09/03/2026
Lincoln Phillips was the blueprint. ⚽️🥅
He arrived from Trinidad & Tobago in 1968 carrying an international soccer education — and Baltimore became his first American professional home, playing for the Bays and later the Comets in the NASL. It’s a chapter of soccer history that rarely gets told, one built on Caribbean players and Black coaches long before MLS existed.
Then he came to Howard University and changed everything.
In 1971, Howard became the first HBCU to win an NCAA Division I national soccer title. The NCAA later vacated it over eligibility issues — so in 1974, Phillips and Howard went 19-0, beat Saint Louis in four overtimes, and won it again. He called it redemption: reclaiming on the field what had been taken administratively.
His roster spanned the U.S., the Caribbean, and Africa — proof that Blackness in soccer was never one nationality or one style.
He’s often called the first Black head coach in American professional soccer. But “first” undersells him. He went on to coach the U.S. men’s national team goalkeepers, become a FIFA instructor, and help build the infrastructure — including the Black Coaches Community within United Soccer Coaches — that soccer still leans on today.
Now he’s a finalist for the National Soccer Hall of Fame, Class of 2027. Long overdue.
The blueprint was never missing. American soccer just hasn’t caught up yet.
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