Justin Wagar enters his seventh season as head coach of the Grambling State University women’s soccer program, continuing to elevate the Tigers into one of the premier teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and a rising force on the national stage.
In 2024, Wagar guided Grambling State to a 9-8-4 overall record and a 6-2 mark in SWAC play, finishing with a .750 conference winning percentage.
The Tigers earned the No. 2 seed in the SWAC Tournament, battling eventual champion Southern University to a scoreless draw through regulation and double overtime in the semifinals.
Four GSU players earned spots on the All-SWAC Teams.
Wagar’s impact on the national level was further validated when he was ranked No. 36 in Division I women’s soccer in Chris Henderson’s NCAA WoSo Coach Rank, a prestigious Top 40 list recognizing coaching excellence across the country.
In 2023, Wagar orchestrated one of the most dominant campaigns in program history. The Tigers finished 15-5-4, leading the SWAC in wins, shutouts, and margin of victory.
The team set a school-record 14-game unbeaten streak and won both the regular season and SWAC Tournament championships, earning an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. That season marked the sixth conference championship appearance for GSU in the past seven years.
With Wagar as the GSU head coach, the Tigers posted a 62-39-10 overall record, the best of any SWAC team during that span. He was honored as the 2023 SWAC Coach of the Year and was named the 2024 HBCU Sports Coach of the Year.
Wagar now holds six Conference Coach of the Year titles across his coaching career. He was previously named Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA) Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading Grambling to an 11-7-2 record and a share of the SWAC Championship.
Wagar elevated the Grambling State women’s soccer program to be the fourth highest ranking rising program in the nation by the Coaching Rank Soccer Index. In addition, the 2018 team also finished 10th in the nation with 13 shutouts. Wagar coached the conference’s Defender of the Year Haileigh Adams, who was called up to the USWNT U-19 camp that summer.
Wagar brings more than 20 years of coaching experience at the collegiate level to Grambling State. In 15 years as a head coach, Wagar has coached on the NCAA Division I, II and NAIA levels, while compiling a 173-123-27 coaching record. His teams have earned 14 playoff bids in 16 years and have made three appearances in the national tournament.
Prior to Grambling State, Wagar served as the recruiting coordinator and top assistant at Portland State University. Before PSU, Wagar coached at nearby Eastern Oregon University, where he led the team to a 26-10-4 record between 2015-2017, making him the winningest coach in EOU history.
In 2015, EOU qualified for the national tournament with a 17-3-1 record. That year, they posted the seventh-best record in the nation and had the fourth-best defense and 14th-best offense in the country. Two EOU players that year were honored as All-American selections.
From 2009-2014, Wagar was the head coach at Division II New Mexico Highlands University. In just two years, he turned the program around from one that had 16 straight losing seasons to a 12-win campaign, which featured a trip to the NCAA tournament.
He helped the NMHU Cowgirls break every record in the soccer program’s 16-year history, including records for most goals, wins, winning percentage and attendance per game. He also led the team to its first-ever playoff victory and first bid to the NCAA National tournament. Also, he was honored as the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Coach of the Year.
In addition to coaching 18 all-conference players and the program’s first-ever All-Americans, Wagar led NMHU to five consecutive seasons with the team grade-point average above 3.0 and saw two student-athletes earn Student of the Year honors at the university. He left NMHU as the winningest coach in program history.
Prior to his time at NMHU, Wagar was the head coach for BYU-Hawaii where he was tasked to start the inaugural women’s soccer program. That squad responded brilliantly going12-4 that first year with a second-place finish in the Pacific West Conference. That same season, BYU-Hawaii recorded the 15th-best scoring offense in the nation among NCAA Division II squads and the 22nd-toughest defense in the country. In 2007, the Seasiders claimed the conference championship with a 10-2 league record and finished 13-6-1 overall and Wagar was selected as the Pacific West Coach of the Year.
Before taking the job at BYU-Hawaii, Wagar coached at Utah Valley University for two and a half years before stepping in as the interim head coach in 2005. In his first stint as a Division 1 head coach, Wagar led the team to a first-place seed in the United Soccer Conference. He has mentored seven golden boot winners (leading scorers in the conference) and four All-American strikers, as well as had four top-25 nationally ranked offenses and six nationally ranked defenses in his career.
Wagar played collegiately at BYU-Hawaii from 1998-99, where he captained the team as a sweeper and led the Seasiders to the most successful season in NCAA school history.
He also played in the collegiate club national championships as the center back for Utah Valley University, helping the team to a runner-up finish in the national title game. He ultimately earned All-America honors as a defender. Wagar also helped lead the Utah Olympic Development Program men’s team to its first-ever West Coast title and a third-place finish at Florida’s ODP Select National Tournament in 2005.
A native of Kennewick, Washington, Wagar graduated from BYU-Hawaii in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science. Wagar is married to the former Jamae Feddock and the couple have sons, Grayson, Maxtin and daughters, Beckham and Baylor.
