By Ray Cartwright
Frogs Today contributor
TCU soccer wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for the contributions of David Rubinson.
Now, TCU is honoring Rubinson before Thursday’s night home game against Texas. The Horned Frogs will be presenting Rubinson with a key to TCU, a distinguished honor for the man that played for the Frogs in the 1970’s and helped establish the women’s program in 1986.
Rubinson, a Fort Worth native, graduated right down the street from TCU at Paschal High School. He went on to play soccer for TCU from 1973-1977, where he garnered All-Southwest Conference honors all four years he was at TCU as a defender.
From there, Rubinson would go on to become a U.S. Men’s National Team captain in the late ’70s, leading the team in the Maccabiah Games that took place in Israel. Rubinson also participated in the 1976 and 1980 Olympic Trials before coming home to his alma mater to take over as men’s coach in 1981. Rubinson led the Horned Frogs to Southwest Conference titles in 1981 and again in 1983.
Rubinson was then tasked with the challenge of establishing the women’s program, which started in 1986. He spent the next 19 seasons serving as their coach, experiencing success as the Frogs finished with a .500 record in their first season before posting winning seasons each of the next two years and showing that women’s soccer could succeed at TCU.
In 1997 his women’s team won a career-high 11 games, which earned him Co-Coach of the Year honors in the Western Athletic Conference as well as the program’s first appearance in a conference tournament.
Rubinson also played a huge role in the building of Garvey-Rosenthal Soccer Stadium, where TCU still plays its home games.
Beyond his work at TCU, Rubinson spent time coaching at the national level as an assistant coach for the U.S. Women’s National Team U-17 team. Under his leadership in 2001, that U-17 team won a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games. In 2005 Rubinson was named coach for the U-17 team, which took home the silver media in Maccabiah Games. Rubinson also served as an assistant on the Women’s National B Team and spent time as a staff coach for the Regional Olympic Developmental Program.
Today you can still find Rubinson coaching the game he loves so dearly just down the road from TCU, where he serves as the boys coach at Arlington Heights High School.
In total Rubinson spent 26 years as Frogs coach, putting in motion the path for Eric Bell to take over a few years later and turn TCU into the powerhouse that it is today.
