By Mike Woitalla, Executive Editor
Soccer America Magazine
Minnesota coach Buzz Lagos moves on after 16 years in charge of the minor league power.
Buzz Lagos knew nothing about the sport until he hit his 20s. He hadnÆt even seen a soccer game.
Then in 1966 he started working toward a math PhD. at the University of Minnesota and encountered classmates who took to soccer while serving in Africa with the Peace Corps.
Lagos joined them in pickup games.
''WeÆd run up and down the field,'' remembers Lagos, 61, ''chasing and kicking the ball. One day a foreign student came out. He suddenly stopped the ball and passed it. I thought, 'ThatÆs an interesting wrinkle.Æ It was a revelation.''
Lagos soon joined local menÆs teams and remembers when some former Mexican pros arrived in the amateur league he was playing in.
''It was amazing,'' he said. ''I kept learning about more things that can be done with the ball.''
He read soccer books, sought out soccer people to learn from and took coaching courses, eventually becoming the first Minnesota coach to earn a USSF A license.
He introduced the game to his brood, which grew to eight and includes Columbus Crew midfielder Manny Lagos and Gerard Lagos, who played on the U.S. U-20 team that finished fourth at the 1989 World Youth Championship.
Buzz Lagos created a youth league in St. Paul. He served as a scout for the North American Soccer leagueÆs Minnesota Kicks. He went on a six-month sabbatical to Uruguay when Manny was 11 and Gerard was 13, further immersing himself and his family in the sport.
He taught math at St. Paul Academy and became its soccer coach. Each morning heÆd dribble a ball three miles from his house to school.
''IÆd do anything to get better,'' he says.
Buzz coached St. Paul Academy to back-to-back state titles with Manny and Gerard. In 1990, he coached the St. Paul Blackhawks SC to the McGuire Cup, the U-19 national championship, with a team that included Manny Lagos and Tony Sanneh, a future U.S. World Cup player.
Also in 1990, Buzz Lagos saw that MinnesotaÆs talented young soccer players had nowhere to continue their careers after college. So he and Tom Engstrom founded the Minnesota Thunder, which he would coach for 16 years before announcing his retirement at the end of the 2005 season to spend more time with his family, which includes 23 grandchildren. HeÆll also be working with the soccer program at the Higher Ground Academy, a St. Paul charter school.
At first, the Thunder hosted exhibition games in Minnesota against teams like the WSL champion San Francisco Black-hawks and beat them all.
In 1994 the Thunder affiliated with the United Soccer Leagues and reached the PDL final. In 1995, a year before Major League Soccer, the Thunder lost the USISL final, 2-1, to the Long Island Rough Riders, falling on a last-second goal by future MLS star Giovanni Savarese that was set up by future U.S. international Chris Armas.
Lagos guided the Thunder to four more finals and lifted the 1999 USL1 title. This season, the Thunder out-scored three MLS teams ù Salt Lake, Colorado, Kansas City ù 13-6 en route to the U.S. Open Cup semifinals.
''HeÆs got a unique coaching approach,'' says Thunder president Jim Froslid. ''He likes to focus on the positive. He rarely gets upset. I donÆt know that heÆs ever raised his voice at his team. He prepared them and then gave them a chance to free-lance. He had creative teams with offensive flair built around a strong defense.''
And he was much more than coach.
''He sold tickets, attended marketing meetings, made appearances at every single soccer camp the ThunderÆs put on in 16 years,'' says Froslid.
Long before Froslid joined the Thunder, he knew Lagos from youth and high school events in the Minnesota area. ''Wherever there was soccer,'' Froslid says, ''there was Buzz.''
(This article originally appeared in the September 26, 2005 issue of Soccer America Magazine.)