The Inside Track takes a closer look at the names and faces behind Racing Louisville — from technical staff to the supporting cast running our city’s top-tier professional women’s soccer club. Click here to read other editions.
Few people take more pride in their attention to detail than Sarah Kanuch — and her job demands plenty of it.
Kanuch has been Racing’s head equipment manager since the spring of 2022, having come to the club after a nearly year-long stint with Georgetown University athletics. She is one of Louisville’s longest-tenured support staff members, in addition to goalkeeper coach Sergio Gonzalez, who has been with the team since the very beginning in 2021.
A native of Virginia, Kanuch is the only full-time member of the club’s equipment department, which is a challenge she has relished.
Kanuch’s days are filled with the unglamorous jobs most people typically don’t first picture behind a professional sports team: laundry, heat pressing new kits, setting up the training field and keeping tabs on everything from player and staff clothing to soccer balls.
Take the kits, for example; they don’t arrive with names or numbers. Someone has to add them. At Racing, that someone is Kanuch.
“How I look at my job, it’s to handle everything they (the players) need in order to go out and play,” said Kanuch. “Every day they should just walk in, go to their locker; everything is there. … “They walk out to the field, they have their boots there, socks, whatever we need that day. And all that in between they don’t need to worry about.”
Preparation fuels success in the position, according to Kanuch, who says the little things simply cannot be an afterthought.
“The smallest details matter,” said Kanuch. “If someone’s shoelace looks like it’s about to break before a game, you might as well just replace it then and don’t wait. It’s just paying attention to all those tiny things. When you’re pressing [clothes], the measurements of sponsorships, to name plates, making sure it’s centered. Really, every tiny detail that goes into everything is part of it.
“… There are so many little things that you could get nine out of 10 of them right, but people are going to find the 10th one. So the other nine don’t matter at that point.”
Kanuch always had an interest in sports, but never really thought much of her career growing up. Driven by its specialized sports programs, she decided to pursue her degree at the University of South Carolina.
It was there, with the school’s women’s soccer team, that she earned her first opportunity in equipment. As Kanuch puts it, she was “an extra hand to the staff.” Though it was on a smaller scale, she grew to love the role, gaining valuable skills that eventually helped her break into the professional game with the Washington Spirit.
For Kanuch, the Spirit were familiar to her, as the club’s facility was within an hour of where she grew up. The proximity alone allowed her to think that a career in the NWSL was within reach. She worked back-to-back summers in 2018 and 2019 with Washington as an intern before going full-time shortly after graduation.
Her journey took a quick stop at the collegiate level with Georgetown as an equipment manager for multiple sports, but her heart was always set on returning to the pro game — which led her to Louisville.
The transition to Racing, for Kanuch, was a welcomed “blank slate,” as she learned on the fly what success looked like from her perspective.
“Sarah’s level of care she puts into her job proves she’s one of the best in the league,” said director of operations Shelby Gilmore. “Racing’s staff and players are lucky to have her as a part of the team.”
That care shows up in the way she prepares, particularly on road trips. Each time the team travels, Kanuch brings at least 24 bags, packed with everything the players and staff could need. A reliable system and a willingness to adapt to the inevitable obstacles of travel are what make it manageable.
“Before we go on a trip, I think of all the bad things that could happen,” said Kanuch. “It gets me really stressed out, but I have to be prepared. I’ve been on enough trips to where bad things have happened. You just have to be prepared for the crazy things to happen.”
Every bag, every checklist and every contingency plan comes back to the same overarching objective, which Kanuch sums up simply: “The less they (the players) have to worry about what they’re wearing, the easier it is for them to go perform.”
It’s a standard Kanuch has built in her nearly five years at the club and one the team has come to count on.
