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Ray Wells
Ray Wells begins his 31th season as the head men’s soccer coach at Lindsey Wilson College in 2020-21.
Wells ranks as the winningest coach in the history of NAIA Men's Soccer and holds the highest winning percentage of all time with a .792 mark entering 2020. He currently holds an overall record of 609-144-43 in his coaching career with a 537-108-33 mark at LWC, including an impressive 154-12-6 mark in Mid-South Conference play.
Wells is an eight-time Brine-NAIA National Coach of the Year and four-time NSCAA-NAIA National Coach of the Year and has led Lindsey Wilson to nine national titles since creating the program from scratch in 1990.
He has led Lindsey Wilson to 26 NAIA National Championship Tournament postseason appearances dating back to the 1992 season.
Wells has coached 76 NAIA All-Americans at Lindsey Wilson along with 38 NAIA Scholar-Athletes and two National Players of the Year.
In addition to winning the nine national titles -- 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2011 -- Wells has guided the men’s soccer program to 22 conference titles and 23 conference tournament championships.
During his career, Wells’ teams have produced winning streaks of 33 (the second longest in NAIA soccer history), 28, 23, 22, 20, and 13 games, and hold the fourth-longest unbeaten string in NAIA soccer history (31 games), which includes a 25-0-0 record during the 1998 championship season.
Wells’ 2011 national champs match his 1998 team as the only two teams in program history to finish the season with a perfect record. The Blue Raiders finished 2011 at 23-0-0.
At Lindsey Wilson, Wells’ teams have appeared in the NAIA National Championship game nine of the past 22 seasons, where the Blue Raiders have never lost. The Blue Raiders’ record in the NAIA National Tournament is 55-16-6.
During the 2011 national tournament run, the Blue Raiders moved past Quincy (Ill.) for the most wins in NAIA National Tournament history. The Blue Raiders own 55 wins at the national tournament.
Since the inception of the Lindsey Wilson men’s soccer program, the Blue Raiders have lost just 12 conference games. Formally of the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (KIAC) and currently as a member of the Mid-South Conference (MSC), Wells’ teams have posted a 154-12-6 record in conference regular season games.
Wells has guided Lindsey Wilson to a 258-34-17 record at home, including a 184-30-11 mark in the first 20 seasons at Walter S. Reuling Stadium, the Blue Raiders’ on-campus soccer stadium.
Wells has been named KIAC Coach of the Year on seven different occasions and Mid-South Conference Coach of the Year six times, along with being named NAIA regional coach of the year six times.
During his first nine years at Lindsey Wilson, Coach Wells was also Lindsey Wilson’s athletic director, where he oversaw the development of 13 new sports programs.
Prior to becoming a coach, Wells was a standout collegiate player at Appalachian State (N.C.), earning All-Southern Conference honors in 1981. After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1982, Coach Wells was hired as assistant men’s soccer coach at Georgia Southern in Statesboro, Georgia. He spent one season as an assistant before being elevated to the head coaching post in 1983, leading the Eagles to an 11-12-3 record in two seasons.
In 1985, Wells was named head men's soccer coach at Andrew, a junior college in Cuthbert, Ga., where in five seasons he led the Tigers to a 61-24-7 overall record, including a trip to the NJCAA Final Four in 1988.
In his 32 seasons as a head coach, Wells’ teams have produced 73 All-Americans (71 at LWC), 86 all-region choices, and 195 all-conference performers.
Wells graduated from Appalachian State in 1981 and later earned two master’s degrees from Georgia Southern in 1984 and 1985. He and his wife, Cindy, have two sons, Chris and Trae.
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