Cliff McCrath
Head Coach

Mark Metzger
Ass't. Coach

Mark Collings
Ass't. Coach

Sergio Soriano
Ass't. Coach

Cliff McCrath, Head Coach

Leo Durocher never met Cliff McCrath. If he had, he never would have uttered those famous words about nice guys finishing last. However, had the irascible baseball manager and legendary Seattle Pacific University soccer coach crossed paths, there would be no shortage of one-liners and plenty of tall tales to exchange.

In his colorful 48-year career, including the last 36 at SPU, McCrath has done it all. He’s won five NCAA Championships and nearly 600 games. He’s a member of three Halls of Fame and has literally written the rule book for college soccer for the past two decades. Entering the 2007 season, the quick-witted, often-quoted McCrath is the all-time NCAA Division II coaching victory leader (590), and in 2002 he broke longtime San Francisco coach Steve Negoesco’s record for college wins for all divisions.

In 1993 McCrath joined another elite group with his induction into the United States Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, New York. He was already a hall of fame member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and his alma mater, Wheaton College. His future enshrinement in Seattle Pacific’s Falcon Legends Hall of Fame is a foregone conclusion.

Success has shined upon soccer at the Queen Anne campus practically since McCrath arrived in 1970. His SPU teams have qualified for the NCAA playoffs 30 of the last 36 years, including 10 trips to the title game, winning five crowns. During the Eighties, Seattle Pacific went to four consecutive finals, winning three. In the Nineties, besides winning the NCAA championship in 1993, the Falcons made the semifinals in ’94 and ’98 and quarterfinals in ’96 and ’97.

The fact is that many of those feats are sometimes forgotten by SPU players, fans and friends. They appreciate McCrath just as much for his humor and personal touch. While his office is seemingly always abuzz with a wide variety of activities, he always puts people first. It is that quality which adds the final coat of luster to McCrath’s mantle.

As the Falcons’ headmaster and spiritual leader, McCrath has taken a once-struggling program and systematically shaped SPU into the most successful side in Division II history. The overwhelming majority (505) of his wins have come at SPU.

Under McCrath, the Falcons have put together winning records for 36 straight seasons–a Div. II record. Overall, they have won nearly 70 percent of their games under McCrath, including a mark of 78-63-43 versus Division I programs.

Although the trademarks of McCrath’s teams are teamwork and unselfishness, there is not only ample opportunity for players to reach their true potential, but to showcase individual talent as well. In fact, over 40 players have been drafted by professional teams during the past 25 years. McCrath also has instilled in those young men the desire to give back to the community and to the game. Over a hundred of his former players have also followed in his footsteps and are now coaching in the prep and collegiate ranks.

McCrath literally built the SPU program from scratch. His first team was woeful and winless. A year later they were in the playoffs, and three seasons after that they were playing for a national championship. Soon the Falcons became the dominant team in NCAA Division II, winning five titles, including the first back-to-back crowns in Div. II annals in 1985-86. The first crown came in 1978, when McCrath was national coach of the year.

Since then he has won virtually every possible award associated with the sport. He is a past president of the Intercollegiate Soccer Association of America, the 1986 recipient of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America’s Honor Award and was 1986 Seattle Sports Star of the Year. He was Coach of the Year in the Northwest Collegiate Soccer Conference six times, and in both 2005 and ‘06 he was Great Northwest Athletic Conference Coach of the Year after his team finished nationally ranked.

McCrath originally was considered an excellent amateur hockey prospect. During his sophomore year at Wheaton College, he joined the school’s soccer team on a whim. He went on to become a three-year starter and All-America in his new sport. All that despite the fact that he had lost three fingers on his left hand during a childhood accident. Hence the self-adopted nickname of “Uncle Nubby.” His keen sense of humor and toughness have remained qualities which he has passed along to hundreds of his players.

While McCrath’s on-field achievements place him in an elite class, his off-field antics are completely without rival. Following the ’78 championship, true to his word, he rewarded the Falcon faithful by crawling more than two miles on his knees from campus to the Space Needle. In anticipation of the ’83 crown, he flopped face-first into a pool of Jell-O. And the ordained Presbyterian minister has also performed numerous weddings, including one while running backwards across a floating bridge during a marathon.

Though McCrath’s energies are largely concentrated toward the SPU soccer program, his presence is evident on a much wider scope. He has run the extremely popular Northwest Soccer Camp on Whidbey Island for 35 summers, providing fundamentals for such international stars as Kasey Keller and Michelle Akers. He is the senior member of the NCAA rules committee, serving as secretary-editor. In 1971 he founded the Northwest Collegiate Soccer Conference and served as its executive director for 22 years. He was chairman of the board of directors for Soccer in the Streets, served seven years on the National Athletic Trainers Association executive board, served as 1994 World Cup Ambassador for Sprint and continues to serve on the advisory board for Diadora USA.

A native of Detroit, Charles Clifford McCrath has a grown daughter, Stacey, and son, Steve (coach of Barry University in Miami), plus two grandchildren.

Mark Metzger, Assistant Coach

A member of Seattle Pacific's first national championship team, Mark Metzger returns for his eighth season as an assistant coach. Metzger was the midfield general for the Falcons’ NCAA Division II title-winning team of 1978.

Metzger is a veteran of the Seattle Pacific’s team which toppled heavily-favored Alabama A&M for the NCAA crown in 1978. He was selected to the all-Northwest Collegiate Soccer Conference team in 1979. From 1982-2000, Metzger managed the Bear Stearns stock index futures trading desk on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He now works for Northwest Soccer Camp as a coach and clinician and coaches three youth teams affiliated with Northwest Nationals.

Metzger coached both boys and girls youth teams in the Chicago area for 12 years and from 1995-2000 won four Illinois state championships. He also coached the Illinois women’s open team which competed at the national finals in 2000.

Mark Collings, Assistant Coach

Mark Collings, a member and co-captain of Seattle Pacific's 1998 Final Four team, who came aboard in 2003, returns for his fifth season on the staff. In addition to on-field duties he also coordinates recruiting.

Collings played four seasons for the Falcons (1995-98), with each team making the NCAA playoffs. Since then he has coached at various local high schools, including Seattle Academy from 1999-00. He is now in his 11th year with Northwest Soccer Camp, serving as day camp and elite team training director the past four years. He also is director of player and coach development for Queen Anne Soccer Club, assists Auburn Youth Soccer and oversees two teams for Northwest Nationals.

An emergency room nurse, Collings works at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. He and wife Leslie have two sons, Jeffrey and Tyler, and reside in the Queen Anne neighborhood near SPU.

Sergio Soriano, Assistant Coach

Sergio Soriano returned to his alma mater for his second stint as goalkeeper coach in 2004. Soriano has 17 years of experience at the collegiate level, including four seasons with the Falcons from 1982-85.

Soriano was one of the stars of Seattle Pacific's first NCAA Championship team in 1978, and was a four-year starter from 1978-81. He was an aide to Cliff McCrath when the Falcons won national titles in 1983 and '85, and is a longtime member of the Northwest Soccer Camp coaching staff.

Soriano remains the season and career record-holder for saves. His total of 13 shutouts in 1978 and his 42 for a career are No. 2 all-time.

Born in Cuba and a graduate of Miami Beach High, Soriano worked for the Dade County Public Schools from 1985-03, teaching both physical education and alternative education. He now teaches at Tulalip Elementary in the Marysville School District. His family–wife Martha and four children–resides in Arlington, Washington.