The Eastern Illinois Panthers men's soccer team represents

Eastern Illinois University Eastern Illinois University (EIU) is a public university in Charleston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1895 as the Eastern Illinois State Normal School, a teacher's college offering a two-year degree, Eastern Illinois University gradual ...

(EIU) as a member of the

Ohio Valley Conference The Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. It participates in Division I of the NCAA; the conference's football programs compete in partnership with ...

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

. The Panthers play their home matches at Lakeside Soccer Field located directly south of the Lantz Arena complex on the EIU campus in

Charleston, Illinois Charleston is a city in and the county seat of Coles County, Illinois, United States. The population was 17,286, as of the 2020 census. The city is home to Eastern Illinois University and has close ties with its neighbor, Mattoon, Illinois, Ma ...

Conference membership

Eastern Illinois is currently a full member of the

(OVC), which did not sponsor men's soccer until the 2023 season. Before the OVC launched its men's soccer league, EIU was an associate member of the

Summit League The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States, from Minnesota in the east, to the Dakotas, Nebraska and Colorado to the West, and Mis ...

for men's soccer, and remains an associate of that conference in men's and women's swimming & diving. In 1982, EIU was one of the eight charter members of the Association of Mid-Continent Universities (AMCU) which changed its name to the Mid-Continent Conference (Mid-Con) in 1989 and became the Summit League in 2007. The Panthers played soccer in the AMCU/Mid-Con until leaving for membership in the OVC in 1996. Upon joining the OVC, EIU also became an affiliate member of the

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the fourth-oldest collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the Midwestern Unite ...

(MVC) for men's soccer. The Panthers swimming & diving teams had returned to the Mid-Con in 1996; in fall 2011, EIU cut its membership to only two conferences as the men's soccer team returned to what is now the Summit League. In March 2023, the OVC announced that it would start a men's soccer league in the 2023 season, allowing EIU to align men's soccer with the bulk of its other sports,

Players

Roster

Retired numbers

;Notes

Notable former players

* Shady Omar, forward for the

Egyptian Second Division A The Egyptian Second Division A (), also known locally as the Professionals League (), is the second tier of the Egyptian football league system since the 2023–24 season. It is administered by the Egyptian Football Association. It is below the t ...

* Mike Novotny,

Goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

for Chicago House AC * Schellas Hyndman, former head coach of soccer's

FC Dallas FC Dallas is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference. The franchise be ...

* Matt Bobo, former

North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League (NASL) was the top-level major professional soccer league in the United States and Canada that operated from 1968 to 1984. It is considered the first soccer league to be successful on a national scale in the ...

player * John Baretta, former

goalkeeper * George Gorleku, former

Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–92) Major Indoor Soccer League has been the name of three different American professional indoor soccer leagues: *Major Indoor Soccer League (1978–1992), known in its final two seasons as the Major Soccer League *Major Indoor Soccer League (2001–2 ...

player * Phil Vendredi, former center forward (1992–1994) player and GPA honoree. *

LeBaron Hollimon LeBaron Hollimon (born August 13, 1969) is an American soccer coach who is currently on the staff of FC Wichita. Hollimon serves as the Director of Coaching for the FC Wichita Academy and also coaches with the men's USL League Two and women's ...

, former

National Professional Soccer League (1984–2001) The National Professional Soccer League was a professional indoor soccer league in the U.S. and Canada. It was originally called the American Indoor Soccer Association. History In November 1983, a Kalamazoo, Michigan–based group called Socc ...

player * Damien Kelly, former

player * Mark Simpson, former goalkeeper and assistant coach for D.C. United * Jason Thompson, former player for D.C. United * Glen Tourville, former

player

Season results

References:

References

External links

* {{Ohio Valley Conference men's soccer navbox