ST. PAUL, Minn. – Concordia-St. Paul director of athletics Tom Rubbelke has announced that Shannon Currier will be reintroduced as head coach of the Golden Bear football program.

The eighth head coach in program history when initially hired in 2000, Currier led the Golden Bears for four seasons until 2003 and is Concordia's all-time leader in career winning percentage (.727) as he amassed a 32-12 record.

"This is a great day for Concordia football," said Rubbelke. "Shannon has already proven he can win at Concordia at the Division II level and he is hungry to take the program to the next level. We are thrilled that he is bringing his passion for football back to campus."

Currier tied the program record for wins with a 9-2 campaign in 2002 and followed that up with a 2003 NSIC Championship, earning NSIC Coach of the Year honors along with taking the team to its first-ever postseason game in the 2003 Mineral Water Bowl.

"I'm really excited to get back into coaching and working with young men, and especially excited that it's at Concordia which provides a phenomenal environment to work in," said Currier. "I have a lot of respect for the leadership at Concordia with President Ries, Dr. Eric Lamott and Tom Rubbelke. Concordia feels like home to me. I look forward to working with the current players and I'm anxious to start finding excellent student-athletes that fit into the overall mission of Concordia. Additionally, working with the alumni across our program's history is exciting."

Concordia went 25-9 (.795) in Northern Sun play with winning conference seasons all four years and cracked the Division II Top-25 in each of Currier's final three seasons.

As head coach of the Golden Bears, Currier put together the most wins in a four year span in team history, winning at least seven games each season after inheriting a team that debuted at the Division II level in 1999 with a 2-8 record the year before. No other coach has been able to put together four consecutive or cumulative winning campaigns since the program started in 1969.

Following the 2003 season, Currier was named the 20th head coach at Truman State University where he led the Bulldogs for five seasons (2004-08) in the strong Mid-America Athletics Association (MIAA) with a 20-35 overall record. The Bulldogs posted back-to-back winning campaigns with 6-5 records in 2006 and 2007 including a 6-3 MIAA record in 2006 for a fourth place league finish as the Bulldogs were ranked in the final NCAA regional poll.

He holds a career Division II head coaching record of 52-47 (.525) with his 100th career game marking the 2016 season opener.

Following his time at Truman, Currier spent seven years at iHigh.com as a senior sales manager working to build a digital platform for Minnesota high school sports, reaching 1.5 million Minnesotans last year. Part of his responsibilities included creating a revenue stream through the sales of digital advertising while also managing and training a team field representatives.

In the 11 years since Currier left Concordia's sidelines, the program has accumulated four winning seasons. As head coach at Concordia, Currier coached 15 All-NSIC First Team and 15 All-NSIC Second Team performers in four seasons. In five years at Truman, Currier coached 41 Bulldogs to All-MIAA honors.

A native of Cosmos, Minn., Currier was a quarterback for Hamline University where he graduated with a degree in physical education in 1993. Prior to arriving at Concordia in 1999 as offensive coordinator for Dan O'Brien, Currier spent six seasons coaching at the college level starting as a graduate assistant at Bemidji State where he earned a master's in physical education. He then was hired as offensive coordinator at Minnesota Crookston and later Southwest Minnesota State.

Currier will lead a Concordia-St. Paul football program that has a 93-95 record since moving to Division II in 1999 with a 75-82 record in Northern Sun play including two NSIC Championships (2003 & 2005) and three Mineral Water Bowl appearances (2003, 2005 & 2010). The program has collected a 209-246-2 record since inception in 1969, playing the first 30 years at the NAIA non-scholarship level with 12 total conference championships across nine season (1976, 1977, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1988, 1991, 2003, 2005).