Notre Dame will play five of six spring matches at home, including an April 27 international friendly against the Haitian National Team, head coach Randy Waldrum announced Friday.

Randy Waldrum Named NSCAA/Mondo National Coach Of The Year

Jan. 15, 2011

BALTIMORE – University of Notre Dame head women’s soccer coach Randy Waldrum has been named the 2010 National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)/Mondo Division I National Coach of the Year, it was announced Friday night during the NSCAA’s annual awards banquet held at the association’s annual convention in Baltimore.

This marks the third consecutive season in which Waldrum has been singled out for a national coaching honor. In 2008, he was named the FieldTurf Tarkett Division I National Coach of the Year and received that award at the NSCAA convention. Last season, Waldrum was tabbed as the Soccer America Division I National Coach of the Year. He also has garnered eight regional coach-of-the-year and conference coach-of-the-year citations during his career.

Under Waldrum’s steady hand, Notre Dame won its third NCAA national championship in 2010, posting a 21-2-2 record and rolling to six consecutive wins in the NCAA Championship while outscoring its opponents, 15-1. What’s more, the Fighting Irish were handed arguably the most difficult path to a championship in the tournament’s history, having to go through five ranked teams and four seeded opponents, including top-seeded North Carolina and Stanford (the latter was unbeaten prior to falling to Notre Dame, 1-0 in the NCAA final). Furthermore, the Fighting Irish had to win consecutive matches on the road (at UNC and Oklahoma State) just to reach the College Cup, marking just the third time in tournament history that a team won back-to-back road matches in the third round and quarterfinal rounds of the Championship.

In his 12 seasons at Notre Dame, Waldrum has led the Fighting Irish to unprecedented success, posting a 253-36-11 (.862) mark and winning national championships in 2004 and 2010. He also is just the seventh coach at Notre Dame (in any sport) to win multiple NCAA titles — a storied list that also includes legendary football coaches Frank Leahy (4), Knute Rockne (3) and Ara Parseghian (2), as well as heralded fencing skippers Michael DeCicco (4), Yves Auriol (2) and current Fighting Irish fencing coach Janusz Bednarski (2).

Waldrum has steered Notre Dame to eight NCAA College Cup appearances in his 12-year tenure (including an active run of five in a row) and five trips to the NCAA national championship match, both of which rank second in Division I history. In addition, half (six) of his teams have earned No. 1 national rankings, including five of his last seven squads (2004-06, 2008, 2010), and he has piloted Notre Dame to 11 BIG EAST regular-season titles and seven BIG EAST postseason crowns.

A native of Irving, Texas, Waldrum previously coached the women’s soccer programs at Tulsa (1989-94) and Baylor (1996-98), amassing a 21-year record of 360-86-23 (.792) to rank second among active NCAA Division I coaches (third all-time) in winning percentage, and fifth on the Division I all-time coaching wins list.

In addition to following all the latest Fighting Irish women’s soccer information through UND.com, fans also can follow the program through its official Twitter news feed (www.twitter.com/NDsoccernews) or by signing up for the Irish ALERT text messaging system through the sidebar on the women’s soccer page at UND.com.

— ND —