In late July of 2022, the Montreat men’s soccer program hired former graduate assistant Ryan Griswold as its new assistant coach. Griswold immediately started his duties in preparation for the 2022 season and coached two seasons with the team through the 2023-24 school year.
PRIOR TO MONTREAT
Griswold came to the Cavaliers in the spring of 2022, where he acted as a graduate assistant with the program. Prior to his duties with Montreat, he lived in Peru as a sports missionary. There, Griswold served as a soccer coach and physical education teacher to children in the San Juan de Lurigancho district outside of Lima, Peru.
Before acting as a missionary, the Auburn, Ga. native spent time as the volunteer assistant coach for the Horizon Christian Academy Boys’ Soccer Team. During the 2018 season, Griswold and head coach Dr. Chung Lee led the Warriors to a second-place result at the 2018 Georgia Independent Christian Athletic Association (GICAA) Division 2A State Championship.
Griswold also developed younger athletes’ skills in the sport throughout his high school, collegiate and post-academic time. In 2013, he was a personal soccer trainer with the United Futbol Academy, training different teams from ages five to 16. At the academy, Griswold facilitated soccer drills that maximized player development and ensured a fun and enjoyable environment to help players of all levels.
While in college, Griswold was a volunteer soccer coach, life coach and personal faith mentor with Operation Get Active, a ministry that uses sports as a platform to love and serve several of Chattanooga, Tenn.’s underprivileged children. During his two years with the ministry, Griswold facilitated the understanding and implementation of making healthy life choices such as diet, exercise, nutrition and spiritual health. Griswold spent his summers from 2014 to 2016 as a head coach and summer sports counselor with McCallie School, an elite all-boys boarding school. There, he established a healthy sports environment for young men and helped to build them into leaders outside of sports. Before his assistance with Horizon Christian Academy, he was a volunteer and staff coach for CFC Academy in Chattanooga with the organization’s elite youth U9 teams.
Griswold played soccer while earning his bachelor's degree in communication studies: corporate communications and leadership from Bryan College in Dayton, Tenn. An outside back with the Lions from 2013 to 2017, Griswold led Bryan to a pair of Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) regular-season titles and an AAC Tournament Championship in 2013. The team made two NAIA National Tournament appearances and was a mainstay in the national rankings while Griswold played.
Griswold resides in Black Mountain, N.C.
