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Tim Oswald
Tim Oswald heads into his 17th season as the Rutgers-Camden Head Coach with a spectacular 210-97-41 career record. During the brief pandemic-altered 2020 season, which was held in the 2021 spring semester, Oswald captured his 200th career victory with a 2-0 win at New Jersey City University March 17.
The all-time winningest Rutgers-Camden men’s soccer coach by far, Oswald enters the season with nearly three times the total victories of the next coach on the list. He owns a .662 career winning percentage and has accounted for 43.8 percent of the victories in the entire 62-year history of the program.
Oswald has led the Scarlet Raptors into the New Jersey Athletic Conference playoffs in 12 of his 16 seasons, reaching the championship game six times and winning four NJAC titles (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015). His club has qualified for the NCAA tournament five times (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015) and reached the NCAA Division III championship game in 2013.
During the 2021 season the Scarlet Raptors reached the ECAC semifinals. During abbreviated 2020 season, they went 1-1 in the NJAC tournament, losing in the semifinals. In addition to Oswald’s 200th victory, Rutgers-Camden saw seven players earn All-NJAC honors during the brief 2020 season, including First Team stars Skyler Diggs and Kaito Kitazawa. Kitazawa earned honors as the conference’s Midfielder of the Year.
A two-time NJAC Coach of the Year (2011 and 2013), Oswald has led the Scarlet Raptors to the only four NJAC titles, the only four ECAC championships and the only five NCAA tournament berths in program history.
Oswald already has earned plenty of other accomplishments. Back in 2011, he passed the previous Rutgers-Camden program record of 68 career coaching victories. That same season he led the Scarlet Raptors to their first NJAC Men’s Soccer championship in school history. That started a run of three straight NJAC titles and four in a five-year span, during which time the Scarlet Raptors became the only program in conference history to reach five straight NJAC title games.
Oswald was inducted into the South Jersey Soccer Hall of Fame in 2018 and added another Hall of Fame berth in 2019 when he entered the Southeastern Pennsylvania Soccer Hall of Fame.
Oswald has coached for more seasons and compiled far more victories and championships than any other mentor in the history of the Rutgers-Camden men’s soccer program. Oswald’s 11th season with the Raptors in 2016 broke the program mark of 10 years set by Coach Mark Sandberg (1990-99). Oswald’s 210 victories are 142 more wins than the previous mark of 68, set by his predecessor Greg Ogden (2000-2005).
In his 16 seasons, Oswald has led the Scarlet Raptors into 12 championship games, posting a 7-4-1 (.625) record in those contests. The official tie came in the 2015 NJAC finals against Montclair State, when the Scarlet Raptors ended up capturing the conference title on a penalty kick shootout.
Few coaches in any sport have ever had the kind of season that Oswald experienced with Rutgers-Camden in 2013. Oswald’s Scarlet Raptors posted a 23-1-2 record, won their third consecutive NJAC title, advanced to the first NCAA championship game in program history and set numerous program marks, including the team’s highest final rankings ever. The Raptors were ranked No. 2 in the season-ending NSCAA and D3soccer.com national polls. That season netted Oswald three national Coach of the Year honors. He also has captured two NJAC Coach of the Year awards and five Rutgers-Camden Coach of the Year honors.
Oswald’s teams have posted a 3-2-1 record in NJAC championship games, winning titles in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015 (on penalty kicks after an overtime draw), while finishing as the conference runner-up in 2008 and 2014.
Oswald owns a 4-1 record in the ECAC title game, winning championships in 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2014. In 2017, his Scarlet Raptors advanced all the way to the ECAC Division III Men’s Soccer Championship title game before falling, 3-2, to the host and defending champion, Lebanon Valley College.
Oswald-led teams have played in the NCAA tournament in 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015. That 2015 season saw Rutgers-Camden All-American Mike Ryan finish his stellar career with 75 goals, setting an all-time NJAC record.
Oswald has produced 86 All-NJAC players in his 16 seasons. Oswald has produced eight All-Americans, 25 regional All-Americans, six Academic All-Americans, 10 members of the Academic All-District teams and 18 players on annual Philadelphia Inquirer Academic All-Area Men’s Soccer Team. Three of them were named the Performer or Co-Performer of the Year on those Inquirer teams. His players have earned 110 NJAC All-Academic honors
During his stellar 2013 season, Oswald captured his 100th career coaching victory at Rutgers-Camden (a 1-0 season-opening win at Muhlenberg College on Aug. 30), watched his team run off a pair of 11-game winning streaks and post a 12-1-2 record against programs appearing in the national polls. The Raptors stretched their two-year unbeaten string to 37 games (32-0-5), the eighth-longest Division III streak ever, on an amazing 75-yard game-winning goal by Keegan Balle in the NCAA semifinals, a shot that went viral. The season ended in the national championship game with a 2-1 double-overtime loss against defending champion Messiah College.
