FARMVILLE, Va. – Longwood men's head soccer coach
Jon Atkinson won't go as far to say that the program has finally arrived.
But the Lancers have certainly knocked on the door and guests are aware of their presence under Atkinson, a native of Newcastle, England who just completed his 11th year with the program and his ninth as the head coach.
After winning the Atlantic Soccer Conference title in 2011, Atkinson led the move to the Big South Conference the following year.
"It was as if the work started again in earnest," he says of joining the Division I circuit.
The Lancers were 3-12-3 overall and 2-7-1 in the Big South in 2012, but LU turned heads this past season by going 6-3-1 in conference play and 7-9-4 overall as Atkinson was named the Big South Coach of the Year.
"The highlight was seeing our guys get results against peer institutions," Atkinson notes.
The future appears bright, as there were times when Atkinson had six freshmen on the pitch this past season. One of them was goalie
Carlos Canas, from W.T. Woodson High in Fairfax.
"We just hope we can sustain that. We are such a baby when it comes to the Big South," says Atkinson, sitting in a conference room at Tabb Hall before the holiday break. "We are not the underdogs that we are perceived to be."
Longwood advanced to the Big South Tournament semifinals, before falling 2-0 to Liberty in November. Liberty lost in the tournament title game to Coastal Carolina, who was ranked No. 21 in the nation when Longwood lost at home to them on Senior Day in the regular-season finale Nov. 9.
"It was what true conference play should feel like," said Atkinson, whose team played three of its first four Big South games on the road in 2012. "This year was exactly what we had hoped for. It was a good year."
The Lancers' program is in good hands under a coach who grew up in a country where the sport is a national obsession.
Atkinson earned his Bachelor of Science degree in sports management from Wearside College in Sunderland, England and his Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration from Sunderland University.
He played at the pro level in England with Sunderland and Darlington FC, but began to focus on coaching as a career path when he suffered a leg injury in the late 1990s.
Through a fellow Brit, Atkinson heard about a chance to join the program at West Virginia Wesleyan College as a player-coach.
He was there from 1999 to 2002 and helped WVWC capture a pair of West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) titles and a second-place finish in three years. Atkinson was also the WVIAC Scholar-Athlete of the Year as he scored a school-record 29 goals in 2001. During his time in West Virginia he was also the head coach of the boys and girls program at Lewis County, which made its first trip to the state finals.
Another major event came in West Virginia when he met Nikki Hall (Longwood class of 1998), a former basketball All-American and Academic All-American for the Lancers. She also has a European connection, as she played pro hoops in Sweden after college. She was the head women's hoop coach at West Virginia Wesleyan when Atkinson was there.
They were later married and the family, which now includes three young children, made the move to Farmville, as Hall became an assistant women's basketball coach at Longwood and Atkinson eventually joined the men's soccer program as an assistant coach.
Just hours from several top Division I programs in Virginia, Atkinson hopes to use his international connections to attract top foreign players to the Lancers' program. His assistant coach is Eduardo de Souza, who is from Brazil.
"We are going against some big schools (in recruiting) in Virginia," Atkinson says. "We have to overcome that by going to new markets." In the past, Atkinson has made recruiting trips to Europe and South America. The 2013 roster included players from Ireland, England, Nigeria and The Netherlands.
Atkinson also touts a beautiful campus and a soccer pitch that is "such a phenomenal field."
Atkinson and his staff have sent players to the next level, as goalie Joel Helmick of Springfield was drafted by Colorado in the fourth round of the Major League Soccer (MLS) draft in 2012.
"To have Joel get drafted by a MLS team, it says a lot about the direction of the program and the growth over the years," Atkinson said at the time. And the same could be said of the head coach, who is gradually building a Big South contender in Farmville.
"The 10 years have flown by," he says.
Editor's Note: Special consultant David Driver is a Virginia native and has covered college sports in the state for more than 20 years. He has been a staff writer for newspapers in Arlington, Springfield and Harrisonburg and has contributed to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Washington Post, Stafford County Sun and The Potomac News in Woodbridge. He was also the first sports editor for the daily Baltimore Examiner. He will continue contributing special feature content to longwoodlancers.com throughout the upcoming 2013-14 academic year as well. A former Division III baseball player at Eastern Mennonite University, David can be reached at www.davidsdriver.com.
Previous 2013-14 Special Features
From South Africa to Longwood
Longwood Head Coach Jayson Gee Introduces PACE
Soccer is a family affair for Kelsey Pardue
Milestone win gives young team confidence
Sophomore guards have a comfort level
