Men's Soccer

To contact Reid Ayers, please call him in his office at 440-826-3839 or e-mail him at rayers@bw.edu.

Reid Ayers is the winningest men's soccer coach in the history of Baldwin Wallace University.  Coach Ayers and his outstanding coaching staff have worked hard to develop the Yellow Jacket program into one of the best in the prestigious Ohio Athletic Conference with a long-term goal of leading the Yellow Jackets to the NCAA Division III National title.

Coach Ayers is the universities first full-time head coach and enters his 11th season in 2012.  As men's coach, he has a 120-65-15 career coaching mark. He led his team to a school-record 16 victories this past season, 14 wins in 2004 and 2005 and 13 in 2006 and 2009 and 12 wins in 2008 and 2010. He also has led his team to a spot in the OAC Tournament in six of the last eight years and the OAC Semifinals in each of the past three seasons. Coach Ayers lead the Yellow Jackets to their first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament this past fall.

Consistently tabbed as one of the strongest programs in the Great Lakes Region, Ayers led his team to national prominence by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) three of the past five seasons. The Yellow Jackets achieved their highest ranking in 2008 (7^th) and also were recognized in the Top Ten in 2011 and 2006.

"Our long-term goals are to win OAC regular season and OAC Tournament titles, earn the OAC's automatic berth to the NCAA Division III National Tournament and win a national title," said Ayers. "We look forward to working toward achieving our goals."

But that is just a part of the reason why the BW program is on the right track toward even more success. Ayers' team has earned recognition five consecutive years for Team Academic Achievement and was awarded the Team Ethics Award of Merit by the NSCAA in 2006.

"We want each student-athlete to develop both as a student and athlete to the best of his ability," said Ayers. "We want strong students who seek to excel academically and yearn to compete athletically in a very strong Division III conference and against top-flight non-league competition.  We want soccer to be goal-oriented, competitive and rewarding."

Ayers holds his National 'A' and National Youth Licenses from the United States Soccer Federation. He currently is a member of the U.S. Soccer coaching staff where he assists in selecting players for inclusion into the country’s youth national teams highlighted with an appointment at the prestigious  U14 National Identification Camp four of the last five years    He is an Age Group Head Coach for the Region II Olympic Development Staff, where he assesses and trains the elite players from 13 different states preparing them for domestic and international competition.  Also, he is a member of the Ohio Youth Soccer Association North State Coaching Staff, where he is an age group coach in the Olympic Development Program, a state coaching license  instructor and directs a state sponsored Center of Excellence. His ODP teams have won one regional championship in addition to finishing runner-up three times over the past eight years.

Prior to BW, Ayers served as an assistant coach to OAC-rival Mount Union College in 2001 and is no stranger to soccer in Ohio. He previously coached in both the men's and women's programs at Ashland University (2000-2001) and Hiram College (1997-2000). A part of Ohio's college soccer scene for the past 15 years, he has been a part of five conference championship teams and two teams that have advanced to the NCAA Division II or III National Tournament.

Ayers and his wife, Lisa, reside in Canton. 

This page was last updated on July 7, 2012.