Oswald capped his season by earning national Coach of the Year honors from the NSCAA, D3soccer.com and CaptainU, adding to a collection of accolades that included the South Atlantic Region Coach of the Year, his second honor as the NJAC Coach of the Year and a Coach of the Year honor from The Philly Soccer Page.
Two of Oswald’s players earned NSCAA All-America honors (Mike Ryan, First Team, and Mitch Grotti, Third Team) and three captured First Team All-America honors from D3soccer.com (Grotti, Ryan and Mike Randall, who was named the Goalkeeper of the Year), setting program marks for most overall All-American and NSCAA All-American honors in a season. Two other players were named to the Academic All-America Third Team (Joe Auleta and Bobby Foster), with Auleta also earning a berth on the NSCAA Men’s College Division Scholar All-America Third Team. The Scarlet Raptors also featured eight All-NJAC members, including Oswald, who won his second NJAC coaching honor in three years.
While his overall career winning percentage is a sparkling .662, Oswald’s post-season record is even more impressive. Between his tournament marks in the NCAA (9-4-1), ECAC (17-4) and NJAC (12-6-4), he is a combined 38-14-5 (.711).
Records, milestones and accomplishments have been the norm for the Scarlet Raptors during the Oswald era. Rutgers-Camden won the only four NJAC titles in program history from 2011-2015. In 2008, Oswald led the program to its first-ever berth in the NCAA tournament, and his team went 9-3-1 in its four NCAA tourney appearances from 2011-15. The Scarlet Raptors reached the Elite Eight in 2011 and the title game in 2013.
The Scarlet Raptors finished the 2012 season with a 17-2-3 record and were ranked No. 17 in the final NSCAA/Continental Tire NCAA Division III Top 25 poll. They were 16th-ranked in the season-ending D3soccer.com poll.
In 2011, they finished fifth in the NSCAA and eighth in the D3soccer.com final polls.
The Scarlet Raptors appeared in one or both national polls for 39 consecutive weeks, beginning with votes to the Sept. 13, 2011 D3soccer.com rankings. That streak ended on Sept. 23, 2014. The Raptors broke into the NSCAA national poll at No. 16 on Sept. 27, 2011 and remained in the national Top 25 in one or both polls for the next 36 weeks, through Sept. 9, 2014. They ended the 2013 season ranking in the Top 10 for 10 straight weeks, were a Top 5 program for the last nine weeks and were ranked No. 2 in both the final 2013 and the pre-season 2014 NSCAA polls.
Not only has Oswald’s program excelled on the soccer pitch, but the Scarlet Raptors have posted outstanding success in the classroom as well. The 2013 team became the first Raptor squad to earn a NSCAA Team Academic Award (GPA 3.0 or higher) and co-captains Auleta and Bobby Foster became the fourth and fifth Academic All-Americans during Oswald’s tenure. One of them, Kevin Burke in 2012, became the first athlete in school history to earn recognition as a First Team Academic All-American.
Oswald was named the NJAC Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2013. He has captured five honors as Rutgers-Camden’s Coach of the Year, winning that award back-to-back in both the 2007-08/2008-09 scholastic years and the 2010-11/2011-12 campaigns. He added his fifth honor during the 2013-14 scholastic year.
Oswald’s vast soccer success goes beyond his work at Rutgers-Camden. For five seasons (2012-16), he was the Head Coach of the Ocean City Nor’easters’ Premier Development League team (the PDL is the highest level of amateur soccer in the country and the fourth level of soccer overall behind USL Pro, NASL and MLS), compiling a 47-19-6 record as the winningest coach in program history. He led his team to its first-ever appearance in the PDL national semifinals in 2013 and his 2016 squad added another run to the PDL semifinals. His 2014 team reached the USASA National Amateur Championship Final Four before watching a program-record four players get selected in the 2015 MLS Draft. The Nor’easters matched that mark in the 2016 MLS Draft. A total of 25 players during his five-year tenure with the Nor’easters signed contracts in the NASL, USL Pro and across the world at the professional level outside of MLS.
