Jeff Bailey is entering his 20th season as head coach of the Franklin Pierce University women’s soccer program in 2015. He also serves as Assistant Athletic Director at the University.
Bailey took over a program in 1996 that was fresh off its second-straight NCAA Division II National Championship and kept building on the success by capturing three more national titles in 1996, ’97 and ’99.
Bailey has established himself as one of the winningest head coaches in NCAA history with a 315-63-26 record (.812 winning percentage) over 404 games in 19 seasons. Entering the 2014 sason, his .820 winning percentage ranked 11th all-time across all NCAA divisions and ranked fifth all-time in Division II. Bailey’s 304 career victories at the time ranked fifth among all-time Division II mentors. In conference play, Bailey’s record is impeccable. After Franklin Pierce completed a seven-year run in the New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) without losing a match (30-0-0 with Bailey), the Ravens have gone 15seasons in the Northeast-10 Conference with a 185-40-19 (.797) conference record in 244 games under coach Bailey. Since joining the NE-10, the Ravens have won seven Conference Tournament titles and captured five-straight regular season championships (2001-2005). The seven-straight NE-10 Tournament titles are conference records for both total (tied with Saint Rose) and consecutive championships.
Bailey, a 1992 graduate of the University, was honored by Franklin Pierce for his efforts as a student-athlete and head coach when he was inducted into the College’s Athletics Hall of Fame in October, 2000. In 2007, Bailey and his teammates from the 1991 Franklin Pierce men’s soccer team, were inducted into the University’s Athletics Hall of Fame collectively as the first NCAA Final Four soccer program in Franklin Pierce history.
Bailey, as a midfielder and defender on the first Franklin Pierce men’s soccer team to reach the NCAA Division II Final Four, was unflappable. Nicknamed “Wheels,” Bailey was perhaps the finest student-athlete ever to graduate from the College. He was a two-time NSCAA All-America selection, earning first-team honors in 1992, and ranks 14th among Ravens all-time scorers with 18 goals and 33 assists (69 points). He was a three-time All-New England player and four-time All-NECC standout, serving as captain for three seasons.
Bailey spent six years playing professionally, five with the Cape Cod Crusaders, and one season with the Phantoms of New Hampshire of the United Soccer Leagues (USL) Northeast Division. In the summer of 1997, while playing for Cape Cod, Bailey also played for the Worcester Wildfire of the A-League, a feeder program to the New England Revolution of Major League Soccer (MLS).