Third-year UCCS Men’s Soccer coach Johnnie Keen was recently named the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
Keen is the first Mountain Lion to earn the RMAC Coach of the Year award since 2003 and is the third UCCS soccer coach to earn the honors.
Keen joined the UCCS coaching staff in 2011 to rebuild the men’s soccer program. He became head coach in 2012 following Henry Ellis’s retirement.
Before arriving in Colorado Springs, Keen worked with the City of Charleston, S.C., in the youth soccer program and with the under-18 Columbia (S.C.) Soccer Club. He also spent time with the Mount Pleasant Soccer Club as an assistant coach for the under-16 and under-17 premier boys and as the head coach for the under-18 classic boys.
During the 2003-04 season, Keen was the club coach for the Port City Soccer Club in Wilmington, N.C., and served as a practice coach for all of the teams in the program. He was an assistant coach for The Citadel from 2001-03, and was the director and head trainer for The Citadel Soccer Camps. He was the player coach at the camps in 1999-2000.
During his second year as head coach, the Mountain Lions won five consecutive games late in the season to match the second-longest win streak in program history. The Mountain Lions will play in the RMAC Tournament for the fourth straight season. Keen moved into third place in UCCS coaching victory records this season and the Mountain Lions are one win away from the first 10-win season since 2003.
– Photos courtesy of UCCS Athletics
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