Agostinho “Augi” Freitas, a man with deep roots in New Jersey soccer, joined the NJIT men’s soccer coaching staff as an assistant coach in August 2015.

A 1998 graduate of Rutgers with a degree in Business Management, Freitas has served as an assistant coach at three institutions in the New Jersey Athletic Conference, known as one of the top NCAA Division III circuits in the nation.

He began his college coaching in 1995 at Rutgers Newark, NJIT’s University Heights neighbor. Next came two separate stints (1997-2004 and 2009-12) at Kean University in the Union, NJ. In between his spells at Kean, he was an assistant at New Jersey City University from 2007-09. At Kean, he worked with four teams that reached the Division III national tournament.

Freitas has also been active in club soccer, serving as head coach for Newark-based Ironbound SC since 2010. In that time, his teams were U-16 Y-League North American and Regional champions and U-17 Y-League North American, Regional, State Cup, and US Club National champions.

Prior to that he was an assistant coach for Sport Club Newark, which won a U-21 state championship title in his time there (2000-05).

Over the years, he has served as a liaison Boavista FC of Portugal on its North American tour in 2004 and for the giant Portuguese club Benfica when it played a friendly vs. AEK Athens at the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey in 2007.

Freitas holds National “B”, “C”, and “D” coaching licenses.

Away from the pitch, he works with EE Cruz and Company, a major contracting firm that was co-founded, coincidentally by the late Edward Cruz (’63, ’13 HON) who was in the Highlanders Hall of Fame for his playing career with Newark College of Engineering (NJIT’s former name) that included the 1960 NAIA National Championship.

With EE Cruz, Freitas has held key roles on multimillion dollar projects. He is also manager of Freitas Tavern in his hometown, Elizabeth, NJ.

Updated June 2017