Women's Soccer

Chris Sagar enters his fourteenth year at the helm of the Bears’ Women’s Soccer program. Sagar has become the longest-tenured coach in the program’s history by accomplishing what very few coaches can do: taking a program whose success is growing, and bring it even higher without a hiccup. Sagar has celebrated nine double-digit win seasons in his 13 previous seasons, and eleven of his thirteen teams have been playoff-bound. He has also led the team to an ACCAC Conference and NJCAA Region I Title and a 3^rd place finish at the National Tournament.

Sagar is an artisan at using his experience-in the sport, in the conference, and in the Bears’ Women’s Soccer Program-to bring forth a consistently better product every year.  As a player, Sagar spent his youth excelling at the highest levels, representing his native Trinidad and Tobago at the 1988 Junior World Cup Qualifying Tournament, and then the CONCACAF qualifying rounds for the ’92 Olympics (as a member of the country’s U-19 and U-23 teams, respectively).  He then came to the US and had two historic seasons between the pipes as the goalkeeper for the legendary Yavapai College Men’s Soccer team in Prescott. Sagar was the NJCAA National Tournament’s Most Valuable Goalkeeper both of his years at YC, and led the Roughriders to a National Championship as a sophomore in 1992 before finishing his playing career leading the University of Wisconsin-Parkside to their first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance. That experience at YC helped Sagar return to the Grand Canyon State, where his coaching career immediately took off.  Sagar spent a pair of seasons back in Prescott, leading the Prescott High School varsity boys’ soccer team to back-to-back Desert Sky Region titles and a berth in the Arizona State Semifinals, earning him DSR Coach of the Year honors in the process.  His first taste of coaching women’s soccer-and of being a resident of Phoenix-came at Arizona State University, where he helped lead the 2000 Sun Devils’ squad to a record-breaking 14-win season and a spot in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament.

That success got the interest of then-Bears’ Women’s Head Soccer Coach Morgan Lee, who brought Sagar on as his lead assistant, and for the next five years, the Bears went from a 2-win team to a consistent playoff contender.  When Lee left in ’07, Sagar was the obvious successor, and promptly led PC to extend their streak of consecutive playoff appearances to eight.  2009 was one of Sagar’s finest hours as he led the Bears to a record-setting 13-win campaign, and their first Region I Finals appearance.  In 2015, he shattered the program’s single-season win mark with a 15-4-2 record and a 3rd-place finish in the ACCAC. He eclipsed that record two years later, leading the Lady Bears to a 23-1-1 record in 2017, which included ACCAC and NJCAA Region 1 Titles and a third-place finish at the NJCAA National Tournament.

His playing accomplishments are just as impressive. Sagar was inducted into the UW-Parkside Athletic Hall of Fame both as an individual and with his record breaking 1994 team. He still holds the NCAA Division II record for lowest career goals-against average (.32/match), and was Honorable Mention on the NJCAA’s All-Century Team in ’99.  His academic achievements will not be forgotten either, since as a collegian himself, he earned the Arthur Ashe Award for Excellence in Academics and Sport while at UW-Parkside, graduated Summa Cum Laude and was an Academic All-American at Yavapai College. As a coach at PC, he has led nine of his thirteen Bears’ squads to earn a spot on the NJCAA Academic Teams of the Year list, while producing thirty-five individual NJCAA Academic All-Americans. On the field he has produced, seven NJCAA/NSCAA All-Americans and forty-four ACCAC/Region 1 All-Conference/All Region players (including two ACCAC Players of the Year).

Sagar’s influence on the club level is also very prominent, since he has spent almost 20 years as a coach there. He is the former Director of Goalkeeping for the State of Arizona’s Olympic Development Program, and is currently Staff Coach & Goalkeeping Director for the Phoenix Rush Soccer Club in Scottsdale. Sagar earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business/Marketing at UW-Parkside, and his Master’s in Higher Education Administration from Northern Arizona University. He is also a devoted family man, and he and his wife of 15 years, Cara, dote on their seven-year-old son Brayden, and their five-year-old son Avery.