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Head Coach
First season at NU: 1996
Alma mater: Green Mountain '89
Ed Matz returns after winning the CAA Championship and advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in 2008, the most successful women’s soccer season in Huskies history. This will be Matz’s 11th year as head coach of the women’s team and his 10th as Northeastern’s Director of Soccer.
In his coaching tenure with the Huskies – nine seasons with the men’s team and 10 with the women’s – Matz has a combined record of 170-161-38. Both teams were struggling when he was named director of soccer in 1999, though it did not take long for him to put them on a winning course. The men’s team won 10 or more games in five of its last six seasons with Matz as coach, and in 2002 it captured its first America East conference title. Matz shifted his attention to women’s team in 2005, and Brian Ainscough took over the men’s head coach.
Matz has worked hard to bring the women’s program to its current championship caliber. After the program posted losing records in its first three seasons in America East, Matz took over as coach and led the women to winning records in their final five years in the conference. In 2005, the team made the jump to the highly-competitive CAA, and by 2006 Matz took the women to their first CAA Tournament. The team’s consistent improvement has since culminated in last year’s hallmark season, crowned with a conference championship and an NCAA Tournament berth. Matz’s teams have succeeded athletically and academically, and for the past five years the women’s team has earned NSCAA All-Academic honors.
Matz’s collegiate experience prior to Northeastern came as a successful coach and recruiter for the women’s soccer team at Castleton State College in Castleton, Vt. From 1989-93, Matz led his squad to four NAIA District V playoff appearances. His peers named him Mayflower Conference Coach of the Year in 1992, after earning Co-Coach of the Year honors in both 1990 and ’91.
Matz left Castleton in 1993 and moved his coaching residence to Brookline, Mass., where he took the helm of the men’s team at Newbury College. In his one and only season, he led the team to 12 wins and a runner-up finish in the Southern New England Athletic Conference.
Matz came to Huntington Avenue in 1994 as an assistant to head men’s soccer coach Turi Lonero. When Lonero left in 1996, Matz was chosen as his successor. Since then, he has significantly improved both programs, developing an NU-hosted indoor tournament and adopting an aggressive overseas recruiting plan that has brought several fine athletes to Boston.
Before moving to the sidelines, Matz distinguished himself on the field as captain of the Green Mountain College men’s soccer team in 1988 and ’89. Matz graduated with a degree in Recreation, was named to the Mayflower All-Conference and NAIA All-District teams, and in 1994 was inducted into the Green Mountain Hall of Fame.
In addition to running the Huskies’ off-season programs and directing the Husky Soccer Academy, Matz currently serves as the Head Coach of the Massachusetts U15 Olympic Development Program. He also coached the U18 FC Greater Boston Bolts to a Mass. State Championship in 2008. Matz has his NSCAA National Coaching License and completed his master’s degree in Sports Leadership from Northeastern in 2009. A native of Woodsville, N.H., Matz resides in Milford with his wife Jenn and daughters Mckenzie, 8, Ally, 5, and Natalie, 3.
