The wait is finally over for the men’s soccer team at Saint Louis University. On March 10, Mike McGinty, a former associate head coach at the University of Virginia, was named as Dan Donigan’s replacement at the helm of the men’s soccer program.

McGinty is coming off a season at Virginia in which the Cavaliers were crowned as NCAA champions in men’s soccer. Virginia has been one of most successful teams in the nation for the past decade, winning four of the last seven conference titles in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which is widely considered to be the best in collegiate soccer. After starting as goalie for Wake Forest University and playing in Major League Soccer, McGinty was an assistant coach at Virginia for nine years.

“Mike McGinty brings a winner’s pedigree from the University of Virginia, where as associate head coach he helped lead the Cavaliers to the 2009 NCAA championship,” SLU Athletic Director Chris May said. “[McGinty] understands and embodies the goals of educating young men, competing for championships and building community. We fully believe in his ability to move our program forward so that the Billikens not only continue winning Atlantic 10 Conference championships, but also compete for national championships.”

Former Billikens head coach Donigan announced his resignation from the head coaching job at SLU back on Jan. 22. He is currently the head coach at Rutgers University. Donigan had been a part of the SLU men’s soccer coaching staff since 1997.
In an interview with St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Tom Timmermann, Mike McGinty expressed his excitement about taking over the head coaching job at SLU.

“I liked the fact that it is currently a really, really good team and a really, really good job,” McGinty said in the March 11 issue. “They’re the Atlantic 10 champs and poised for what I think is sustainable growth in excellence. It’s not a rebuilding type of ground-level head coaching job. It’s an elite-level job.”
McGinty will officially start work at SLU on Mar. 22.