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Carleton College

Carleton College Athletics
 One North College Street Northfield, MN 55057
Division 3 Minnesota Northwest
Private Small Competitive team
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Coaches

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Bob Carlson

The 2023 campaign marks Bob Carlson's 26th season at the helm of the Carleton men's soccer program. He has completed the trifecta by winning MIAC regular-season and playoff titles as each a player, assistant coach, and a head coach. Nine of those 12 trophies have come during his time guiding the Knights.


The Knights won the 2021 MIAC Playoffs Championship over rival St. Olaf and returned to the NCAA Championships for the fifth time.


Carlson has led his team to 15 consecutive postseason berths, extending the program's MIAC record. Over that span, he has guided the Knights to five MIAC regular-season titles (2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2012) and five additional second-place finishes. Since the start of the 2007 campaign, his squads own a 190-72-33 record (.666).


His 2008 team captured the conference's post-season title as well as the program's first-ever trip to the NCAA Championships, where the Knights advanced to the "Sweet Sixteen." The Knights made back-to-back NCAA Championship appearances in 2012 and 2013, before returning to the national tournament again in 2018. Carlson has been named MIAC Coach-of-the-Year four times (2007, 2008, 2012, 2018).


On Sept. 18, 2019, Carlson earned his 250th career win in a 3-0 victory over Bethel University. Carlson is tops in the MIAC and 21st among active D-III coaches in career victories. The Knights have posted 22 winning seasons under his direction. In comparison, Carleton posted only eight winning seasons in the 24 years prior to his arrival.


With an overall ledger of 280-145-48 during his first 25 seasons at the helm, Carlson ranks first all-time at Carleton in both career victories and winning percentage (.643) among coaches with more than one season at the school. His tenure has been marked by consistent play and strong finishes in the MIAC, perennially one of the strongest men's soccer conferences in all of NCAA Division III. For the past 25 years his team has also earned the United Soccer Coaches (formerly the NSCAA) Team Academic awards, including three years in which the Knights posted the highest team grade point average in all of NCAA Division I, II and III.


A 1986 graduate of St. Olaf College, Carlson was a standout player for the Oles as a team captain, all-conference selection, and four-year letter-winner. He helped St. Olaf capture the 1984 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) crown and an NCAA tournament bid, the first-ever for a MIAC institution. As a coach, Carlson returned to Minnesota in 1991 as an assistant at Gustavus Adolphus College. During his four-year tenure there, the Gusties won two conference championships and earned two NCAA tournament bids.


A native of Illinois, Carlson was an all-area soccer and basketball player at New Trier High School. He is married to Cathy Carlson, Associate Dean of Students at Carleton; the couple has a son, Sam, and a daughter, Emma.

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Joe Hartwell

Joe Hartwell joined the Knights prior to the 2011 season after previously spending five years as an assistant at his alma mater Gustavus Adolphus College. He was a NSCAA First-Team All-American central defender for the Gusties in 2004. Hartwell secured MIAC Player of the Year honors as he scored five goals and added two assists in addition to anchoring a defense that yielded just four goals in 23 games during that campaign. He was inducted into the Gustavus Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022. Hartwell has served as a club coach for nearly two decades and currently coaches at Minnesota Thunder Academy. He and his wife, Jessica, live in Rosemount, Minn.

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