Success has followed Michael Parker throughout his collegiate coaching career. One of the winningest coaches in collegiate soccer history, Parker is in his 34th season as a head coach having won six national titles, rolling up 488 wins and 21 NCAA Tournament appearances.
More impressive than that is that Parker has had a winning record in 32 of his 33 seasons - with the one exception being a campaign that includes a trip to the NCAA Tournament's Round of 16.
Putting that into perspective and the kind of company Parker keeps, consider these coaches:
- Bobby Bowden, Florida State football coach, completed his 33rd season at FSU. He was sub-.500 his first year and hasn't had one since.
- Mike Krzyzewski, Duke men's basketball coach, has coached for 33 seasons and has endured four sub-.500 records (two at Duke and two at Army).
- North Carolina men's basketball coach Dean Smith had one losing season and another at exactly .500 in 36 years with the Tar Heels. He closed out his career with 33 straight winning campaigns.
- Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summit has coached UT to a better than .500 record in all 34 seasons with the Lady Vols.
- Former Miami, FL baseball coach Ron Fraser, recently inducted into the new College Baseball Hall of Fame, coached the Hurricanes to a better than .500 record in all 30 of his seasons in South Beach.
Prior to last season, Parker was the only active coach in Division I with 25 or more years having never suffered a losing season. The Spartans turned that negative into a positive last season, however, becoming the Cinderella story of the NCAA Tournament by going 4-0-2 in their last six matches to win the Southern Conference Tournament and knock off Duke and Loyola (Md.) on the road before falling in penalty kicks at South Florida. The late season surge left the Spartans 10-11-3 on the year, but gave UNCG its fourth trip to the Round of 16 in the last five years.
To put Parker's success into even more of a historical perspective, only 10 coaches in collegiate soccer history (all divisions) have ever won more games. Parker is closing in on 500 career wins, currently sitting at 488 (10th most in college soccer history). Only eight coaches have ever won 500 in college history.
In 2006, Parker won his 350th match at UNCG when the Spartans topped Furman to clinch the SoCon regular season crown.
In addition, Parker ranks first among active Division I coaches in victories. Entering this season, he is fourth among active coaches in winning percentage at .719. That percentage also ranks 20th all-time in Division I history.
You have to go all the way back to 1976 - his first season as a head coach - to find the last time one of Parker's squads didn't record double-digit victories. That team, however, only played 12 matches in recording a 6-4-2 mark.
For all of his accolades at UNCG, Parker was inducted into the UNCG Athletics Hall of Fame in September 2005, making him the first male coach to be inducted while still active. Additionally, in honor of all of his success at UNCG and contribution to the sport, he was inducted into the Guilford County Hall of Fame in September 2007.
Entering his 34th season overall and his 26th at UNCG, Parker has a career record of 488-182-30. In his 25 prior seasons at UNCG, Parker has amassed a record of 376-155-23, which computes to a .709 winning percentage over a span of 554 matches as the Spartans' coach.
Parker's six national titles -- five in Division III and one in Division II -- rank him first among active men's collegiate coaches. He is second all-time to the late Bob Guelker, who won seven championships in 29 years. In 1993, Parker became the first men's soccer coach in NCAA history to lead a team to the NCAA Tournament in all three divisions.
In 2004, Parker coached in his 600th collegiate match when UNCG hosted High Point on October 27. At that time, UNCG was also ranked No. 1 in the nation for the first time since its move to NCAA Division I in 1991 and in the midst of 17-match unbeaten string to open the season. Proof yet again that the 'ol coach hadn't lost his magic touch. For his efforts, he earned NSCAA South Region Coach of the Year and SoCon Coach of the Year.
Parker's teams have advanced to the NCAA Tournament eight times since the program's elevation to Division I status, including appearances in the Round of 16 four of the last five season, from 2004 through 2006 and again in 2008. The 2005 season marked the first time since the move to Division I that UNCG had won its first two games of the tournament - beating James Madison and edging Virginia Tech in penalty kicks. The Spartans also did that in 2006, including a win at sixth-seeded West Virginia, and again in 2008, winning at powerhouse Duke and at ninth-seeded Loyola-MD.
Parker came to UNCG in 1984 with the difficult task of continuing the success of a club that had won back-to-back national titles in 1982 and 1983 under the guidance of UNCG Hall of Fame member Mike Berticelli. But the Spartans won the Division III national crown in 1985, Parker's second year at UNCG, which earned him Division III National Coach of the Year from the NSCAA and Dixie Conference Coach of the Year.
He followed that by directing the team to national titles in 1986 and 1987, becoming the first coach to win three straight NCAA men's soccer national championships.
In their gradual climb to Division I status, the Spartans were the NCAA Division II national runners-up in 1989 and Parker was named Division II National Coach of the Year by the NSCAA.
During Parker's tenure, UNCG has won 10 conference titles, including six during its Division I era. Parker led UNCG to SoCon titles in 1997, 1998, 2004, 2005 and 2006. In fact, UNCG has the best winning percentage in Southern Conference action amongst member schools, going 67-26-5 since joining the league in 1997.
Three of Parker's national titles came as the head coach at Lock Haven, where his teams won back-to-back Division III championships in 1977 and 1978 and a Division II championship in 1980. His success with the 1980 team - at 21-0-0, the only unbeaten, untied team in the country - earned him NIKE/Soccer America Coach of the Year honors.
His teams have also claimed the NCAA Scoring Statistical Award twice (1998 & 2002) for having the nation's leading scoring team. In 2006, UNCG was 11th in the nation in scoring (2.26 goals per contest) and 25th in shutout percentage, averaging a blanking nearly every other match.
In addition to his success at the collegiate level, Parker has also achieved at the professional level as coach of the USISL Greensboro Dynamo. He coached the Dynamo from 1993-95 and won back-to-back USISL national championships. Parker has coached 11 All-Americans, including Siggi Eyjolfsson, UNCG's first three-time All-American, and UNCG star Randi Patterson, whose All-American status last year led him to a US National Team U-20 camp invite. Patterson and teammate Scott Jones were the school's first-ever Hermann Award candidates in 2005. In the last three seasons, four of Parker's products have played in MLS (Patterson, Jones, Rusty Pierce and Alejandro Moreno).
Parker has also coached four Academic All-Americans - Eyjolfsson, Mark Fulk, Cliff Patterson and Darren McDonough.
A native of Bradford, England, Parker was a graduate assistant coach at UNC Chapel Hill in 1971 before moving to Lock Haven as an assistant in 1972. After four years as an assistant, Parker became the head coach in 1976.
He earned a bachelor of science degree from Madeley College in Staffordshire, England, in 1968 and a master of education degree from UNC Chapel Hill in 1971.
