Moeller soccer coach helps make tough time special for others
CINCINNATI (BVM) – Mike Welker is the head soccer coach at Moeller High School. Coaching at the school for the last nine seasons and spending his last four as the varsity head coach, Welker has had plenty of success leading the Crusaders. But with the difficult times being faced by many this spring, Welker has found a new way to help his team inspire the community.
The head coach has been a native of the Cincinnati area since his family moved there when he was in fifth grade. A soccer player himself, the 36-year-old played at Moeller during his high school career, graduating in 2002. After high school, Welker attended Ohio State University and now works in sales.
Welker never exactly sought out a coaching position, but did want to be able to get out of the office and do something in addition to his sales job. After reconnecting with his former coach at Moeller, he was offered the freshman coaching position and quickly developed a passion for it.
“I came to this realization that I needed a release away from sales; I couldn’t sit at my desk all day. My old coach Randy Hurley offered me the freshman position and it just went from there. I had never thought about it or said I really want to be a coach, but when it happened I just kind of fell in love with it,” Welker said.
Although the Moeller alumnus hadn’t always envisioned coaching, the Crusaders are happy to have him leading the program. After a tough first season as varsity coach, Welker put an emphasis on the program and changed how they did everything. Three years later, the team has lost just five games since.
The Crusaders soccer team has won the Greater Catholic League Championship as well as three straight city championships over the last three years in 2017, 2018, and 2019. In 2018, the team finished Division I runner-up at state, and was ranked No. 21 in the country by MaxPreps.
Last season, the Crusaders finished as regional runner up, and moved up one spot to No. 20 in the country. One of the proudest accomplishments for the team was also winning the Pinnacle Award last year, given to just seven high school boys teams across the country which have high ethics, academics, and performance.
With all the success, Welker has received a lot of personal recognition as well. The Crusaders coach has been named Greater Catholic League Coach of the Year, as well as Southwest Ohio Private School Coach of the Year each of the last three seasons. In addition, he was named Cincinnati Coach of the Year in 2018.
The awards mean a lot to Welker, but ultimately his team’s success, and being recognized with honors such as the Pinnacle Award are more important to him.
“It’s always an honor to be recognized by your peers. But to be one of seven high school boys teams honored in the country is pretty cool,” Welker noted when discussing the Pinnacle Award. “That to me meant more than the coach of the year stuff.”
The passion the 36-year-old has developed for coaching the game he loves is what has ultimately led him and the Crusaders to such success. But this spring, the team and school faced another challenge as did the rest of the nation with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Welker has seen a lot of effects of the virus first hand, as the company he works for has had to lay-off around 50 percent of its employees. The soccer coach also travels a lot for work, and saw the reality and scariness of the situation while doing so. Additionally, Welker coaches a club soccer team in the spring composed of high school juniors and seniors – many of which will go on to play at Division I college programs – who had some of their final club games canceled.
Although Welker does not personally know anyone who had COVID-19, he does have a 98-year-old father-in-law in Indiana who he and his wife are not able to go visit. That, along with other sad stories seen on the news inspired an idea for the coach, who saw an opportunity for his team to give back during this tough time.
The Crusaders coach decided one of the best things his team could do while staying at home during the pandemic is write letters to the elderly, whether they be friends, family, or strangers, who are not able to see their family members right now.
“I texted a couple of our Moeller moms and just said, ‘What can we do?’” Welker said. “We came up with this letter campaign and felt that if everyone sent two to six letters to local nursing homes we’d brighten some peoples’ days.”
The Moeller soccer team took to the campaign well. It was never assigned as something mandatory, but several players, family members, and alumni reached out to Welker letting him know they have sent letters. Although there is no way to put a definitive number on how many were sent out, Welker knows no matter the quantity, the goal is still being achieved.
“If this at all made someone laugh or cry or just be happy, that’s all we wanted. We also want to teach our guys to be great men and understand the world around them so this was hopefully a good teaching moment. We just hope that whoever received them found some joy in it as well,” Welker said.
Moeller is a very well known high school academically and athletically throughout the Cincinnati area and even the state. The fact that Welker is involved with the school and can use his platform in situations like this to help better the community says a lot about him as a leader.
“Moeller is always in the spotlight and I have taken that to our advantage over the last couple years. We want to inspire others. We know that if we are doing something for the community in a positive light at Moeller High School people will talk about it. … It means something to a lot of people and that’s what’s important for me,” Welker said.
Using that platform, the program implored other students, teams, and schools around the area to help join in with their letter writing campaign.
With high school boys soccer being played in the fall in Ohio, Welker and his team hope their season is not affected by the pandemic. However, the coach definitely feels for the seniors in winter and spring sports at Moeller and across the country who were not able to finish off their final seasons.
“You just feel for them so much. You train all year and to not have that chance just sucks. There is no silver lining and the only thing you can say is there’s stuff that’s bigger than sports,” Welker said. “I’m happy it hasn’t affected Moeller soccer yet and hopefully it doesn’t impact our fall.”
Assuming fall sports go to plan, Welker is excited about the upcoming season. The team will lose a lot of experience, graduating 13 seniors while returning just one starter. But the coach knows this is still a winning program with a lot of potential.
“We’re going to be young and it will be a challenging year, but that’s why we do it. It wouldn’t be fun if it was easy. We try to always challenge ourselves and just need to do our job and win some games,” Welker said.
Hopefully Crusaders soccer is played as planned once fall arrives. But no matter how the team ends up this year, they have already inspired the community this spring in their efforts to brighten the days of many during a very difficult time.
