Leading By Example - Pitt Head Coach Joe Luxbacher
9/20/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
Sept. 20, 2011
When Joe Luxbacher first started as the Pitt head men’s soccer coach, Bill Fralic was the football team’s starting left tackle, Clyde Vaughan was the star of the men’s basketball squad, Michael Jordan was the third pick in the NBA draft while Walter Payton was becoming the NFL’s all-time leading rusher.
That was 1984. Or, 27 years and 225 wins ago if you’re Luxbacher.
In total, Luxbacher has spent 30 years coaching collegiate soccer, marking the eighth longest tenure among active Division I men’s soccer head coaches and tops in the highly competitive Big East.
“His character and influence has had a lasting effect on the development of many Pitt soccer players into great people,” said former Pitt player Nathan Montgomery.
But for such a distinguished coach such as Luxbacher, coaching was not always his obvious career path.
A highly recruited high school player from the small town of Beadling, Pa., Luxbacher chose to attend West Virginia University for its program in wildlife-biology, an area that had always interested him.
After leading the Mountaineers in scoring his freshman season, he transferred to Pitt. Majoring in biology, Luxbacher planned to attend graduate school to continue studying wildlife, a field he always believed would be his permanent career.
Luxbacher, who broke the program record for career goals (37) and points (84) in a career (and in just three seasons), went on to play professionally for the Philadelphia Atoms and then the Pittsburgh Spirit — all while attending graduate school and serving as an assistant on the Pitt staff.
“Indoor soccer was big here in Pittsburgh,” Luxbacher said. “We played in the [Civic] Arena and back in the 1980s we were drawing 5,000 to 7,000 a game.”
Injuries forced Luxbacher to retire from the professional ranks and when the head coaching job at Mt. Union College in Ohio opened up in 1978, he jumped at the chance.
He came back to Pitt in 1981 as an assistant coach and was named the Panthers’ head coach three years later.
“At the time I did not plan on getting into coaching,” Luxbacher said. “But what happened was, I was around, finishing my degree and they [Pitt] knew I’d played with the Pittsburgh Spirit, the former coach retired and one thing led to another.
“It’s a tough transition from being a player to a coach. As a player, you are responsible for yourself basically. As a coach all of a sudden, now you are responsible for 25 to 30 guys and what they are doing.”
Luxbacher, who earned his Ph.D. in Administration of Physical Education and Athletics in 1985, garnered Big East Coach of the Year honors in 1992 and again in 1995. In the latter, the Panthers won a school-record 14 games and their first-ever Big East Tournament game.
In 27 years for Luxbacher, the seasons that stand out the most are 1995 and 2000.
“We made a run to the Big East final (in 1995) and it was a year where we had all kinds of injuries and key guys were injured for the year,” he said. “Guys stepped in and as a team game sometimes you get the right mix and we just went on a run. We had all kinds of Pitt firsts that year. We beat two top 10 teams in the same week and we went 7-0 in the month of September where we played a bunch of top teams. It was just a great year.”
The 2000 campaign was also memorable with Pitt earning a Top 10 national ranking.
“We were ranked as high as seventh nationally and we had a great team,” said Luxbacher. “Both those teams (1995 and 2000) were very good and I wouldn’t want to pick which one was the most memorable.”
According to Montgomery, Luxbacher demanded his players be sharp on and off the field.
“His training regimen was always physically demanding mostly due to the fact that he was unbelievably fit himself,” Montgomery said. “Coach Luxbacher and his staff always had us thinking both on and off the field. The mental aspect to the game was critical in one of the most competitive conference in the nation.”
While some things at Pitt never change, Luxbacher has seen a significant improvement in Pitt Athletics and the University as a whole since his own playing days.
“Pitt has always been a great school academically but I think the last 10 years it has really taken off,” he said. “As a player or a student, I just think the big change is there is so much help and support available now for athletes. They have strength and conditioning coaches, academic support service and life skills. I tell my team, there’s no excuse for not being successful here.”
Much like Montgomery, Luxbacher still keeps in touch with numerous former players.
“Guys come back all the time or send me emails,” Luxbacher said. “When we go out east there are always guys from the Philadelphia area who played at Pitt and show up at the games. Most players who went through here have had a pretty good experience so they stay in touch.”
“Coach Luxbacher has great respect for his players,” Montgomery said. “He demands hard work and commitment from every player on the team.”
Luxbacher is a man of many interests, among them is a passion for writing.
Luxbacher has published books ranging from topics like soccer and sports to hiking and backpacking.
“Around my third or fourth year playing professional soccer I got hurt and I was out for around six months,” Luxbacher said. “I was always in the book stores looking for soccer books and I never saw any. I figured I could do that.”
He now has more than a dozen books published such as “Soccer Practice Games” and “Soccer: Steps to Success.”
Some of his works have several volumes each and even were translated to different languages across the world.
This season the Panthers will play their inaugural campaign in the brand new Petersen Sports Complex located on upper campus.
For Luxbacher, who still holds numerous scoring records from his playing days at Pitt, the new facility helps in a multitude of ways: from recruiting to proximity to campus to training.
“The complex is a huge benefit in a number of ways, even more so than I thought it would be,” Luxbacher said. “It is full size and we haven’t been able to train on a full size area since the late 1990’s.”
Only the second head coach in the 55-year history of Pitt men’s soccer, Luxbacher hopes to continue to lead the Panthers into a prosperous future.
Despite finishing 6-9-2 last season, Luxbacher is confident that the Petersen Sports Complex at the program’s disposal will help direct Pitt soccer into a new era which starts this season.
“I really like this team,” Luxbacher said. “I think we have more talent than we’ve had in recent history.”