Brooks Monaghan knew he had to do something extra. So he grabbed the dead deer.

A fabulous high school soccer player from South Carolina was on her recruiting trip to the University of Memphis. Monaghan, the coach of the women’s team at Memphis, thought the visit had gone well. The recruit liked the current players. She liked the close-knit vibe. She told Monaghan that her father was a big hunter, just like Monaghan.

But would she really pick Memphis over the University of South Carolina? That’s a Power 5 university in her home state.

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“At the end of the visit, she went to our photo room,” Monaghan said. “These days, it’s all about the photo shoot.”

Which is when the coach had a moment of pure inspiration. He returned to his office, where he had a deer head mounted on the wall. 

“The players call him ‘Chuck the Buck,’ ” Monaghan said. “Well, I took Chuck the Buck off the wall and I snuck through the curtain and inserted him into her photo shoot.”

The player committed to Memphis.

“I guarantee you the coaches at South Carolina didn’t do anything like that,” Monaghan said.

The lesson?

“You can complain about what you don’t have, or you can sell the heck out of what you do have,” said Monaghan.

You listening, my fellow Memphians?

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Monaghan and his team were on a bus to Fayetteville, Arkansas, as he told me the story. The Tigers will play Notre Dame in the second-round of the NCAA Tournament at 3 p.m. Friday.

But win or lose, it may be time to recognize that the women’s soccer program isn’t just the most successful athletic program at the university — it’s one of the most successful enterprises in the city as a whole.

Think about it.

Why, exactly, should Memphis have a fabulous women’s soccer program?

Why should an under-funded urban university in one of the poorest cities in America be home to one of the country’s foremost women’s soccer programs?

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Memphis isn’t in some glamorous Power 5 conference, it doesn’t have much in the way of facilities — Monaghan told me Wednesday the locker room is “the worst in the country” — and the program didn’t even exist before 1999.

But in its last 17 seasons, the Memphis women’s soccer has been to the NCAA Tournament a dozen times.

Compare that to the men’s basketball program. Over the same span of years — which includes the best part of the John Calipari era — the Memphis men’s basketball program has been to the NCAA Tournament 10 times.

This year, the women’s team is 19-1. It has won 16 straight games — the longest winning streak in the country — and has been ranked in the Top 10 since the season began.

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So how did Monaghan do it? And are there lessons that might apply beyond the soccer field?

Monaghan doesn’t begin to pretend he has the secret to greatness. But here’s how he got it done:

1. He focused on the program’s strengths

This may have been the key. There were plenty of obstacles to building a winning program at Memphis. Start with that locker room.

“We can’t even fit our kids in there,” Monaghan said. “We have a trailer sitting by the field for game days. It’s bad, it really is.”

Most elite programs have a dedicated soccer building with a lounge, a film room and an expansive locker area. Memphis doesn’t have any of that.

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So what did Monaghan tell recruits?

“It’s not the brick and mortar that makes up the university,” he said. “It’s the people you’re around. And I really believe that, too. Don’t get me wrong, we’d like to make improvements in the facilities and we have some things in the works. But when those things get here, I’m still going to sell the people. That’s what sets us apart.”

It’s one thing to say this, of course. Every under-funded athletic program — or business, for that matter — could say the same thing. But Monaghan gets people to believe in the truth of what he is saying. He routinely recruits players who could go to richer programs.

“We latch onto the positives and sell the hell out of the positives,” he said. “You routinely run into people that are making excuses for what they can’t do — as opposed to just putting their heads down and finding a way. It’s not easy, mind you. It’s never easy. You’ve got to freaking grind and work your a-- off.”

2. He worked his a-- off

Monaghan had no idea what he was doing when he got the job. He says this all the time.

Les Szabo, the program’s first coach, left to go back to Ohio. Two Memphis administrators — Lynn Parkes and Bobby Kilpatrick — persuaded then-AD R.C. Johnson to hire Monaghan, a former star goalkeeper for the men’s team who had returned to help out.

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“I walked into the office and put my feet up on the desk and realized I had no idea what to do next,” Monaghan said. “So I put my head down and went to work.”

It wasn’t easy, at the outset. In his first four seasons, Monaghan’s teams went 28-44-1. Now, all these years later, Monaghan is closing in on 300 wins.

“I used to like to sneak off to the deer stand and do some hunting,” he said. “I had to realize I had a choice. You could be a good hunter or you could be a good coach.”

3. He found an edge

And that edge spans 3,855,100 square miles.

It’s called Canada.

It may be the single biggest driver of the program’s success.

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Szabo’s first team happened to recruit three players from Edmonton. That’s when the Canada-to-Memphis pipeline began.

“We realized what we had and we built on it over the years,” Monaghan said. “Now we recruit from all parts of Canada.”

The current team has 11 players from Canada, including Mya Jones, its unquestioned star.

It’s not that Canadians are better at soccer than Americans. But Monaghan couldn’t necessarily get all the best Americans. His deep connections across Canada — and the long line of Canadian players who have flourished in Memphis— now give him an edge there.

“At a place like Memphis, you have to have a niche,” Monaghan said. “Canada has been really important for us.”

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4. He built a place where people feel at home

Saorla Miller, one of the current Canadians, explained Wednesday why she chose to join the program.

“I didn’t know much about Memphis at all,” she said. “I didn’t know what state it was in until I looked it up.”

So why did she commit?

“The team was just so welcoming,” she said. “The team was just so close-knit and I knew it was a place where I’d feel at home.”

That’s a hard thing to create, obviously. And it has to be re-created every year. But Monaghan and his assistants have done it, somehow. The players flourish academically (with a team GPA over 3.5 every semester since 2014), they compete for championships and they seem to genuinely like each other.

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It’s not just the Canadians, either. This year, Memphis has three players from Japan, two from Germany and 11 Americans — from 10 different states!

“I’ve met so many amazing people from my time here,” Miller said. “It’s been all that I could ask for.”

5. He realized he didn’t have to leave

Monaghan, now 50, gets the questions all the time.

Why have you stayed in Memphis?

Haven’t you had chances to go somewhere else?

Of course he has had chances. With Monaghan’s record of success, he could find another gig any time he likes.

But Memphis is home. Monaghan grew up here and starred at Christian Brothers High School and at the university. His family still lives in Memphis. His wife’s family lives in Memphis. He has two young kids who are happy and supported. What more does a person really need?

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“I’m comfortable,” he said. “I think you do your best work when you are in an environment where you are comfortable. Would I still have that if I had left?

And if Monaghan did ever leave — if he did go to a richer program — would his work be as satisfying as it is now? He could build a winning program in another city, sure. But it be in another city; it wouldn’t be in his hometown.

“There’s just something about doing it in your hometown,” he said. “At the end of the day, guys, we’re Memphis. ... We are freaking Memphis. We’re not spoiled, we don’t get this and we don’t get that. To take a group and be in the national spotlight and do what we’ve done here in this city — it means the world.”