Didier Orellana, who helped build NJIT's most successful Division I men's soccer team as an assistant coach, was promoted to head coach of the Highlanders in March 2013.
Orellana was the lead assistant for NJIT in 2011 and 2012, when the team set a school Division I record for wins (10) and finished ranked eighth in the final North Atlantic Region coaches' poll.
He took over the NJIT head coaching job from Cesar Markovic, who resigned to become head coach at Siena College.
After taking over as head coach ahead of the 2103 season, Orellana and his Highlanders have continued to make their mark on the regional and even national scene,
In Orellana’s first season at the helm, he led NJIT to a 7-9-2 record in 2013 against an Independent schedule that saw the Highlanders play 12 of their 18 matches away from home, including a pair of one-goal losses on the road against nationally-ranked St. John's (#19 at the time) and Fairleigh Dickinson (#22).
The Highlanders completed the 2014 season with a record of 7-8-4 and 6-0-3 at home, including a 1-0 upset victory vs. Navy, which was ranked #22 in the NSCAA Top 25.
NJIT spent seven weeks ranked in the Southeast Region Top 10 poll conducted by the NSCAA, entering in the final September poll and remaining there through November 11.
That success came in the wake of strong performances in his two years as NJIT’s top assistant coach. In 2011, NJIT, which began Division I men's soccer competition in 2004, tied the program D-I record for most wins, with five. In 2012, the Highlanders made a huge leap, doubling their wins total to 10.
NJIT's success in 2012 was recognized with near-continuous Top 10 ranking in the weekly National Soccer Coaches Association North Atlantic Region poll throughout the season and the final eighth-place ranking.
Orellana, who holds a bachelor's degree from Southern Connecticut State University and a master's degree from Queens (NY) College, has coached soccer at all three levels of the NCAA. He began his career as an assistant coach at Division II New York Institute of Technology (2001-05), before serving six seasons as head coach at Division III Manhattanville (2005-10). He signed on as top assistant at NJIT early in the 2011 calendar year.
In six seasons as head coach at Manhattanville (2005-10), he produced 56 wins, putting him atop that school's career coaching list. In 2009, his Valiants posted a 13-5-1 record and he was honored as Freedom Conference Coach of the Year. The following year, Manhattanville was 10-6-1 in his final season before he came to NJIT as Markovic's top assistant.
In his first college coaching job, Orellana was part of a turnaround that saw NYIT go from a 3-14 record in 2000 to a 14-2-2 record in 2003 that included a berth in the NCAA Division II Tournament.
As an undergraduate student-athlete at Southern Connecticut, Orellana played for one of the top Division II programs in the country, winning the 1995 Division II National Championship and reaching the national semifinals in his three other seasons.
Orellana's coach at Southern Connecticut was Ray Reid, now the head coach at the University of Connecticut and owner of the second-highest career winning percentage (.770) in all of Division I soccer. Coach Reid has three Division II National Championships at Southern on his resume, as well as one Division I national crown at UConn.
As highly-respected a coach as there is in the college game, Reid is enthusiastic in his support of his former player. “NJIT is getting a steal, a home run” said the UConn coach of Orellana. “He is a great young man who, even when he was playing, I thought would become a coach and be very good at it. Didier was always a hard worker and he asked all the right questions so that he understood everything we were doing and why--and he's worked his way up in the coaching profession. He'll do a great job for NJIT.”
Orellana was also endorsed by his NJIT predecessor, Cesar Markovic, who counts Tom Giovatto, the successful Division I coach at St. Francis Brooklyn, and Jack Stefanowski, the national team coach of Nepal, among his former assistants who have gone on to head coaching success in their own right.
“Didier is absolutely ready for the challenge and I am very happy that he is the one taking my place,” said Markovic. “His years of head coaching experience in Division III have now been combined with the last two years at NJIT. He combines a tremendous passion for soccer with a cerebral approach to the game that will make him a success.”
Didier and his wife, Elizabeth, reside in Queens, NY, with their twin boys Gabriel and Alejandro and daughter Alysia.
(last edit Oct, 2015)
