COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - Tudor Flintham '06 has achieved a tremendous amount of success in other places.

As the head men's soccer coach at Gustavus Adolphus the past seven years, he led the Gusties to four regular-season MIAC titles and one conference postseason championship. His teams made five appearances in the NCAA Division III tournament (hosting regionals twice) and he was named MIAC coach of the year in 2018 and 2022.

Before that, he won 49 games in three seasons as the head men's and women's coach at Nebraska Wesleyan, including 33 shutouts.

But no matter where he's gone, the former Saint John's standout said a piece of his heart has remained in Collegeville.

"My fishing hat at the cabin has always been a Saint John's hat, even when I was the Gustavus head coach," Flintham said. "My big red Saint John's mug is the mug I've drank out of for the past 15 years. I've always had ties to this place.

"My wife, Theresa (Naumann, a former College of Saint Benedict volleyball captain), is a Bennie. We met here. Half of her family are Johnnies and Bennies, and I see them all the time at weddings and other family functions. When I was having success in other places, they were always asking when I was going to do that in red and white."

Now Flintham is getting the chance to do just that. The Norwich, England, native – who graduated from SJU in 2006 – was named the director of soccer/head coach at his alma mater this past December.

He will begin his first season at the helm when the Johnnies play host to one of his old teams – Nebraska Wesleyan – in a non-conference matchup scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Friday at Haws Field.

"This is a job that was always on the wish list in the back of my head, but I never imagined I'd actually get the opportunity," Flintham said. "So for things to work out like this has been really, really cool.

"It's an incredible school with incredible academics. The facilities ae great and the level of alumni support and engagement is incredible," he added. 

"That's something that's genuinely different here than other places. Our alumni really care. We brought 17 freshmen into our program this past offseason, and I think 15 of them received a call from an alum at some point during the recruiting process. They really want to see us do well."

Soccer has always been a huge part of Flintham's identity, offering him a safe haven in a sometimes-turbulent childhood.

"I grew up in a part of England where I needed safer places to keep me out of trouble or whatever else was going on in my life," he recalled. "Soccer straightaway became this sanctuary for me at a very young age.

"There was a period of time when I got in fights on my way to school pretty much every day, and soccer gave me not just a place to go, but also a level of prestige and respect because I got good at it. When that happened, people tended to back off and let me do my thing a little more."

Flintham was a product of the British academy system, through which professional franchises attempt to develop younger players. His teams traveled to the U.S. to play, including to the USA Cup in Blaine. 
That's how SJU first got on his radar.

"My host family one summer were Johnnies and Bennies," he said. "I'd originally committed somewhere else. I was going to head out to Oregon. But my host family got in my ear, telling me they thought I might like it here. I checked it out and wound up finding my family away from my family."

Indeed, Flintham went on to record 59 points (20 goals and 19 assists) during his four seasons as a player. As a senior in 2005, the team captain led the MIAC in both goals and assists, earning all-conference and all-region honors while leading the Johnnies to the MIAC playoff title.

"The British academy system can be brutal," he said. "It felt like I had a bit more room to breathe here. I felt more freedom. I felt more welcomed into a community and team. You don't have that in the academy system where people are always trying to rip each other's throats out. There are a finite number of contracts, and if you get one, I don't. 

"So this was probably the first time I experienced what it felt like to be part of a proper team."

Even as a player, though, Flintham always had the coaching bug.

"I think I was a pretty thoughtful player," he said. "I always wanted to have the tactical edge. There was a natural inclination toward the X's and O's part of the game. I gravitated toward that."

After a successful stint in the high school coaching ranks in Oregon, Flintham became the associate head coach at SJU from 2010 to 2014 on the staff of John Haws '99, who succeeded his father Pat '72 as the Johnnies' head coach in 2010 and remained in that position through the 2023 season. 

SJU made two appearances in the MIAC championship game during Flintham's tenure as an assistant.

He then served on Steve Kimble's '99 coaching staff at Saint Benedict from 2012 to 2014, a stretch in which the Bennies went 37-13-6, earned MIAC regular-season and playoff titles and advanced to the NCAA tournament in 2013.

"John and Steve were huge influences on me," Flintham said. "They treated me very well. I think I had a decent base level for a rookie coach, but those guys both gave me a lot of leeway and a lot of leash to put my fingerprints on things. 

"I thank them a ton because they didn't need to do that."

In addition to his college coaching, Flintham is also the associate head coach of Minneapolis City SC in the USL2, the largest pre-professional soccer organization in the state, while also working with high school athletes as a coach with the Elite Club National League's (ECNL) Minnesota Thunder Academy.

"I'm obsessed with coaching," he acknowledged. "It's what I do all day, every day. I don't know if I work harder than most people. But I think I work more. I'm constantly focused on soccer."

He's now bringing that level of dedication to SJU, where he takes over a team that finished 6-8-1 under interim head coach Noel Quinn a year ago, but lost six games by one goal or less.

"The language we've used is that this is a sleeping giant, and that's how I genuinely feel," Flintham said. "A lot of non-Johnnies in the soccer community have commented on that as well. This is a program that has been great in the past. It's gotten into a bit of a rut, but it feels like a place that should be nationally dominant. That's what we're focused on building toward."

His players seem to love the direction he has them headed in so far.
"He's put a huge emphasis on accountability and doing the little things right," said senior defender Foster Conlin, who started all 15 games and led Johnnie field players with 1,146 minutes played a year ago.

"He's a great guy. He's fun to be around. But when it comes to the game, he's all business. He knows what it takes to win."

Flintham hopes that approach will be reflected in the Johnnies' play this fall.

"We have a very good group of core players, including our freshmen class," he said. "I've been around the MIAC long enough to know that there are a handful of future all-region guys in that group, and definitely a couple who could be All-Americans if things go well.

"We're going to be technically better right away," he continued. "We will be bigger, stronger and faster. We want to dictate the game in every phase. If we have the ball, we want to dictate. If you have the ball, we want to dictate. If we're in transition, we want to dictate.

"Our goal is to play on our terms every time out."