Head Coach Kris Anderson (6th season)High School: Lenape
College: Richard Stockton College (1998)
Major: Public Health
Kris Anderson and his Rutgers-Camden women’s soccer team took a major step during the 2013 season, developing a deep roster that finally allowed the fifth-year Scarlet Raptor head coach to gain flexibility and depth in his lineup. A roster of 30 players, the largest in program history, was filled with exciting young talent that points toward a promising future as the Scarlet Raptors attempt to return to the New Jersey Athletic Conference playoffs for the first time since 2007.
Although Rutgers-Camden finished with a 5-11-2 record overall and a 2-7 NJAC mark, Anderson watched four of his players – Dawn Dixon, Tori Gerstenacker, Rebecca Gougher and Kelsey Tierney – earn All-NJAC Honorable Mention recognition. It marked the most all-conference players for the Rutgers-Camden women since the 2006 team had five members named All-NJAC. Three of the four All-NJAC players return in 2014, with only Dixon lost to graduation.
Gougher also earned NJAC Academic Second Team honors, leading a large group of Scarlet Raptors recognized on the all-conference academic program. Eight Raptors – Dixon, Katie Angelosante, Michelle Barbone, Sarah Kooistra, Leighanna Milby, Taylor Reeve, Lindsay Russo and Lauren West – all were named NJAC Academic Honorable Mention.
The Raptors battled numerous ailments in 2013, yet it was a far cry from the 2012 season, when injuries led to a depleted bench and resulted in a 4-14-1 season. Only 12 players were healthy enough to appear in 15 or more games for that squad.
Anderson’s young team barely missed a berth in the 2011 NJAC playoffs with a late-season surge. Rutgers-Camden went 2-1-1 in its last four NJAC games, missing the final conference playoff berth on the last day of the season due to a sixth-place tie-breaker.
Over the past three seasons, the Scarlet Raptors have had 10 players capture NJAC Honorable Mention, with four of them being freshmen. Two of them have repeated honors during each of their collegiate seasons, with Gougher capturing three NJAC awards and Gerstenacker earning two.
Anderson’s youth revival started in 2010 when the Scarlet Raptors posted a 2-14-2 record while featuring seven freshmen and three sophomores among their key players. A pair of freshmen –Bec Garretson and Kooistra – started all 18 games for the Raptors, while the combination of freshmen Milby and Kelly Harper played every minute in the Raptor goal.
The 2010 freshman class was Anderson’s first recruiting class. Anderson was named as the Scarlet Raptors’ coach in February, 2009, becoming the program’s fourth head coach. The late start deprived him the luxury of bringing in his own recruiting class, and he inherited a team that didn’t have any returning goalies. The Raptors played the season with a first-time keeper, while facing a schedule that included seven teams that received votes toward national polls at some point during the season. Two of those teams, NJAC powers The College of New Jersey and Rowan University, finished among the top 17 clubs nationally in both the NSCAA/adidas Division III Top 25 poll and the
D3soccer.com Top 25 rankings, including No. 3 in both polls for TCNJ. Rutgers-Camden went 0-7 against its nationally-ranked foes, including a pair of 1-0 losses.
Overall, the Raptors posted a 7-11-1 record in Anderson’s first season.
Anderson's Rutgers-Camden recordA Mt. Laurel resident, Anderson spent six seasons as an assistant coach with the Arcadia University women’s soccer program. During his last year at Arcadia in 2008, the Knights defeated the Scarlet Raptors, 1-0.
Anderson brought plenty of soccer experience and NJAC familiarity to Rutgers-Camden. After playing four years of scholastic soccer – his first two at Willingboro High School and his last two at Lenape – he played collegiate soccer at one of the NJAC’s powerhouse programs, Richard Stockton College. A center back and marking back with the Ospreys, Anderson played two seasons for Stockton before injuries and his work schedule forced him out of the collegiate game.
Anderson graduated from Stockton in 1998 as a Public Health major, with a concentration in Health Care Administration. He was offered a professional contract with the Eastern Shore Sharks of the USISL, but turned it down and started coaching and training soccer players in South Jersey in 1999. His Highland team, which was known as both the Lightning and the Fusion during his tenure, was a four-time state semifinalist and a two-time state finalist. He also coached the Pennsylvania-based FC Bucks squad to the state finals and regional quarterfinals.
Anderson joined the Arcadia University women’s program in 2003 as an assistant under new Head Coach Rick Brownell. He helped the Knights qualify for their conference tournament every season, first in the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference and later in the Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Athletic Corporation, also known as the Middle Atlantic Conference. Arcadia won the PAC title and earned an NCAA berth in 2005. The Knights lost in overtime in the 2007 MASCAC Freedom Conference title game.
Anderson has been a personal trainer for numerous State ODP (Olympic Development Program) players, several regional ODP players and a pair of national ODP players. His former players have played at all divisions of NCAA soccer, including one who has won a pair of national titles at the University of North Carolina.
Anderson also serves as the head coach and director of player development of the Atlantic United Academy Teams.
Anderson is a sixth-grade teacher at the Ulysses S. Wiggins Elementary School in Camden. He and his wife Jennifer have been married for 15 years and have two sons, Ryan, age 12, and Aaron, age 9.
