Few moments are as rewarding to Dane Luhrsen as when lessons taught repeatedly in the Wheaton Wings Soccer Club practice suddenly find their way into a game.
“We’ll work hard on something in practice, go over it and over it again, and for five straight games, the girls won’t do it,” he said with a smile. “And then they will. And when they do, it’s beautiful.”
That kind of reward has brought Luhrsen back year after year as a volunteer coach for the Wheaton Wings, a traveling soccer club for boys and girls ages 7 through 18. The club, part of the Wheaton Park District, has about 45 to 50 teams.
This year Luhrsen is coaching the U-10 Girls Gold team, mostly 4th-grade girls who were not yet 10 years old as of Aug. 1, among them his daughter Annie, 9. The 11 girls on the team were selected from a group of 50 to 60 who tried out.
Luhrsen counts on help in teaching the team. Dan Warner of Lombard is the team’s assistant coach.
“We back each other up,” Luhrsen said. “He helps coach practices. . . . I take the lead game day, he takes the lead in Tuesday practices.”
As head coach, he said, “I’m responsible for setting the direction of the team. I’m responsible for hiring the professional soccer trainer, who works with the girls once a week. I do the game-day coaching, deciding who plays where and when. I generate most of the communication with the parents about schedules, financing, budget.”
During practice, the girls work on basic soccer skills, such as dribbling, passing, receiving, juggling and heading. The lessons include placement of the feet and how to approach the ball at different heights.
“One of the things the girls learn is to never let the ball stop moving, to approach it hard,” Luhrsen said. “That does a couple things for you. It gives you more time to decide what to do, and makes it tougher on the opponent to steal the ball from you. And you never want to be a sitting target for someone who plays rough.”
The young girls are receptive to teaching, and this makes the coaching enjoyable, he said. “This is really a fun age. They’re 9, 10 years old. They’re very smart, and they’re physically capable of doing just about anything.”
Watching the girls’ skill level jump a notch during a game is particularly rewarding to Luhrsen. “It’s not the same player every week,” he said, “and it’s not all the time, but when they do, it’s very exciting.”
Luhrsen recalled a practice last winter with Gordan Rakatic, the team’s trainer who played professionally in Europe for about 15 years. Rakatic had led a strenuous session, and the girls came off the field red-faced and panting.
Aware that the practice had been difficult, “we sat down, and we thought we’d have to pep them up,” Luhrsen said. “And one girl, Taylor, looked up at Gordan and said, `That was so much fun!’ And he just melted.”
The team usually has two weekly practices at Seven Gables Park in Wheaton and a game on Sunday afternoons. Home games are played at Seven Gables.
Luhrsen began coaching about eight years ago when his daughter, Katie, now 13, was on one of the Park District’s recreational non-travel teams.
“I got started the same as anyone,” he said. “They needed coaches and I volunteered. I enjoyed it. Then when Katie wanted to play for the Wings, we realized they wouldn’t have a team if they didn’t have a coach.”
Luhrsen and Pat Schiewitz of Wheaton, the current Wings president, volunteered to coach and they have continued with the Wings ever since. Luhrsen also coaches a Park District 1st-grade, coed non-travel team.
Luhrsen is a dedicated and creative coach, Schiewitz said. For example, he organized an Olympic Challenge tournament in which local girls soccer teams played each other and also had a chance to watch the U.S. women’s soccer Olympic team play a practice game in St. Charles.
“Everything Dane does is driven by his interest in helping the kids have fun, and he’s tireless in that regard,” Schiewitz said.
“He’s a doer. Dane goes above and beyond what (others) would do, to execute ideas he comes up with. . . . The Wheaton Park District benefits tremendously from the contributions of Dane both off and on the field. But the people who benefit most are the kids.”
Opposing coaches also praise Luhrsen and the sportsmanship his team displays. Fortune Hudson, coach of several teams in Naperville-based Team Chicago, a youth soccer club that has about 30 teams, said Luhrsen is an asset to soccer.
“He has made it very fun for the kids,” Hudson said. “He does show very good sportsmanship and is an excellent leader for the kids. The kids pick up on it and show pretty good integrity and sportsmanship. Dane has found that balance of making the team competitive and having fun.”
Hudson and his wife, Karen, own an indoor soccer complex in Aurora where Luhrsen’s teams have played many games. “You can tell this coach is so respected because the parents are so respectful,” Karen Hudson said. “It’s a positive, supportive environment.”
Randy Pickard, who coaches the Glenview Titans U-10 Gold girls’ team, called Luhrsen “an admirable guy.”
“He’s really in it for the kids,” Pickard said, “and he’s a real organizer. He organized a one-day indoor tournament last year that was just a ball. There are three or four teams that express exceptional sportsmanship, and (Luhrsen’s team is) absolutely one of them.”
Mary Beth Cleary, assistant superintendent of recreation for the Wheaton Park District, also praised Luhrsen.
“I think Dane’s a great asset to the Wheaton Park District youth participants and the Wheaton Wings’ players,” she said. “He has such great knowledge about soccer and has shared that through the in-house program and the traveling program.”
Luhrsen attended coaching seminars to pick up some of the knowledge he passes along to the girls.
The U-10 Girls Gold players also speak highly of their coach.
“I think he’s a really nice guy,” Taylor Nieling, 9, said. “He coaches very well. He’s friendly. We get to play fun games sometimes, but sometimes we have to be serious. I think we should have a really good team this year.”
“I think he’s very, very nice because he coaches us a lot better than usual coaches would teach,” said Erin Strom, 9. “He’s very funny.”
Added Katy Flynn, 9, “He makes (it) fun.”
About 2,000 boys and girls play in the Park District’s recreational soccer programs; another 1,000 participate in the soccer clubs, of which the Wheaton Wings is the largest.
Luhrsen, 44, was born in Colorado Springs and grew up in Wheaton. He graduated in 1973 from Wheaton Central High School, now Hubble Middle School. He got a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1977 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
For the next 15 years he worked in sales and sales management for IBM in the Chicago area. From 1992 to 1996, he and his wife, Mary Beth, operated a bicycle helmet distribution company in Warrenville. He then went into software sales with his current employer, Coherent Networks, Hoffman Estates.
Married since 1983, the Luhrsens have four children: Katie, John, 11, Annie and Eric, 6. The family has lived in Wheaton for almost 12 years.
Luhrsen wants to coach for at least a couple more years.
“When this team gets older, I’ll probably give it up and coach Eric’s team–if they’ll have me,” he said. “That keeps me going for two or three more years.
“I really like this age group. It’s a fun age.”
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For more information on the Wheaton Wings Soccer Club, call 630-482-0388.
