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Semrau: Legendary West soccer coach retiring -- and it didn't have to happen

Dennis Semrau  —  5/22/2008 12:27 pm

There will soon be a huge void in the local soccer community.

That could come as soon as today when Madison West meets Madison Memorial in a WIAA Division 1 prep girls soccer regional semifinal game of the Middleton sectional at Mansfield Stadium at 7 p.m.

Or it could come on June 7 in the Division 1 state championship game at Uihlein Soccer Park in Milwaukee.

But after Madison West girls soccer coach Donal Kaehler has coached his final game of the 2008 season, the Regents' coach will retire and move to Boise, Idaho this summer to be closer to his three grandchildren.

"I have a company called NeoClone Biotechnology. I'm the founder of that company but we've grown to the point where they don't need me anymore and that was one of the things keeping me in Madison," said Kaehler, who is also in his 14th year coaching girls soccer at West.

"Then there is my job in oncology research for The McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. But we have three grandchildren in Boise, Idaho, and my wife Becky has been asking me for the last three years, 'When are we going to move?' "

Why retire?

The 58-year-old Kaehler admitted that his love for coaching soccer and working with high school-student athletes -- with an emphasis on the student part of the equation -- could have kept him in town a little longer.

But the final straw was last year's short-sighted decision by the Madison Metropolitan School District School Board to consolidate the four athletic directors positions into two -- an east side athletic director covering East and La Follette High Schools, and a west side athletic director, covering West and Memorial.

"I used to spend maybe 15 percent of my time on administrative issues for my five teams at West. We could sit down and in 45 minutes the schedules would be done," he said.

"But now the situation in the school district for me is intolerable," he said, the disappointment in his voice coming through loud and clear. "If I'm not going to coach soccer, there is no reason for me to stick around."

Love of the game

While the administrative headaches he has endured this year have played a huge factor in his decision to retire from coaching, Kaehler preferred to talk about why he enjoyed coaching a sport with which he didn't become involved until he was an adult.

"I was a four-sport athlete. I played football, basketball and baseball and I ran track at Delavan-Darien High School. I've been involved in sports all my life and I played semi-pro basketball in Europe, in Grenoble, France," he said. "I picked up the game of soccer in France. I was there six years and it took me about two years to appreciate the game. What I've always said is that soccer is a player's sport. It's not a coach's sport."

Kaehler said sports such as football, basketball and baseball are basically choreographed by coaches and plays. He eventually fell in love with soccer because of the sport's creativity and the necessity of developing leaders on the playing field.

"When things started going bad on the field, you can't call a timeout and change your strategy," Kaehler said. "They're going to be out on the field and if they can't pick themselves up, if they can't figure out how to solve that problem, you're going to lose."

Kaehler also loved the correlation between the success his players achieved on the field and in the classroom.

"One of the things I've always considered important about soccer is that this is a very good academic sport because the kids who played soccer had to become leaders on the field and had to solve problems on the field on the fly, something that you really didn't have to do in any other sport I'd been involved with," he said.

"That part of it, developing leaders and creativity and teamwork and working together as a group to solve it, is incredible. Plus you don't have to be tall. You don't have to be strong. You don't have to be big. There is a different skill set. You have all the other competitive issues that you have to deal with in every other sport. And you do a lot of running, so the kids who play soccer are in excellent condition."

Success on and off the field

Kaehler has coached eight Big Eight Conference championship teams and taken the Regents to seven state tournaments, winning back-to-back Division 1 titles in 1999 and 2000 and finishing second in 1995. He has a career mark of 235-69-40.

Even more impressive is that in his 14 years as head coach, every team entering this season had earned academic honors from both the national and state soccer coaching associations.

"I'm obviously proud of that. I think we've developed a culture of academics," he said. "In 14 years, I've had one code of conduct violation. I've only had one academic problem in 14 years of coaching at West. We have 42 girls who have gone on and played in college at some point. The quality of the girls who come out of the program and the culture we've developed at West is what I'm really proud of."

Even more impressive in an era where specialization in his sport is often demanded by his peers at the high school and club levels, Kaehler takes pride in his support of multiple-sport athletes.

