director John Cohen, who was hired in October of 2022, Cohen said Auburn’s soccer stadium wasn’t good enough.

“Usually it’s the other way around, right?,” Hoppa said. “I’m begging everybody that we need a new stadium.”

Instead, Cohen recognizes the need. And that likely comes from Cohen’s pre-administration experience as Mississippi State’s head baseball coach.

“Having an AD that’s been a head coach is rare these days. It used to always be that way in the early part of my career. But that’s rare now,” Hoppa explained. “Obviously that’s great for us. It’s almost as if we speak the same language.”

And right now, that same language means discussing the need for a new soccer stadium.

The current bleachers at the Auburn Soccer Complex came from Auburn baseball’s Plainsman Park and arrived to the Tigers’ soccer pitch bent and were “kinda straightened out”, Hoppa says.

Meanwhile, Hoppa refers to the press box at the soccer complex as the “Bo Jackson Press Box”.

“Not because Bo paid for it, but because when Bo won the Heisman —this is a true story — ESPN wanted to televise the baseball game and we didn’t have a press box,” Hoppa said. “So they order it up, two trailers roll in on a flatbed truck, they put them on stilts. That’s our press box.”

Hoppa and Auburn’s athletic department both say the conversation for a new soccer stadium is still very much in the preliminary stages.

Auburn did, however, meet with an architect last year to have plans drawn up, Hoppa says.

“The creek is behind our stadium, which doesn’t make construction impossible, but we have to pay attention to it,” said Hoppa, referring to Parkerson Mill Creek. “But we do have some ideas on paper. The next step, I think, is to price it out and get the blessing from the administration and move forward. So we’ve got some steps still to go.”