Russ Fager, the 1997 Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year, returns to Rider University for his 36th season this fall. The winning coach in three conference championship games in the last 17 seasons (Northeast Conference in 1992, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in 1997 and 1998), Fager is the all-time winningest soccer coach at Rider with 247 victories against the highest level of competition in the Northeast.
In 2004 Fager led his Broncs to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship game, after reaching the MAAC semi-finals in 2003. Rider has made the playoffs seven times during its 13 years in the MAAC.
In 2000, without a senior on the roster, Fager and his Broncs came within one win of a regular season title, losing the regular season finale to Loyola in the battle for the top seed of the post-season tournament and finishing 7-2 in conference play.
In 1997, Fager, the New Jersey Division I Coach of the Year for the second consecutive season, led Rider to the national top-20 with a ranking of 15th in the final National Soccer Coaches Association of America/Umbro Division I Rankings.
Fager helped ease Rider's transition from the Northeast Conference to the MAAC by winning the regular season and the championship tournament in his first season in the conference (1997). Fager performed the same feat in 1992, winning the Northeast Conference title in Rider's first season in the NEC.
In the NEC, Fager's Broncs reached the conference semi-finals in 1994 and 1996. In the ECC, six of Fager's teams reached the title game, and he was named the ECC Coach of the Year in 1987. His 1975 and 1979 squads won ECC West titles, each year totaling 10 wins, and his 1991 team collected its tenth win of the season in the ECC semi-final win over host-UMBC. In all, 17 of his 26 teams have reached post-season play, either in the ECC, the ECAC, the NEC or the MAAC.
Since 1933, 12 Rider soccer teams have won 10 or more games in a season, and 10 of those were coached by Fager, who in 1993 served on the Meadowlands World Cup Organizing Committee. In 1992 Fager's squad set a new Rider standard for wins in a season with a 14-5-1 record, and bettered that mark in 1997 with the 15th victory coming in the NCAA Play-In over Atlantic-10 champion Dayton. No Bronc team had ever won more than 11 games before Fager's 1977 squad compiled a 12-5-1 record and his 1987 squad was 12-7-1.
In February of 2000, Fager ran the first-ever Licensing School in Ghana, a six-day coaching clinic for 34 coaches from Ghana, including the women's national team assistant, the Under-17 boys national team coach, the Under-23 national team assistant coach, and nine professional coaches from the Premier League.
The former Slippery Rock State College standout (class of '71) came to Rider after a three-year collegiate career as an all-star mid-fielder. In his junior and senior years, he was a first team selection to the Western Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Athletic Association all-star team.
Before taking the head coaching position at Rider, Fager served as an assistant coach from 1971-74 under Bob Pivovarnick.
