Jack Winter has announced his resignation as the head men’s soccer coach at Lenoir-Rhyne as he moves to the Pac-12 and will take over as the assistant coach at Stanford University. Winter has guided the LR men’s soccer program to unmatched heights in his 10 total years at LR with the last seven being the head coach and was the league’s Coach of the Year in 2018.

“I would like to thank LR and the entire Hickory community for the love and support they have shown me over the past ten years,” said Winter. “Lenoir-Rhyne University has been an enormous part of my life, and I will cherish the memories and treasure the friendships forever. I have been blessed to work with some of the most remarkable student-athletes, coaches and support staff members that have made my experience unforgettable. I would like to thank our AD, Kim Pate, for her continued support of me and my vision for what the program could become. She has been the driving force behind the department’s advancement, and I am grateful to have worked alongside her for so long. This next chapter in my career is a very exciting one and working at a program with such a storied history of competing at the highest level in college athletics is a dream come true.”

“Coach Winter has been a tremendous leader and model for our student-athletes since stepping foot on this campus,” said Kim Pate, Vice President of Athletics. “Not only has he led our program to unmatched heights on the field, he has truly developed champions for life off the field. He has helped transform Lenoir-Rhyne men’s soccer to a perennial contender and I can’t thank him enough for all of his contributions to LR. He is a brilliant coach and an extremely talented leader who is able to get the most out of his players. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Jack and we wish him the best at Stanford and know that he will one day be leading a program of his own at the highest level.”

Winter was an assistant for three seasons with the Bears before earning the promotion to head coach in 2016. Since then, Winter has becoming the second-most winningest coach in program history with a 68-35-12 record and .644 winning percentage. Prior to taking over the head job, the Bears had gone 10 years without an NCAA Tournament appearance and Winter accomplished that feat in his first two seasons. In his first season, he led LR to its first NCAA Tournament win since 2006.

In total, LR has gone to the NCAA Tournament four times under Winter and were announced as tournament hosts in 2022 for just the second time in team history. Winter led LR to its first-ever SAC Regular Season title in 2018 and a SAC Tournament Championship in 2022.

Winter coached back-to-back SAC Players of the Year in 2016 and 2017 and the SAC Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year in the spring 2020-21 season. A total of 34 players have been named All-Conference during his tenure and in 2021 Carles Montoliu Lobo became the program’s first SAC Scholar Athlete of the Year since Neal Harm in 1992. Montoliu Lobo would repeat as SAC Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2022 and was also awarded the SAC Man of the Year honor, one of the highest individual accolades given out by the league.

As a player, Winter won a National Championship at Lynn University in 2012 and has two silver medals representing Great Britain at the World University Games in China (2011) and Russia (2013).

“I will always be a Bear,” Winter commented. “I look forward to supporting this program from afar. Thank you LR for all you have done for me.”