On the NJIT coaching staff as an assistant beginning in 2008, Mandi Risden was promoted to head coach in April 2013.
In her first season at the helm, Risden guided the 2013 Highlanders, who played as a Division I Independent, to the most wins (8) and the most shutouts (6), since the program began Division I competition with the 2006 season.
In Risden’s first season in charge, she earned 2013 Independent Coach of the Year honors from the website College Sports Madness for her work in NJIT’s 8-10-1 record with six shutouts. The previous Division I high for wins was 7 when the Highlanders were 7-9-2 in 2009.
The 2013 squad also matched the overall program record for wins. Started as a Division III program in 1996, NJIT played in Division II from 1997 to 2005, posting an 8-6-3 mark the final season in Division II.
In Risden’s second year as head coach, the Highlanders cut their goals against total to 25 from 31 the previous season. Only once in 2014 did NJIT allow more than two goals in a game and the Highlanders surrendered 0 or 1 goal in 10 of their 18 games.
Risden has coached at three different NCAA Division I programs, including NJIT, since 2000.
She had twice served as interim head coach of the Highlanders, leading the program for five months in the 2010-11 offseason and again in 2013 from the March resignation of Sergio Gonzalez, who stepped down from his position as NJIT head coach to become an assistant coach at Indiana University in the Big Ten Conference.
Risden, who earned a bachelor's degree at Auburn University and a master's degree at Drexel University, first coached at the Division I level from 2000 to 2004 as an assistant/goalkeeper coach at Rutgers University. The Scarlet Knights reached the 2003 NCAA College Cup Sweet 16 and the second round of the 2001 NCAA College Cup in her time at Rutgers, which ranked 14th in the final NSCAA Division I poll in 2001.
From Rutgers, Risden moved to Brown University in the Ivy League, where she was an assistant/goalkeeper coach with the women's program from 2004 to 2008.
Coming to NJIT, she was the lead assistant under then-head coach Kevin Leacock from 2008 to November 2010. In 2009, NJIT finished in first place in the Eastern Division of the Great West Conference with a 4-1-1 league mark that was part of a then-program Division I-best 7-9-2 overall record.
Risden was interim head coach from November 2010, when Leacock stepped down, to March 2011, when Gonzalez was hired to lead the program after a highly-successful stint as an assistant at Dayton.
Risden remained at NJIT as the top assistant for Gonzalez and she was re-appointed as the interim head coach when Gonzalez left for Indiana.
"I would like to thank Lenny and the rest of the administration for this tremendous opportunity,” the new head coach said. “I am extremely grateful and excited to continue being a part of the NJIT Women's Soccer Program. I look forward to building on the foundation that has been set over the past few years and to helping the program continue to reach new levels of success."
In addition to her 13 years as an NCAA Division I assistant coach, Risden was a four-year goalkeeper in a career at two Division I programs (Clemson, 1994-96; and Auburn, 1997). At Auburn, she was team captain and a scholar-athlete award winner. At Clemson, she played on three teams that competed in the Division I Women's College Cup Tournament and finished ranked in the National Top 15 in each of her three seasons (13th in 1994, 15th in 1995, and 11th in 1996).
She resides in Matawan, NJ.
(last edit Oct. 2015)
