Lexington, Ky. - The legendary and great Patrick Farmer has announced his retirement as Transylvania women's soccer head coach.
Farmer, a renowned coach across all different levels of women's soccer, came to Transylvania in 2018 and made an immediate impact on the women's soccer team as well as the entire athletic department.
He is retiring after four years at Transylvania with an overall record of 27-21-9.
Farmer came to Transylvania University with over three decades worth of coaching experience across NCAA Division I, Division III, and professional women's soccer levels. The Hall-of-Fame head coach elevated programs everywhere he went, those NCAA programs included Ithaca, Cornell, Tennessee Tech, Syracuse, and Penn State. Farmer holds an NCAA career record of 322-174-58 for a winning percentage of 63% (.634) across 28 seasons of NCAA head coaching experience.
Before coming to Transylvania, Farmer was the head coach of Cornell University's Division I program where he served from 2012-2017.
Farmer began his head coaching career at Ithica College in New York in the year of 1987. His tenure at Ithica lasted seven seasons, and in those years he built a national championship level program. The Bombers won national championships in back to back years of 1990 and 1991. Farmer's career record at Ithica is 110-23-20, and he was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1998.
Farmer was chosen as the first head women's soccer head coach in the history of Penn State in January 1994, after they became an official varsity program at the university. Starting with a roster that consisted of many players from the club team, he was the architect for a team that was chosen to finish seventh in the Big 10 in their inaugural season. One first-year athlete, Kim Cohen, turned down #2 ranked George Mason University to join the team after being recruited by Farmer.
In the squad's inaugural season, Farmer led the Nittany Lions to a 14-4-1 record, good for second in the conference. Having quickly established his program, Farmer worked to showcase them on a national and international scale. In the summer of 1997 he and the Nittany Lions took on the England women's national team at Wembley Stadium in front of 40,000 spectators for an exhibition. Farmer's team became the first American women's team to play in the iconic stadium.
The Farmer led Penn State continued to rise as a program as in 1998 they won their first Big 10 regular season championship and Big 10 title. The team went to the quarterfinals of the NCAA DI National Championship, where they were defeated by Florida, who went on to win it all. For his accomplishments, Farmer was named the 1998 United Soccer Coaches College Coach of the Year.
Having built Penn State from the ground up to such a height, Farmer left in 2001 to become the head coach of the New York Power, a professional team in the Women's United Soccer Association. His overall record at Penn State amounted to 123-34-8.
In his time at the professional ranks, Farmer coached the Power to the playoffs and helped the team get off the ground.
Farmer returned to the collegiate scene in 2003 to become head coach at Tennessee Tech, where he guided the Golden Eagles to a nine win season, then taking over at Syracuse for the 2004-2005 season, where he spent four seasons at the helm. After his time at Syracuse, Farmer spent time at Wisconsin as an assistant, before returning to the head coach position at Cornell University in 2012. While at Cornell, Farmer led the Big Red to the team's best Ivy League ranking since 1996.
Farmer was announced as head coach at Transylvania in October of 2018 after spending a brief time as an assistant with the Pioneers. He returned to the Division III level with his legendary career coming full circle, back to the rank where it had begun.
He had an immediate impact on the Transylvania women's soccer program, taking a team who had had four straight losing seasons and turning them around to a top team in the HCAC with a record of 13-5-2. Farmer's teams held a winning record for three out of the four seasons he was head coach, although the 2020-21 held a record of 5-2-1 before their season was cut short due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. Farmer captured his 300th career win while at Transylvania in late 2018 against Bluffton University on October 20th.
Patrick Farmer will have an everlasting impact on Transylvania University's athletic department, along with all of the other schools that he has coached. His career will officially go down as one of the greatest, as he is one of the winningest coaches of all time across all divisions of the NCAA.
Thank you Coach Farmer!
