Beginning the 2017 season as full-time assistant coach, Hank Lewis joins Falcon men’s soccer from in-state neighbor, Colorado School of Mines.
Lewis has coached player-of-the-year, all-conference, all-region, and all-America honorees in four different conferences, across all three NCAA divisions. From the 2006 through 2015 seasons, every major-minutes collegiate goalkeeper Lewis has worked with has held top-25 national performance rankings, often in multiple categories, for at least half of at least one season in their collegiate careers. Among those are multiple conference-goalkeeper-of-the-year, and all-conference goalkeepers in each NCAA division, all-region goalkeepers in each NCAA division, All-America goalkeepers, and national-goalkeeper-of-the week(D1).
Lewis has coached at Mines(D2), Colgate(D1), Missouri S&T(D2), and Stevens Institute of Technology, perennial D3 powerhouse of the 2000s. He has also coached as a volunteer assistant at Washington College, Gallaudet, the premier university for the deaf. He has contributed to conference-winning, conference tournament-winning, and region-winning coaching staffs at Stevens(2010) and Mines(2014, 2015), and post season play at Colgate(2006), Stevens(2010), and Mines(2014, 2015, 2016).
Internationally, he has coached league and cup-winning teams, developed record-setting players for the top league of the Bahamas Football Association, as well as record-setting goalkeepers for the Bahamas National Men’s and Women’s Teams. Lewis has also helped develop more than ten players on to professional careers in the US, Europe, the Caribbean, Canada, and Latin America.
Before joining the Falcons, Lewis coached at Colorado School of Mines from 2014-2017, and was integral to the success of the 2015 season, the best in Mines men’s soccer history, when the Orediggers went 18-1-3 as Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference regular season and tournament champions, and NCAA D2 Southwest Region Champions, knocking off previously undefeated #2 Midwestern State on their field to advance to the 2015 D2 National Tournament Elite 8. During Lewis’s time with the Orediggers, Mines won the 2014 RMAC Tournament, slotting several players into the 2014 all-conference teams and swept the 2015 RMAC position-specific player-of-the-year honors. Lewis was instrumental in mentoring three RMAC Freshman of the Year honorees: 2014 Niki Grotz in 2014, (also 2015 All-America(multiple polls), RMAC Player of the Year, RMAC Tournament Most Valuable Player), John Haist in 2015 (also HeroSports National D2 Freshman of the Year), and Trevor Aman in 2016, who credits Lewis as securing him as a Mines recruit.
While Lewis developed the Oredigger reserves and mentored individual players, his primary work and success was in developing goalkeeper Colin Hall to repeat RMAC All-Tournament team honors and 2015 RMAC Goalkeeper of the Year, NSCAA Second-Team All-Region, D2CCA Second-Team All-Region, and First-Team All-RMAC. Under Lewis, Hall allowed only 18 goals in 22 games for a 0.80 GAA, and ranked in the NCAA top 20 in GAA (19th), save percentage (18th), and minutes (4th). Lewis also guided Josh Clark to 2014 RMAC All-Tournament team in his freshman year.
He was briefly appointed to Interim Head Coach at Stevens, where he had coached players to all-conference honors and helped secure a recruiting class that was the bedrock for Ducks teams that finished the 2011 and 2012 seasons in the NCAA Elite 8 and Sweet Sixteen, respectively. Among those were 2010 Empire8 Tournament MVP Eddie Rupp, All-region Leo Casas and Kevin Calloway; and players Lewis secured as recruits: Paul Killian, who went on to become D3Soccer.com Goalkeeper of the Year, and All-Conference Colin Philips. At Stevens, he coached three-time All-American Zach Carr, a three-time Empire 8 Goalkeeper of the Year, who is ranked 17th all-time in NCAA history in save percentage, 10th all-time for minutes played, and 7th all-time in across all NCAA divisions for goals against average.
At Colgate, he coached sophomore David Cappuccio to many honors, including second-team all-Patriot League, Patriot League all-Tournament team, Soccer America team of the week, NSCAA Player of the Week, and Patriot League Goalkeeper of the Year. He finished the season with 838.03 shutout minutes, a mark ranked 20th all-time in NCAA records.
At Missouri S&T, Lewis coached All-American Pat MacNamee, named the Greater Lakes Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Year for the 2010 season. MacNamee ranked seventh in NCAA Division II in goals against average and 12th in save percentage to be the GLVC’s 2007 Freshman of the Year.
Lewis has over 25 years of coaching experience at the club, collegiate, and international levels. He has coached youth teams to three state championships, in two different sports(lacrosse and soccer), in two different states, and coached soccer tournament champions and finalists on all but two of the u13, u16, u18, and u19 teams he has coached for the FC Copa(NJ), Colorado Rapids, FC Boulder, and Colorado Storm from 2010 to 2017.
He holds a NSCAA National Diploma (Distinguished Pass) and a B coaching license from the Bahamas Football Association (taught by English FA staff on par with the English FA Level Two).
Lewis played and coached for Bears AFC, in Nassau, Bahamas. He was in goal for the Bears’ title winning season (2001-2002), a return to to national glory for Bears after fourteen years with no trophies. Two years later, he coached the Bears in the league-winning, last game of the 2003-2004 season.
An award-winning writer of essays, plays, nonfiction and two critically-acclaimed books of short stories, Lewis has been an educator, significantly as a full-time university professor, since 1989. Raised by two parents committed to social justice and community development, Lewis has served on advisory boards and panels for a range of state and national non-profit organizations focused on issues from equal rights to arts and education. He also is an experienced trainer for Positive Coaching Alliance, which reaches millions of children each year to develop and defend a positive experience in club and scholastic sports.