Thomas Fitzgerald Stone (born January 17, 1966) is an American former

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player and current head coach of the Texas Tech women's soccer team. He played and coached soccer at the youth, collegiate and professional levels. Stone, a former graduate of

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and member of

Sigma Alpha Epsilon Sigma Alpha Epsilon (), commonly known as SAE, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. It was founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is t ...

, held various coaching positions before coming to Tech. On December 14, 2019, Stone was honored as the commencement speaker at the Texas Tech Winter Commencement Ceremony.

Playing career

Tom Stone played youth soccer for the Texas Longhorns in Dallas, where he was instrumental in seeing the team compete in the U.S. Youth Soccer finals. Later, he attended

. As a player for the

Duke Blue Devils The Duke Blue Devils are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Duke University, located in Durham, North Carolina. Duke's athletics department features 27 varsity teams that all compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Associatio ...

, Stone scored the only goal in the 1986 National Championship game, giving his team the win over

Akron Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city prop ...

. In January 2019, Stone and his 1986 Duke team were inducted into the North Carolina Soccer Hall of Fame. Stone went on to play professionally for Le Havre FC, the Washington Stars, and the

Colorado Foxes The Colorado Foxes were a professional soccer team, based in Commerce City, Colorado, that played in the American Professional Soccer League, and later in the A-League, between 1990 and 1997. The Foxes won two APSL titles, in 1992 and 1993. In 19 ...

Coaching career

Early jobs (1996–2007)

Stone's first coaching job was as a part-time assistant at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private university, private research university in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1864, it is the oldest independent private university in the Mountain States, Rocky Mountain Region of the United States. It is ...

in 1996 and as a volunteer assistant at Duke in 1997. Then, from 1997–2000, Stone coached girls' soccer for the Colorado Rush youth soccer club. Under his leadership, the team won 35 state cups, twelve regional championships and eight national championships. He left the Rush to coach professionally in the

Women's United Soccer Association The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first Women's association football, women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000 in sports, 2000, the league began its first se ...

, leading the Atlanta Beat to the league's inaugural championship game, losing in overtime on penalty kicks to the Bay Area CyberRays. He also provided soccer commentary for

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and

CBS College Sports Network CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television television network, network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Tele ...

. Stone returned to college coaching when he was hired as an assistant for the

Clemson Tigers The Clemson Tigers are the athletic teams that represent Clemson University, located in Clemson, South Carolina. They compete as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level (Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) ...

. He spent one year there, helping the Tigers to an 11–8–4 record and an appearance in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Women's Soccer Championship.

Texas Tech (2007–present)

On May 25, 2007, Stone was named the fourth head coach in

Texas Tech Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sys ...

soccer history. Prior to his arrival at Texas Tech, the team had a record of 6–63–1 in

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its fo ...

play and had gone 0–10–0 in conference four of the previous six seasons. In Stone's first year and half as coach, the team quickly matched that win total, going 6–5–1 in conference play. In 2010 – Stone's fourth year with the team – the Red Raiders went 11–8–1, marking the program's third-ever winning record and first in 15 seasons. Two years later, the Red Raiders made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history and beat

North Texas North Texas (also commonly called North Central Texas) is a term used primarily by residents of Dallas, Fort Worth, and surrounding areas to describe much of the north central portion of the U.S. state of Texas. Residents of the Dallas–Fort Wor ...

, 2–0, in the program's debut in postseason play. They would lose to

Florida State Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...

, 2–3, in double overtime in the second round. In 2013, the Red Raiders made another appearance in the second round after recording a program-record 18 wins. In 2014, Stone's squad won 16 games and climbed as high as sixth in the national coaches' polls before advancing to the program's first-ever Sweet Sixteen. For the breakout campaign, he was named the

NSCAA The United Soccer Coaches (formerly known as the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)) is an organization of American soccer coaches founded in 1941. It is the largest soccer coaches organization in the world, with more than 30 ...

Central Region Coach of the Year. In 2015, the Red Raiders won their first-ever

Big 12 Championship The Big 12 Conference sponsors championships in 23 sports, 10 men's and 13 women's. The first conference championship awarded was the 1996 softball postseason tournament championship, which was won by Oklahoma. From 2011 through 2016, the foot ...

, defeating

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

, 1–0. The year also saw Stone pick up his 100th win at the helm of the Red Raider program when the team beat

South Florida South Florida is the southernmost region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is one of Florida's three most commonly referred to directional regions; the other two are Central Florida and North Florida. South Florida is the southernmost part of th ...

, 2–1. The Red Raiders went .500 the following two seasons – and missed the tournament altogether in 2017 – but came back to go 14–5–3 in 2018, beating a program-record four ranked opponents and leading the nation in shutouts with 14 in the process. As of 2018, Stone has led Texas Tech to the NCAA Tournament in six of the last seven seasons. On October 3, 2019, Tom Stone got his 150th career win with a 1–0 overtime game at Iowa State. The only goal was scored by Sierra Jones.

National team involvement

In addition to coaching at the collegiate level, Stone has served as an advance scout for the United States Women's National Team (USWNT) since 1999. Most recently, Stone was responsible for the scouting of USWNT opponents at the 2015 and 2019

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

Head coaching record

Honors

Texas Tech Red Raiders *Big 12 Tournament Championship:

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

Individual *

Central Region Coach of the Year: 2014

Notable players coached

Texas Tech

References

External links

Tom Stone
at SoccerStats.us {{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Tom 1966 births Living people Sportspeople from Belleville, Illinois Sportspeople from Dallas American soccer players Soccer players from Illinois Soccer players from Dallas Duke Blue Devils men's soccer players Parade High School All-Americans (boys' soccer) NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament Most Outstanding Player winners American soccer coaches American women's soccer coaches Duke Blue Devils men's soccer coaches Texas Tech Red Raiders women's soccer coaches Association football midfielders Women's United Soccer Association coaches Washington Stars players Colorado Foxes players Le Havre AC players Association football forwards American Professional Soccer League players