Ken Hefner
Head Coach

Ken Hefner enters his third season at the helm of the Park University women’s soccer program.

Hefner led the Pirates to a regular season MCAC championship, going 5-0 in conference play last season. Park dropped the tournament final to Bellevue, 1-0 but beat Kansas Wesleyan in the Region IV Tournament, advancing to their fifth consecutive appearance at the NAIA National Tournament. Hefner led the women past College of the Southwest in Round One but then fell to #4 Houghton College out of New York in Round Two. Hefner was honored as the Region IV Coach of the Year and MCAC Co-Coach of the Year.

Hefner posts a 24-14-3 career record in two years at Park.

Hefner ranks as the eighth winningest coaches in NAIA history, owning 159 career wins in two seasons at Park, seven seasons at Lindsey Wilson College (1993-1999) and three seasons at Tennessee Wesleyan College (1990-93). His .637 NAIA women’s winning percentage ranked 16th in NAIA history before 2004.

Hefner served as the head women’s soccer coach at Arkansas State University for four seasons from 1999-2003. Under his leadership, the Indians posted a four-year record of 19-54-1, including a 7-12 mark in his final season in 2003. Hefner owns an overall women’s career coaching record of 148-129-10 (.533) in 15 seasons. Combined with a 29-18-2 record while coaching the men’s program at Tennessee Wesleyan from 1990-93, he owns an overall coaching record of 177-147-12 (.545).

While at Lindsey Wilson, Hefner’s teams advanced to the national tournament twice (1998, 1999) and achieved a final national ranking of fifth following the 1999 season. In seven seasons at Lindsey Wilson, he posted a 93-46-5 record and had 11 players earn NAIA All-America honors.

In 1999, Hefner was tabbed to lead a start-up soccer program at Arkansas State, which began play in 2000. His teams qualified for the Sun Belt Conference tournament four years in a row under his guidance and had three players named to the all-conference team from 2000-2003.

In addition to Hefner’s success on the field, his players have enjoyed success in the classroom. At Lindsey Wilson, he had 18 academic all-conference selections and eight NAIA All-America Scholar-Athletes. During his time at Arkansas State, his team owned an overall GPA of 3.0 or better in six of seven semesters while he was at ASU.

Hefner, who owns a United States Soccer Federation National “B” License,a Advanced National License and an NSCAA National Diploma, earned a bachelor of arts in psychology from West Georgia College in 1987. He and his wife, Dawn, have three children, Matthew (21), Megan (20) and Mackenzie (16).