UMBC

BALTIMORE—UMBC men’s soccer head coach Pete Caringi, along with UMBC's baseball and swimming and diving coaches, has signed a four-year contract extension through the 2011-2012 academic year, Director of Athletics Dr. Charles Brown announced recently.

The Baltimore native has completed 17 seasons at UMBC and his teams have posted winning records in 14 of those campaigns. He owns a school record 180 victories (180-112-35, .635) and has an overall collegiate coaching record of 350-139-43 in 27 years of work. Caringi ranks amongst the top 40 active coaches in the country in NCAA Division I winning percentage. 

"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 competive America East conference, and hopefully continue the tremendous success the school has had this past year."

Caringi 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.

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.

He made an immediate impact at UMBC, winning a school record-tying 15 games in two of his first three seasons and leading the Retrievers to a pair of regular season titles in both 1991 and 1993. But he achieved his greatest success in the 1999 season. The 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.

The Retrievers won another regular season title in the Northeast Conference in 2002 and stunned the experts by capturing the same crown in their first year in the America East Conference in 2003. Caringi earned Coach of the Year honors from the NEC in 2002 and from the America East in 2005.

On the playing field, 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, 19, and Pete III, who will be 16 in September.

Coach Caringi holds a U.S.S.F. “A” license and is a staff coach with the O.D.P. under-23 squad.

During his tenure at UMBC, Caringi has been inducted into the National Junior College Hall of Fame (1994), the Maryland Soccer Hall of Fame (1998) and the University of Baltimore Hall of Fame (2005).