Get To Know a Graduate Assistant: Dan Ball
Photo by Jordan McCoy.
by Jordan McCoy
Dan Ball is in his first year as a graduate assistant coach for both Concordia’s men’s and women’s soccer teams. He is on the staffs of coaches Jason Weides and Greg Henson.
Ball is originally from Chatham, England. He played all four years as the starting goalkeeper for Milligan College, a premier liberal arts college located in Elizabethton, Tennessee. Milligan is the No. 2 overall college in the state of Tennessee, behind Vanderbilt. After graduating from Milligan, Ball served as an assistant coach working mostly with the keepers.
When working with the men, Ball’s objective is to work solely with the goalkeepers. Senior Mark Horsburgh, sophomore Jack Bennett and senior Nick Varilek are among the goalkeepers on the men’s team with whom Ball spends much of his time. Ball is in charge of game day preparation, goalkeeping recruitment and practice planning. He makes it his priority that the goalkeepers improve day by day.
On the women’s team, Ball has more responsibilities. He is still in charge of goalkeepers senior Chrissy Lind, junior Abigail Goeckeler, and freshmen Jessica Knedler and Lindsey Carley, but he does much more than that. For the women, Ball is an assistant to the entire team. He works hard at developing and maintaining relationships with the players, making sure the players get encouragement and support from the coaching staff in order to be successful.
“I wish Dan could have come earlier in my career,” Lind said. “It’s great to have a coach that believes in you as much as he does. He strikes the ball just as hard in our drills as he would with the men’s goalkeepers, which makes regular shots seem like they are no big deal. Most importantly he cares about us as people and genuinely wants to know how were are doing. If one of us has a bad day, he tries to lighten the mood of practice and do a drill that we enjoy. He also stresses the importance of helping our teammates and wants us to become great people, not just good soccer players.”
Although he finds it difficult at times, Ball appreciates the challenge of coaching men more closely his age, if not the same age. The men’s practices are more of a workout for him, which he finds demanding but rewarding.
Ball’s favorite part of coaching is working with the goalkeepers on the women’s team. He has a very close bond with them and works diligently in an effort to help them improve. Ball enjoys working with the women’s team as a whole, since the energetic and fun personalities on the team match well with his.
Ball explained that he wants to stay in America once he has completed his graduate assistant duties at Concordia. He fell in love with Tennessee when he went to college there and plans to move back once he is done in Nebraska. Long term, Ball aspires to be an athletic director and is working toward that goal while taking graduate classes at Concordia.
