Mike Romeo - Men's Soccer Assistant Coach - Fourth Season - Staff Directory

Staff Directory

Mike Romeo

Title:
Men's Soccer Assistant Coach - Fourth Season

Mike Romeo returns for his sixth season as an assistant on the Rutgers men's soccer staff. Romeo boasts more than 25 years of coaching experience and will help mentor the Scarlet Knight goalkeepers.

Under Romeo, goalkeeper David Greczek was a 2015 Second Team All-Big honoree and currently ranks fourth all-time in saves at Rutgers. In 2015, the Scarlet Knights collected eight shutouts, the most for the program since the 1998 season.

Prior to joining the Scarlet Knight coaching staff, Romeo was the head soccer coach at The Wardlaw-Hartridge School in Edison for 11 seasons. He was named the 2010 Home News Tribune Area Boy's High School Soccer Coach of the Year and in 2007, he was awarded the Prep Soccer Boy's Coach of the Year by the Star-Ledger.

Romeo has developed a unique and insightful approach to training and teaching goalkeepers of all ages and abilities, helping many of his former pupils reach the Division I and professional levels.

Romeo has coached professionally with the Penn-Jersey Spirit of the A-League in 1990 and the United Soccer League's Central Jersey Riptide in 1998, where he also served as the team's general manager. He was appointed head coach of the USL's New Brunswick Brigade in 2000.

On the youth level, he was the head coach of the New Jersey Rovers from 1992 to 1998. The Rovers were winners of four NJYS State Cups, a USYSA Region I Championship and an appearance in the 1997 National Semifinals.

In addition to coaching on the high school level, Romeo is currently the goalkeeper coach for the players Development Academy (PDA) in Zarepath, N.J, the 2014 U17/18 National Development Academy Champions.

Co-director of ExtremeKeepers, Inc., Romeo founded the goalkeeper training academy in 1999 which provides year-round training programs for many of New Jersey's top youth goalkeepers. He also owned and directed Romeo GK, Inc. from 1990-1999.

A native of Metuchen, New Jersey, Romeo was an All-State and All-County goalkeeper. He was named Most Valuable Player at the 1980 Middlesex County Tournament, helping lead Metuchen High School to the school's only county championships in 1979 and 1980.

He went on to play at Kean University and later spent 12 seasons as a goalkeeper in the Garden State Soccer League (semi-pro) from 1984 to 1995.

Romeo currently resides in Plainfield, New Jersey with his wife Dee Dee and their son Luke.