Charismatic new head coaches have become the norm for N.C. State in Director of Athletics Debbie Yow’s tenure at the University, and first-year women’s soccer coach Tim Santoro is no exception as he looks to guide the Wolfpack to its first NCAA Tournament bid since 1996.
A native of New Jersey, Santoro crossed the Mason-Dixon Line in 1990 to play for Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C., which was at that time an NAIA school. He has bounced around the Carolinas ever since, most recently serving as associate head coach for the women’s team at ACC rival Wake Forest before coming to Raleigh.
While at Wake Forest, Santoro helped the Demon Deacons to the 2010 ACC Championship and the 2011 College Cup, which is college soccer’s equivalent of the Final Four. Having spent many years in North Carolina, he jumped at the chance to coach at one of the premier universities in the state.
“Coming from Wake Forest, I was very familiar with the program and the conference,” Santoro said. “Twenty years ago, when I played at Catawba, we played against a very good N.C. State team that went to the Final Four.”
Santoro took over a Wolfpack team that struggled mightily last season. The Pack finished 5-14 and failed to win a conference game. In four years under previous head coach Steve Springthorpe, State won a total of just four conference games and boasted an overall winning record just once, a 10-8-2 mark in 2011.
Santoro’s off to a great start this season. The Wolfpack opened their schedule with a pair of 3-2 wins, first at Navy then at home over Longwood.
Santoro acknowledged the effort N.C. State has made to improve its entire athletic department under Yow, a characteristic he cited as a reason for his decision to come here.
“I knew [State] had some good things going on when Debbie [Yow] took over as athletic director,” Santoro said. “There were a lot of upgrades and improvements to facilities.”
Before he coached at Wake, Santoro was an assistant coach at his alma mater after graduating in 1994, and he also directed a youth club in Charlotte before serving as the associate head coach at the College of Charleston from 2001-2008.
“I’ve actually lived [in North Carolina] longer than New Jersey,” Santoro said. “But I still consider myself a Yankee.”
When he coaches the Wolfpack, Santoro said he uses what he learned from other coaches as a player and an assistant to augment his coaching strategy.
“I don’t think anyone has something that’s just theirs,” Santoro said. “Everything you learn and do is from other people.”
Santoro is not the only one of his family with proven coaching prowess. His brother Mat is currently the head coach at Division II Southern Indiana.
Santoro is not married and does not have any children, but he does have a girlfriend of eight years, three dogs and 26 Wolfpack players.
“They’re who I’m responsible for,” Santoro said of his players. “They’re my family.”
In the whirlwind of adjusting to his first career head coaching job, Santoro hasn’t lost sight of his objectives as coach of the Wolfpack.
“We want to be a top 25 program, we want to win an ACC championship, [and] we want to win a national championship,” Santoro said. “I believe we can do that here. Those goals don’t change.”
The Wolfpack’s third game of the Tim Santoro era is on Friday against Georgia Southern. Kickoff at the Dail Soccer Stadium is at 7 p.m.
