Iowa City schools dominate boys' soccer

IOWA CITY — Iowa City's three high schools have dominated boys' soccer in recent years.

City High and West met in the title game in two of the last four years. West and Regina racked up four state championships apiece in the last five seasons.

The combined record of the three schools in the last three years is 147-22-2.

Some might argue this is a statistical anomaly in the world of high school athletics where talent ebbs and flows over time. But there are reasons behind the success of the Iowa City schools.

Two strong club programs, Iowa Soccer Club and Alliance, employ professional coaches from around the world and not only provide younger players with the technical skills but see their roles in big-picture terms.

'For a soccer player, what happens from (ages) 9 to 12 is really what makes or breaks them,' said Jon Cook, director of coaching for the ISC. 'Our focus is highly on development of players, not on winning every Saturday.'

'The clubs here have tremendous coaching,' Regina Coach Rick Larew said, noting club teams in other sports often rely upon parents or others who are not experienced, trained coaches.

In addition, and unlike some situations in other club sports, the two Iowa City clubs aren't possessive of players' time.

'There's a really good cooperation between the club coaches and the high school coaches,' Cook said. 'There's a collaboration and a mutual respect because I view ISC's role as trying to help the kids that come into our club be better for all the things they want to be better for and that includes high school.'

Another factor is the talent and stability of the coaching at the three schools. Larew established the soccer program at Regina and Brad Stiles has been at West for 14 years. Stiles and Larew both are in the Iowa Soccer coaches Hall of Fame. City High Coach Jose Fajardo moved from the girls' team to the boys' team midway through the last decade. Fajardo is a former professional player from Spain and has coached at all levels.

'Brad and Jose and Rick are really good coaches,' Cook said. 'They are innovative. They are extremely passionate about what they do.'

Larew, for example, has taken groups of players to Costa Rica and Brazil to immerse them in the sport. They play matches in front of thousands of people.

'It creates a soccer culture,' Larew said. 'Kids are talking and thinking about soccer. They see kids that aren't nearly the athletes that we are, who never have the opportunities we have, but they are better players than us.'

Jason Witt, the academy director for Alliance, noted the local coaches have been adept at fashioning a style to the kinds of players they have each year and are not afraid to alter strategy accordingly. Stiles, in particular, went from a plodding, possession-centric style to a more attack-oriented offense.

Fajardo concedes something as mundane as changing boundaries in the school district have helped his team, adding a number of foreign-born students through the English Language Learner support program.

While the clubs in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines also are very good, those metropolitan areas split the talent pool into more schools. Iowa City will see that dilution when the third public high school is built between Coralville and North Liberty.

It's not all a recent phenomena. Stiles pointed out West was successful before he ever became head coach. The Trojans won a state title in 2000 and have dominated the MVC since the sport was sanctioned. Stiles is responsible for six of the seven state championships.

The depth of talent is an obvious factor. The teams have featured terrific players recently: Fernando Pacheco, Tyler Chavez, J.D. McCullough, Austin Otto, Tanner Schilling, Mueng Sunday, Alex Troester and Mike and Johnny Rummelhart, among others.

'A couple years ago when we won our first championship I thought we had the third-best team in the state,' Larew said. 'I thought West High had the first and second.'

Stiles believes soccer is popular enough now to capture the interest of better athletes who in prior decades might have gravitated to baseball or other traditional sports. To play at West, which had 91 players show up for tryouts, means you have to be very, very good and likely play year-round.

'It's rare that we have a two-sport athlete like Garrett Grimsman with basketball and soccer,' Stiles said.

On the other hand, Regina has thrived with multi-sport athletes.

'We have a lot of kids who've bought into hard work in the off season, hard work in the weight room,' Larew said. 'I have a few really talented kids, and we have all these other athletes around them and we've had a little success.'

Regina practices long and hard and supplements that work with weight training. Larew's players have come to expect the rigorous training and embrace it en route to winning titles with their superior conditioning.

Witt said Iowa City is a sports-crazy town, and that has a direct impact on the successful programs at the high schools.

'Kids are so athletic because they are exposed to so many sports,' he said.

He tipped his cap to the area parents who have supported both clubs.

Success breeds success not only in terms of soccer but in terms of school-wide athletics. Kids want to be part of a winning tradition. Each of the three coaches have had alums come back to help coach the current team, a sign that they are attached to the program and not just their own teammates.