Go WEST young man (and NORTH)

[Kuiper]

While the soccer coaches of some schools that have transitioned from DI or DII to DIII have left in an attempt to stay in those divisions at other schools, APU's coach Dave Blomquist is staying, in part because he himself was a DIII player and All-American at men's soccer powerhouse Wheaton College (IL) from 1992-1995.  This will be his 17th year at Azusa Pacific.

Blomquist is actually the second straight former Wheaton star that APU hired as its men's soccer head coach. Before Blomquist there was Phil Wolf, who was a four-time All-CCIW first-teamer and was named the league's Most Outstanding Player in 1990 and 1991. He coached the Cougars from 2001 through 2008.

Wheaton has supplied SoCal with some of its longest tenured men's soccer college coaches. In addition to Blomquist, Wolf is a longtime head coach at D2 Point Loma University in San Diego and his brother Dave, also a Wheaton men's soccer alum, was the longtime men's head soccer coach at Westmont University in Santa Barbara.

[mngopher]

wonder if Superior will consider moving back to the WIAC.

Not gonna happen. Even though it's institutionally a sister school to the eight WIAC members, it's much smaller (it's half the size of the smallest WIAC school, UW-River Falls, and about a third to a fifth of the size of the other seven members) and it's more remote from major population centers, making it a tougher recruiting sell. It also doesn't sponsor football, which makes it a significant outlier, as all eight WIAC members have football programs and that sport is a very big deal for them.

I think there's a chance UW-Superior goes to the WIAC. Not so much because they want to as much as they may need to. The UMAC is not in the best shape with only 7 schools, having lost two (Scholastica to the MIAC and Northland to school closure) in the last 5 years. There are no obvious UMAC additions in the region, and at least a couple current UMAC schools are not in very strong financial positions along with declining enrollment. Nothing I've heard is imminent, but UWS would be smart to get a sense of what options they may have, and I can't think of any that make more sense than the WIAC. Maybe independent, but doing an independent schedule from their location could be problematic.

[Gregory Sager]

Didn't realize that any of the remaining UMAC schools were in bad shape. I thought that Northland was the only obvious casualty. But you're right that if UW-Superior's hand is forced by the collapse of the UMAC, the Yellowjackets may have to go back to the WIAC folks with cap in hand.