An upcoming Century Club member

A member of the Indy Eleven will join the Century Club in the very near future. No, I'm not talking about Aodhan Quinn, though he should reach the milestone in the game at home against Louisville City on August 22nd. However, a different person will beat him to the punch to joining the Century Club membership.

Photo: Don Thompson Photography

When Indy Eleven take the field at Carroll Stadium for the Sunday evening game against Hartford Athletic, Sean McAuley will officially become the longest tenured coach in Indy Eleven men's history. The Hartford game will be McAuley's 100th game, while Martin Rennie was officially the man in charge for 99 games (he did have one more in-season unofficial friendly game against Detroit City, but those games don't count to players or fans totals, so they don't count for the coaches either). 

How is that possible you might initially ask? Rennie famously quit in the postgame discussion with Greg Rakestraw while in his 4th season, while McAuley is only midway through his 3rd season? Well, McAuley is helped by a good run in the U.S. Open Cup, but also Rennie's 3rd season was the shortened 2020 COVID year. So McAuley has managed to get there in fewer seasons thanks to the season circumstances and some better results in non-league play. 

Regardless, like a few members of this current version of the Indy Eleven men's team, McAuley will find himself at the top of the pile as it relates to games. So I thought it would be a good time to remind fans (and others) what Coach McAuley has achieved in his tenure.

As of right today, McAuley has a 40W-22D-36L record, good for a 40.8% win rate and a 63.3% positive result (win or draw) rate. Rennie's rates were slightly higher (46.0% and 65.0%, respectively), as weas Hankinson's win/draw rate (70.0%), but both were extremely buoyed by a single season. Hankinson's 2016 season had a positive result rate of 81.1% and Rennie's 2019 season had a rate of 72.5% in large part because they had undefeated home records in those seasons. However, Hankinson's 2017 numbers dropped to 57.6% and Rennie's final two seasons dropped to 56.3% and 50.0%. McAuley, conversely, has hovered just under or over 60% for all of his seasons. On a season-by-season basis, McAuley's teams have achieved positive results 67.5% (2024), 59.5% (2025), and 61.9% (2026) of the time. 

Note: both of Hankinson's and Rennie's top seasons included one of the unofficial friendly matches (Pachuca and Detroit City, respectively) and I have included those in my numbers. 

On a Points Per Match perspective, McAuley ranks second to Rennie (1.57 to 1.45). 
On a Goals For per match, McAuley overtakes Rennie 1.44 to 1.36. 

There's a trend when it comes to Indy Eleven coaches. Hankinson's 2016 has been the fan's torch bearer for Indy Eleven men's successful seasons. An undefeated home season. The team's only hardware. That 2016 season has been how all subsequent teams have been judged. Outside of that one season, though, it has been Rennie and McAuley who have been the most consistently successful coaches in the Indy Eleven team history. Depending on the stat, one of those two coaches is the leader. 

Let that sink in. Despite having the lowest player budget in the league this season and against, arguably better competition than those other coaches (Rennie's teams played against the MLS2 teams and Hankinson coached in the NASL, and today's USL Championship is definitely better from top to bottom than what the other Indy teams competed against), Coach McAuley has been the more consistently winning coach in team history. Of the coaches that have had successful tenures in Indy, he is matching or bettering those other season's statistics, including a positive goal differential. 

Photo: Don Thompson Photography

I don't know what McAuley's or the team's plan is for his future in Indianapolis. I think he wants to be back, but in the world of USL, the owners and other teams and a carrousel of players makes it nearly impossible to know what Indy Eleven will look like from year-to-year. If he returns, Indy will continue to have a coach that knows the value of the supporters and will work, with the constraints of what he is given, to provide a team that works hard to give the fans, particularly at home, a winning result. McAuley, above any other coach for the team, understands the value of the Brickyard Battalion and supporters in general, and their connection to the team, players, and culture. McAuley has done what he can do to get the players to understand what they mean to the community.

When I went back and listened to my recording of McAuley's very first meet-and-great with the fans in January 2024, I was struck by his response to Rakestraw's question about what "drew you to this job at this time in USL Championship":

"To start off, I looked at the opportunity. It is very much a MLS club, in the USL It wants to run like one, it wants to act like one, be like one. It has the supporters that can transition to one. And we're really comfortable being in the USL, the one thing we haven't done is won it. And that was attractive because I want to be the first one to do something where it's going to last a long time in the club's history. The other thing I was immediately attracted to was when I spoke to Greg and Ersal, and their vision of where they want the club to go in the future, that was really attractive to me also because their ambition is really strong and it sort of matched mine. And then the values that they have with the club and the supporters and what we want to achieve together, it sort of matched to be a perfect fit. And I looked at the playing squad. And they're pretty good. The returning players, we're really pleased with and then it was up to the staff, and again the ownership, to try and take us a little bit further, and they've done that in support of the new signings we've made. So we're really pleased where we are at the minute, it's not going to stop, everything that keeps progressing keeps progressing my initial reaction was strong and every day's getting stronger."

I would be curious to know how much of that statement McAuley still believes, but at nearly a century of games under his belt for Indy Eleven, I do know that I have valued every interaction I have had with him. I know he wants to make the team, the club, and the players better, and that he values the role that supporters (and guys like me in the media scrum) provide for building a club. 

McAuley is soon to be a welcome addition to the Century Club.