In the summer of 2008, UMBC Head Men's Soccer Coach Pete Caringi signed a four-year contract extension through the 2011-2012 academic year.
The Retriever mentor enters his 20th season as bench boss in 2010. He captured his 200th victory on the UMBC sidelines in the America East semifinal win at UNH on Nov. 11, 2009.
“I am excited about my new contract and the direction that the athletic program is headed," Caringi said. "I look forward to the challenge that our student-athletes have in a very competitive America East conference.
The Retriever mentor has won at every level, both as a player and as a coach. In his early years at UMBC, he led the Retrievers to a pair of regular-season league titles (1991, 1993), but building a true championship team eluded him. However, after carefully reconstructing his program over time, Coach Caringi achieved that measure of success in 1999.
Like a master chef, Caringi blended experienced local talent with a couple of international standouts, and finished by adding a few impact newcomers. The result was one of the finest products in UMBC history. The 1999 Retrievers won the Northeast Conference title, gave No. 1 Duke all it could handle in the NCAA Tournament, finished the year with the nation’s best winning percentage and earned national rankings in every major soccer poll.
Coach Caringi reaped the benefits of the team’s success. He was named Northeast Conference Coach of the Year and NSCAA South Atlantic Region Coach of the Year and he was a finalist for National Coach of the Year. Moreover, UMBC’s winningest men’s soccer coach became the first soccer coach in school history to surpass the 100-win plateau.
The unparalled success of the 1999 season catapulted the program into the 21st century. The 2000 season proved UMBC was not a “one-year wonder.” Despite a new-found bullseye on their uniforms, as hungry opponents attempted to knock them from their lofty standing. The Retrievers (15-5, 7-3) spent five weeks nationally ranked and bested notables Maryland (2-0) and George Mason (5-2) both on the field and in the South Atlantic Region. In 2001, the Retrievers made the four-team NEC Tournament for the fourth consecutive season, falling to eventual “Elite Eight” team Fairleigh Dickinson, 1-0, in a hard-fought semifinal match. UMBC suffered heavy graduation losses after 2000 and 2001, losing seven All-NEC players and six professional draftees, but Coach Caringi and his staff adapted their style to a more defensive-oriented team in 2002, and the Retrievers responded by winning (tied with Long Island) another regular-season title.
In 2003, the Retrievers were picked sixth in the preseason as they entered the new territory of the America East Conference. But an early tournament victory in the Battle of Baltimore buoyed UMBC, and the Retrievers lost only once (to fourth-ranked Old Dominion) in their first 16 games (10-1-5) and captured the league’s regular-season title with a 5-1-3 record. In 2004, UMBC defeated N.C. State and George Washington en route to its seventh straight winning season. The Retrievers made it eight in a row in 2005, falling just short of another regular-season league title when eventual America East Champion Stony Brook nipped them in overtime in the finale, and Coach Caringi was named the conference’s Coach of the Year.
In 2009, UMBC was picked last in the America East preseason poll, but became the only 9-0-0 team in the nation and were ranked in all four national polls. The Retrievers won a pair of road conference tournament games before falling at Stony Brook in the title game. UMBC finished the season with a mark of 14-6-0.
In 29 years as a collegiate coach, Coach Caringi has never suffered back-to-back sub-.500 seasons.
UMBC’s commitment to soccer includes facilities, as the soccer program began play in its own grass complex, UMBC Soccer Stadium, in 1998. In the spring of 2004, UMBC Stadium was outfitted with Momentum 51 artificial turf to allow night games to be played on its soccer-friendly surface. In the spring of 2006, a new Bermuda grass field was installed at UMBC Soccer Stadium with irrigation and drainage systems and it is the only surface of its kind in the America East Conference. In the fall of 2008, the soccer team moved into its dazzling new locker room complex and additional natural grass practice fields come on-line in this summer.
The Baltimore native was named UMBC’s fourth head coach after 10 sensational years at Essex Community College, where he compiled an overall record of 170-27-8. He coached the Knights to the National Junior College championship game in 1984 and 1989 and was named NJCAA National Coach of the Year and Region XX Coach of the Year in both seasons.
In 1994, he was inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Hall of Fame and in May 1998, he was inducted into the Maryland Soccer Hall of Fame. Last spring, he was a member of the second class inducted into the University of Baltimore Athletic Hall of Fame.
Not only did Caringi have success at the junior college level, but he reached the top in the professional ranks as well. In 1990, he coached the Maryland Bays of the American Professional Soccer League to a 20-5 record and the league title. He served as assistant coach for the Bays in the 1988 and 1989 seasons. The offensive-minded mentor made an immediate impact at UMBC, winning a school record-tying 15 games in two of his first three seasons.
Caringi was a two-time All-American at the University of Baltimore (1976, 1977) and is the school’s all-time leading goal-scorer with 70. Moreover, the Retriever mentor is 21st on the NCAA Division II all-time goals list and is 39th in scoring with 159 points. He captained the 1975 NCAA Division II national championship team and played for the Washington Diplomats of the North American Soccer League in 1978.
Caringi earned a bachelor’s degree from UB in 1978. He served a term on the Board of Directors of the National Soccer Coaches Association (NSCAA), the lone junior college representative on the board. He has also served on the NCAA South Atlantic Rating Board and the NCAA Men’s Soccer Selection Committee.
He and his wife Susan have two children, Christina, age 21, and Pete III, who will be 18 in September. Both children will join him at UMBC this fall, with Pete as a freshman on the varsithy team.
Coach Caringi holds a U.S.S.F. “A” license and is a staff coach with the O.D.P. under-23 squad.
Caringi Year-By-Year At UMBC
1991 15-5-1 (1)
1992 12-9-0 (2)
1993 15-3-1
1994 9-8-1
1995 10-9-1
1996 9-9-1
1997 5-12-2
1998 11-7-2
1999 19-1-2 (3)
2000 15-5-0
2001 9-6-2
2002 11-6-3 (4)
2003 10-3-5 (5)
2004 8-6-3
2005 9-7-3
2006 5-9-3
2007 8-7-5
2008 6-9-2
2009 14-6-0
TOTALS 200-127-37 (.600)
(1) East Coast Conf. Regular Season Champions
(2) Big South Conf. Regular Season Champions
(3) Northeast Conf. Champions; NCAA Tournament
Final Rankings: #11-Soccer America; #22-NSCAA
(4) Northeast Conf. Regular Season Champions
(5) America East Regular Season Champions
HONORS
1975 Captain, NCAA Div. II National Champions, Univ. of Baltimore
1976 All America, Univ. of Baltimore
1977 All America, Univ. of Baltimore
1978 Forward, NASL, Washington Diplomats
1984 NJCAA National Coach of the Year,
Essex CC
1989 NJCAA National Coach of the Year,
Essex CC
1990 Head Coach, APSL Champion
Maryland Bays
1994 Inducted to National Junior College
Hall of Fame
1998 Inducted to Maryland Soccer
Hall of Fame
1999 NSCAA South Atlantic Region
Coach of the Year
Northeast Conference Coach of the Year
2002 Northeast Conference Coach of the Year
2005 America East Conference
Coach of the Year
Inducted into Univ. of Baltimore
Hall of Fame