Oswald led his squad to its second straight Mid-Atlantic Division Championship in 2013. They won the Eastern Conference Championship, competed in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup (beating the USL Pro Pittsburgh Riverhounds, 1-0, and losing in stoppage time, 2-1, against the MLS Philadelphia Union) and advancing all the way to the USL PDL Final 4, where they lost, 1-0, in the semifinals to eventual champion Austin Aztex.
His Nor’easters won the 2012 Eastern Conference regular season championship, made a USL PDL Sweet 16 appearance and earned him recognition as a USL PDL finalist for National Coach of the Year.
Oswald, who has taken his teams to five Final Fours on three different levels (college, professional and club ball) also serves as the Nor’easters’ Sporting Director.
Oswald has served as a member of the NSCAA South Atlantic Regional Ranking Committee, the NCAA South Atlantic Regional Committee and as the NJAC chair for the NSCAA.
Not content to build his record against mediocre teams, Oswald is constantly upgrading the Raptors’ rugged schedule to face the top teams in the country. In his 341 games at Rutgers-Camden -- not counting the 2020 pandemic season when there were no national polls -- Oswald coached 143 times against nationally-ranked teams (41.9 percent of their games), leading the Scarlet Raptors to 70 wins and 20 ties against that rugged competition. During that span, the Scarlet Raptors were 138-40-20 against unranked opponents.
Rutgers-Camden made a dramatic jump into the elite level during the 2008 season when Oswald’s team produced the finest season in program history up to that point. The Scarlet Raptors set the old club record for wins during a 16-5-2 season, achieved their highest NCAA ranking ever at that time (No. 10 on the Sept. 23 NSCAA/adidas national poll) and became the first men’s program in school history – in any sport – to qualify for a NCAA Division III tournament. All five defeats came against four NCAA Division III tournament teams as Rutgers-Camden sported one of the highest strength-of-schedule ratings in the nation.
Over the summer of 2007, Oswald added another credential to his impressive resume, serving as an assistant coach for the Ocean City Barons’ Premier Development League team. He joined the staff of first-year Barons Head Coach Mike Pellegrino and helped Ocean City reach the Eastern Conference semifinals. As the Barons evolved into the Ocean City Nor’easters, Oswald also made the transition. Prior to the start of the 2012 PDL season, Oswald was named as the head coach of the Nor’easters.
Oswald brought plenty of credentials to his head coaching job at Rutgers-Camden. A standout soccer player at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia, he earned All-Catholic honors and added All-Area recognition from the Northeast Times in 1996. He was an integral part in helping the FJHS squad reach the Catholic playoffs after a hiatus through the 1990’s, and was a 2014 inductee into the Father Judge High School Hall of Fame.
Oswald continued his soccer career as a midfielder/forward at Elizabethtown College, where the Blue Jays earned national rankings during all four of his years, including Top 5 rankings during his junior and senior seasons. He earned All-Middle Atlantic Conference First Team honors in 2000 and was nominated for the MAC All-Century Team.
Oswald served three seasons as an assistant coach at Arcadia University from 2003-05, helping the Scarlet Knights achieve Division III Top 25 national rankings each year. Arcadia reached the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference championship game all three years, winning the PAC title in 2004 and advancing to the second round of the NCAA tournament. His mentor, former AU coach Tom Carlin, is now the Head Coach at Villanova University after a brief stop at Northwestern University.
Prior to coaching at Arcadia University, Oswald spent the 2001 and 2002 seasons assisting at Widener University. During his second season at Widener, the Pioneers achieved the highest NSCAA regional ranking in the history of the program and earned their second-ever ECAC post-season berth.
Oswald owns his NSCAA National Diploma, which he passed with distinction. On the club level, Oswald has served as a club coach for the South Jersey Barons (New Jersey), FC Bucks (EPA), PSC Coppa (Pennsylvania), and the Montgomery United Soccer Club (Pennsylvania). He has won seven state championships (outdoor and indoor), a U.S. Club Regional Championship, and earned a Final Four appearance at the 2008 Super Y National Championship with his South Jersey Barons U-17 Black team in Tampa, Florida.
Oswald received his B.S. in Elementary Education, with a minor in Social Work, from Elizabethtown in 2001 and his M.Ed. in Counselor Education from Widener University in 2003. He works as a guidance counselor at Ridley (Penn.) Middle School.
Oswald lives in Deptford and has a daughter named Karley.
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