Story courtesy of Midway University Athletics

MIDWAY, Ky. - Stu Riddle has joined the coaching staff at Midway University as the new head coach of men's soccer. 
 
Riddle comes to Midway with more than 15 years of experience as an NCAA Division-I coach. This includes head-coaching stops at Western Michigan, Buffalo (N.Y.) and Northern Kentucky, where he made a habit of orchestrating quick turnarounds. 
 
Western Michigan was 3-15-1 the year before Riddle arrived. In his second season on the job in 2010, the Broncos qualified for the Mid-American Conference Championship game. 
 
After gritting through a few rebuilding seasons at Buffalo, Riddle and the Bulls went 12-4-3 in his fourth season and looked to be on track for sustained success, before the university shut down the program at the end of the 2016-17 school year. 
 
Undeterred, he moved onto his most successful stop at Northern Kentucky.  
 
In Riddle's second season, the Norse set a then team-record for wins at the Division-I level (10) before a major breakthrough two years later, where they won the program's first Horizon League regular season title while earning Riddle league Coach of the Year honors. 
 
Feeling he needed a break from many of the pressures that go with being a Division-I head coach, Riddle stepped back into an assistant role in 2024, helping Bowling Green (Ohio) put together a 12-6-2 season which saw the Falcons reach the No. 24 spot in the United Soccer Coaches National Poll. 
 
Now, eager to return to the head coaching ranks, he believes he found a great spot in Midway, saying its great location and new on-campus turf field will make it appealing to prospective new players. 
 
He hopes those features will help build a consistent winner. And in a River States Conference that has seen just two teams, Rio Grande (Ohio) and West Virginia Tech, win league titles in the last decade, Riddle is ready to help a new contender emerge in Midway. 
 
"I don't see why we can't compete with them," he said. "Everywhere I've gone I've taken over programs that have been at the base and competed with the teams at the top of the conference. That's the real goal for me."