Alex Crozier, who enters his 31st season ranked No. 22 nationally in career victories among active Division I head coaches and tied No. 38 all-time, is in his 32nd year as head coach of the Cal Poly women’s soccer program in 2023.

Crozier, who has led Cal Poly to 10 regular-season conference championships, six NCAA Tournament appearances and three Big West Tournament titles, also has the most career victories among Big West coaches all-time, both in conference play (121-63-29) and overall (311-215-64). In all, Crozier’s players have earned All-Big West Team honors a combined 133 times, the second most of any Big West school since the league was formed in 1996.

He has coached 27 student-athletes at Cal Poly that have garnered all-regional status. Crozier, who notched his 300th career victory with a 1-0 win at Long Beach State on Oct. 28, 2021, has also seen his players earn Big West All-Academic honors 116 times.

Additionally off the pitch, the program has had seven Big West Scholar-Athletes of the Year, three Cal Poly Scholar-Athletes of the Year and four NCAA Leadership Conference nominees.

The 2022 season was a banner year for the program as the Mustangs secured their first outright Big West regular season title since 2013 and the right to host the Big West Championships as the No. 1 seed. It marked the second time in program history Cal Poly earned at least a share of the conference regular season title in back-to-back years (2021-22).

Thanks to Crozier’s leadership, the Cal Poly defense was formidable throughout the 2022 season, recording 10 shutouts — the program’s most in a season since 2009 — and seven clean sheets in Big West regular season play, a program record. From Oct. 2-16, the Mustangs posted four straight shutouts, their longest streak since 2009. The team also ended the regular season on a seven-match unbeaten streak (5-0-2).

For the second straight year and fourth time overall at least three Cal Poly athletes received United Soccer Coaches All-West Region honors as Camille Lafaix, Emma Brown and Kylie Rojas all secured praise for the second consecutive season. Six Mustangs garnered All-Big West honors in 2022 as well.

In 2021, Crozier led the Mustangs to their most victories in a season since 2009 (13-8-0) and their first Big West Tournament title game appearance since 2009.

Two Mustangs signed professional contracts in 2016, as forward Elise Krieghoff inked a deal with the Boston Breakers of the NWSL two months after goalkeeper Alyssa Giannetti joined Arna-Bjørnar FC of the Toppserien league in Norway.

In 2013, Crozier guided the Mustangs to the regular-season Big West championship with a 7-1-0 record. Afterward, Krieghoff was invited to attend the U-23 National Team camp at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista; midfielder Jordyn Zander won Cal Poly’s Sportsmanship Award; and the team as a whole earned an NCAA Public Recognition Award for exceptional academic achievement after compiling a perfect Academic Progress Rate score of 1,000, placing its multi-year APR in the top 10 percent across the country.

In 2014, Krieghoff was chosen as the Disney co-National Player of the Week on Sept. 23, a day after being featured by ESPNW as one of five players to know in college soccer. Then on Oct. 19, she was featured on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” Top 10 Plays of the Day at No. 3 with a dramatic game-winning strike at UC Riverside, two weeks before being added to the Hermann Trophy candidate pool. Both Krieghoff and Giannetti finished their careers as two of the most prolific players in program history, with Krieghoff (one of five national finalists for the Senior CLASS Award) scoring a school-record 52 goals and Giannetti (ranked as the No. 3 senior goalkeeper in the country by EverybodySoccer) breaking program records for starts (76), minutes played (7,029) and saves (380).

Crozier, a record six-time Big West Coach of the Year, also led Cal Poly to the conference title in 2009 with another 7-1-0 mark (14-5-1 overall).

During that championship run, goalkeeper Coral Hoover finished second in the nation in save percentage at .919. That year also included the Cal Poly debut for Cici Kobinski, who became the league’s midfielder of the year by 2012. After graduating, Kobinski went on to star as a winger for Guam, posting two goals and two assists as the Masakåda advanced to the semifinal stage of the 2014 East Asian Cup.

The 2009 season also saw the Mustangs earn a memorable 1-0 overtime win over a No. 7-ranked Cal team featuring Alex Morgan.

Putting together challenging schedules has long been a staple of Cal Poly, which ranked No. 32 across the country for attendance in the fall of 2019, averaging 848 fans per home game. The program has hosted the defending College Cup champion in Spanos Stadium on two occasions (losing 1-0 vs. No. 3 Santa Clara in 2002 and No. 1 North Carolina in 2010). Other non-conference fixtures over the years have seen the Mustangs claim tournament titles at venues including Missouri (at the 1998 Nike Tiger Invitational), Montana (the 2003 Diadora Cup), Purdue (the 2005 Boilermaker Challenge Cup), Hawai’i (the 2010 OHANA Resorts No Ka Oi Tournament) and Portland State (the 2011 Viking Classic).

In 2003, the Mustangs set a team record by going 18-2-2, No. 2 in the country for winning percentage. They finished ranked No. 20 in the final Soccer America poll, and of the 22 matches, 15 were won by shutout, a ratio that was No. 4 in the nation and established a still-standing all-time Big West record.

Crozier is the Mustangs’ only head coach since the school began playing at the intercollegiate level in 1992. (He also coached the Cal Poly women’s soccer team from 1979-83 when it played as a club in the California Collegiate Women’s Soccer Conference.) Cal Poly first cracked the coaches association Top 25 poll at the Division I level in 1995, before doing so again in 1997, a year in which another Mustang up top, Gina Oceguera, won the overall Big West Player of the Year award.

Oceguera went on to play in the 1999 World Cup representing Mexico. The ensuing fall also culminated with a milestone for the Mustangs, who defeated Fresno State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 2-1. The following winter, Oceguera was drafted by the San Diego Spirit before winning a WUSA title with the Bay Area CyberRays.

In 1993, Cal Poly’s final season at the Division II level before moving to Division I, Crozier coached the program to the national championship match in Miami, earning the NSCAA National Coach of the Year award. Despite a loss in the final, Mustang forward Kolleen Kassis was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player on offense.

Crozier, a 1984 Cal Poly graduate with a Civil Engineering degree, was an assistant for Santa Clara in 1991, and prior to that coached the West Valley FC Premier U-19 girls to the State Cup championship and a third-place national finish.

As a midfielder at Cal Poly, Crozier was a team captain in 1982 and 1983, earning all-conference honors both years, as well as All-Far West Region distinction as a junior. Before his Mustang career, Crozier won three consecutive CIF Central Section championships at Bullard High School in Fresno, where he was a captain and earned team MVP and all-league accolades.

Crozier resides in San Luis Obispo with his wife, Judy King, and the couple’s sons, Dan and Bo, and daughter, Angie, a member of the Cal Poly women’s soccer team from 2021-22.