Coach Ralph Polson has announced his retirement from coaching after 38 years in college soccer. He piloted the Terrier Men’s Soccer team to a respectable 88-102-14 since taking over the team a decade ago. He led the Terriers to two SoCon Championships, won coach of the year in 2009 and helped oversee the Terrier’s transformation into a successful Division 1 soccer program. When he took over the program, he was already a veteran of the college soccer coaching scene.
Polson played at Erskine College and coached there as an assistant after graduating. He soon became head coach at Presbyterian College where he coached the team to a dominant 196-104-26. He won four division titles and also helped the team earn their first NCAA Division 2 Tournament appearance. He then moved to College of Charleston on an associate basis as head coach and helped guide his players to an overall record of 89-59-14, including a 2004 SoCon Championship. He came to Wofford in 2008 and began to make an immediate impact on a program that had been struggling at the D-1 level. In only his second year, he led the Terriers to a 12-3-3 record completely out of nowhere to dominate the SoCon in the tournament and play a competitive game against #5 UC Santa Barbara in the NCAA Soccer Tournament, losing only 1-0. Polson also boasts similar feats in 2013 and 2014, the latter in which the team went 11-6-1 and had one of the most dominant offences the SoCon has ever seen.
This previous season, the Terriers finished 5-11-1, 3-3 in conference, senior defender Kyle Nelson was named to the All-SoCon Team and true freshman forward Ethan Willie as well as red-shirt freshman goalkeeper Shane Berson were named to the All-SoCon freshman team. Though the team’s overall record may not stand up to the records from earlier in Coach Polson’s career, he was working with two redshirt freshman in goal for the entire season, and had little to no contribution from big pieces due to injury uncharacteristically bad years. Additionally, the men’s soccer team had an incredibly rigorous out of conference schedule which included Duke, South Carolina and UNLV. The team also finished a respectable 3-2 in conference during the regular season, showing the team was stronger than the overall record would lead one to believe.
On Nov. 14. only two days after retiring, Polson was awarded the United Soccer Coaches Bill Jeffery Award for extended service to soccer as a coach. Upon accepting the award, he said “I am deeply appreciative to the United Soccer Coaches for having been chosen to receive the Bill Jeffrey Award… This is truly one of the highest honors a college coach could ever receive. I am humbled to have my name listed among some of the most respected leaders in the game.”
Coach Polson’s time at Wofford was impressive. He led the team to their highest peak since the nineties and has reshaped the program for the better in so many ways. To conclude his official statement for the school’s press release, he said, “Wofford will always hold a special place in my heart. I will always be a Terrier!” Coach Polson played all four years at Erskine College, where he was part of a squad that made it all the way to the NAIA national semifinals.
