Ernie Yarborough Joins Men's Soccer Staff as Assistant Coach

CINCINNATI – Xavier men's soccer officially announced the addition of Ernie Yarborough as assistant coach on Tuesday.

Yarborough comes to Xavier from Stetson, where he went 13-16-4 in two seasons as head coach and was the Atlantic Sun Coach of the Year in 2014.

Prior to Stetson, Yarborough served as an assistant coach at Indiana – his alma mater – since 2009. In more than 19 years of collegiate coaching, he has also made stops at Wisconsin, Michigan and UAB.

After one year as a high school coach, he returned to IU as an assistant. During Yarborough's first tenure on the IU staff, the Hoosiers compiled a 68-6 record and won back-to-back NCAA championships in 1998-99.

From IU, he moved on to an assistant role at Michigan. During his six seasons in Ann Arbor, the Wolverines reached the Big Ten Championship once and made two NCAA Tournament appearances. In 2003, the Wolverines reached the national quarterfinals.

After a two-year stop at UAB, helping the Blazers post two of the lowest GAA's in program history, Yarborough joined back up with Todd Yeagley – the son of the former Indiana head coach – as an assistant coach at Wisconsin in 2009. After one season, Yarborough moved back to IU with Yeagley for the 2010 season.

All told, Yarborough has coached teams to seven Big Ten regular-season titles and eight Big Ten Tournament crowns. He has been a part of 14 NCAA Tournament teams, both as a player and coach, in addition to three NCAA Championship sides.

AS A PLAYER

Yarborough was a goalkeeper at Indiana under legendary coach Jerry Yeagley from 1991-95, helping the Hoosiers to four Big Ten titles and making two national semifinals appearances. He played professionally for one year before launching into a coaching career.

Yarborough is a 1995 graduate of Indiana with a degree in criminal justice.

QUOTABLE

"I'd like to thank Coach Fleming, [Associate Athletic Director for External Relations] Brian Hicks and the entire Xavier administration for such a wonderful opportunity. The rise of Xavier soccer, and what Coach Fleming has done while at the helm, is one of college soccer's biggest stories over the last several years. Yet he and I both know there's more to be done. My goal in coming to Xavier is to use my experience and background to push this team to a BIG EAST Championship and another NCAA Tournament for Xavier men's soccer."

– Ernie Yarborough

"This is a special and unique opportunity for me and our program. Ernie is one of my closest friends in coaching and someone with great insight, a wide range of experiences in the game and perhaps most importantly – he knows the Xavier story and the recipe we've used to build our story. I'd like to welcome Ernie, his wife Jill, son Woody and daughter Samantha to the Xavier family.

Simply put, Ernie's got over 400 games, three national titles and head coaching experience under his belt. I'm pretty sure that every scenario we see this fall he'll be prepared for and he certainly can act as the head coach when called upon to do so. More than anything, his insight on training and in-game moves – as well as how we run our program will be reap dividends immediately. He knows me, knows Xavier and the Midwest. It's a great fit.

I also would be remiss to not thank John Michael Hayden for the profound impact he had on how we play, train and run our organization. In just 15 months, he really began to leave his footprint and was going to hit his stride here this fall. He is the latest of our assistants to proceed on to the "Power Five" or professional ranks and we wish him well.

Having said that, we had an opening mid-summer, which is a tough time to have one and I feel very fortunate that things aligned with Ernie."

– Andy Fleming, head coach of Xavier men's soccer

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