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.