An assistant women’s soccer coach at West Virginia Wesleyan in 1995, the then-23-year-old’s best friend, Nikki Izzo, had just been named the first head coach of the West Virginia University women’s soccer team. As Izzo progressed through the daunting paces of starting an NCAA Division I program, Spiker watched from the outside, fully aware that if Izzo, now Nikki Izzo-Brown, had the opportunity to hire an assistant coach, she would jump at the chance to apply. For, as Spiker tells it, where Izzo-Brown went, she followed.
“Nikki and I played youth soccer together (in Western New York), and then we played club soccer together throughout high school,” the Hilton, New York, native explained.