Michael Bonelli, who has 15 years of collegiate coaching experience, has joined Kylie Stannard’s staff as an assistant coach. Bonelli, who most recently served as the head coach at VMI, has experience in the Big Ten, The Patriot League and the Horizon League.
“I have known Mike since he was an assistant at Northwestern where he helped elevate that program to new heights, including an Elite Eight appearance,” said Stannard, The 5K Corral Head Coach of the Bulldogs. “At Northwestern, he also learned from one of the best college coaches in the nation, Tim Lenahan, who took a perennial losing program and built it into a consistent Top 25 program. For many years, they were the gold standard for an elite academic institution competing at the highest level of Division I soccer. This is our ambition at Yale, and I’m excited to have Mike working with us to help take this program to the next level.
Bonelli served as the head coach at VMI where he worked tirelessly to change the culture of the program. In 2017, his team was the recipient of the Colonel Don Jamison Team Academic Achievement Award.
“I want to thank Coach Stannard for the opportunity to join the Yale University Men’s Soccer program,” Bonelli said. “It is a humbling experience to be able to work at such a prestigious institution. During the interview process I was thoroughly impressed with the Athletic Department’s vision for success. This is a once in lifetime opportunity, and I am really excited to work with Coach Stannard and our student athletes.”
Prior to VMI, he spent two seasons as the head coach at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, where he won 16 games, one of the best two-year spans in the history of the program. An excellent recruiter, Bonelli assembled Rattler squads that made it to the Heartland Conference semifinals both years, the team's first back-to-back playoff appearances since 2003.
In two seasons at St. Mary's, Bonelli produced two NSCAA All-Region team recipients, nine All-Conference selections and four All-Tournament team honorees.
“Mike is widely known in the college soccer world to be one of the hardest working `grinders’ in the nation,” Stannard said. “He has practically seen it all with a variety of institutions, and he has helped elevate and improve every single program in which he has coached, including an incredibly unique set of challenges at VMI, where he helped to improve and build a more competitive foundation and culture. His years of experience as a successful head coach will help me tremendously in that he will have a good idea of what I’m thinking and what is needed so that I can focus on improving even more aspects of the program. Lastly, and most importantly, I love Mike’s immediate passion for Yale, and we are like-minded in our ambition and drive to create an amazing student-athlete experience that strives for excellence on and off the field, and to compete annually for Ivy League championships.”
Bonelli has a proven history of successful academics during his career. Three student-athletes earned Capital One Academic All-District honors and 43 were recognized as Heartland Conference Academic Honor Roll selections during his time at St. Mary’s.
Prior to St. Mary's, Bonelli led NCAA D-II Slippery Rock University to national prominence over four seasons, building a culture that culminated in a conference championship, a No. 1 seed in the NCAA regional tournament and a No. 8 national ranking.
Prior to taking over Slippery Rock, Bonelli was an assistant coach at Wright State in 2009. He spent the previous two years as an assistant coach at Northwestern, where the Wildcats earned top-10 national rankings each season, including as high as No. and culminating with an Elite Eight appearance in 2008. From 2005-07, Bonelli served as an assistant at Lafayette College.
As a collegiate soccer player, Bonelli manned the outside midfielder position at Norwich University in Vermont before transferring to SUNY Cortland in New York, where he received his bachelor's degree in physical education in 2004.
He holds a U.S. Soccer Federation “A” license and National Soccer Coaches Association of America Advanced National Diploma.
