Alumni

Published on January 4th, 2010 | by Staples Soccer

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Mike Noonan ’79 Named Head Coach At Clemson

Mike Noonan

Mike Noonan ’79 — who won 8 Ivy League championships in 14 years at Brown University — is the new men’s soccer coach at Clemson University.

The South Carolina school made the announcement today.

As a Staples senior, Noonan was a key player on the Wreckers’ 1978 state championship squad.  He also starred on Westport Soccer Association teams, and for the Bridge Grille U-23 state champions.

A 1983 graduate of Middlebury College, where he was a 4-year starter and 2-time first team All-American, Noonan played professionally in Sweden before returning to the US to play indoors.

After serving as an assistant coach at Bates College and the University of Vermont, Noonan was named the 1st head coach of Wheaton College, when the Massachusetts school formed a men’s team.  He then moved to the University of New Hampshire, where he won more games than any soccer coach in Wildcat history.

Noonan — only the 5th head coach in Brown’s 81-year soccer history — led the Bears to 10 NCAA tournament berths, including quarterfinal appearances in 1995 and 2000, and the team’s highest national ranking ever (3rd) in 1995.  Ten of Noonan’s players have been drafted by MLS teams.

In the Atlantic Coast Conference — arguably the best men’s soccer league in the country — Noonan will face defending national champion Virginia, as well as teams like Wake Forest and North Carolina State.  League foe Duke is coached by former Ivy League rival John Kerr of Harvard.

“Mike has been a great friend to Staples soccer at Brown,” said Staples head coach Dan Woog.  “He has spoken at our banquets, talked to our team whenever he’s in Westport, even made calls on behalf of some of our players to other coaches.

“Mike may be trading brown for orange, but I look forward to continuing our close relationship.  I know the entire Staples soccer family joins me in wishing him well.”