"There is a lot of specialization going on, especially with club coaches who don't want their kids to play other sports. That's a lot of pressure for a kid to have to deal with over and over again," he said. "I've got three three-sport athletes on the team this year. I encourage and applaud it."

Friendly rivals

While West and Memorial dominated the local soccer scene for years, Kaehler said the development of local prep programs at schools including East, La Follette, Middleton, Monona Grove, Oregon and Waunakee, among others, is particularly gratifying.

"My favorite rival has got to be Memorial, although Middleton, obviously, is tough. When you look at the respective records between Memorial and West, it's fairly close and the goals scored are almost even. It's kind of cool," he said.

Kaehler coached club and ODP soccer for six years before succeeding Patti Wirth, who had coached the Regents to two state titles.

He never regretted it for a moment.

"When soccer first started, especially for girls, the only soccer schools were Memorial and West in the entire area. All the boys and girls played for the 56ers, so they got the benefit of the club-trained kids that the other schools in the conference didn't have. So that gave us a huge advantage over the years.

Kaehler said while winning can be "very ego-gratifying" as a coach, "Where is the challenge if the other teams you are playing are so weak?"

So as times have changed and area programs have become stronger, Kaehler has embraced the difficulty such improvement has caused the Regents to get back to the state tournament.

"If you look at our regional now, you've got Waunakee and Middleton and Memorial and West and Oregon and Verona and Sauk Prairie. Just to get out of our regional now is a feat in itself. Whereas before, getting out of the regional was just expected. We got out of 10 straight regionals the first 10 years I coached," Kaehler said.

"The reality is there are a lot more kids playing soccer at a higher level and they're being spread out over all the schools in the area now."

The game is a-changing

The game has changed, too, from when he was first exposed to it overseas.

"When I was in the best shape I was in between high school and college, I don't know if I could have done what I ask my girls to do every day. These are incredible athletes," he said. "The girls who come out of basketball, for example, are not ready to play soccer. You have to really be in shape and it takes a while to get in that kind of shape."

But it isn't the fitness of the athletes that concerns Kaehler these days. It is the support for high school sports at the district level that concerns him the most.

"This year, I'm spending 60 percent of my time on administrative problems and I have very little time for anything else," he said. "Every budget cut that comes along, the easiest place to cut is in administrative and support staff. Every time you cut administrative and support staff, you're sloughing those responsibilities onto teachers and coaches whoever the next in line is."

So while Kaehler admitted there really isn't a good time for a coach to step down, he is ready to move on with the rest of his life.

But he will forever treasure his experience coaching at West.

"I've coached the Olympic Development program for Wisconsin for the elite athlete. I've coached a premier team for the Madison 56ers. I've coached the U-23 team, which is made mostly of UW athletes, in the summer, and two majors teams, and we all won state championships," he said.`

"I will tell you that all of those coaching experiences, the only that makes sense to me is high school coaching for a variety of reasons. I think holding kids accountable for academics, for code of conduct, are important. To have no-cut policies for freshmen to allow every kid a chance to try a sport even if they're not good about it or know much about it is important. Bringing as many kids into high school sports is important because what do you think those kids do after school if they don't have athletics?"

Changing scene

Kaehler said his own experience as a high school student-athlete convinced him that his beliefs are on track.

"I've always felt it was an important part of my high school experience, competing in sports," he said. "As an adjunct to the academics of the school district, it is an invaluable experience. It keeps them active. It keeps them connected to the high school. It keeps them connected to kids they would never have even looked at in the halls in school. That's really valuable."

Kaehler said he truly will miss working with the Regents' soccer program. Unlike many years when it will be sad to say goodbye to the seniors, he realizes this time he will be one of them.

"I'm really going to miss it. I can tell you honestly that if this stuff hadn't come up, I doubt very much that I'd be leaving," he said. "But I can't justify this anymore. This is my last try to get something done, to make some sort of difference. There's always hope, I guess."

dsemrau@madison.com

Dennis Semrau  —  5/22/2008 12:27 pm