M
"they fell in love with Wisconsin. As long as I wasn't
a complete schmo or changed their scholarships,
they would all stay committed to us."
After just one season as the UW head coach,
Yeagley returned to his alma mater, Indiana, where
his dad had coached for over three decades and won
seven national championships. The Badgers turned
to Trask, who hit the ground running.
"We went on a whirlwind tour," recalled Trask.
"Flew to Pennsylvania; flew to Minnesota; went to
Milwaukee; went to Chicago; all in six
days to talk to every single kid and
family."
Blake Succa was an all-state defender from Lewisberry, Pa.; Paul
Yonga was Mr. Soccer from Brooklyn
Park, Minn.; and Max Jentsch was a
celebrated goalkeeper from Hartland, Wis.
In the Chicago area, Nick Janus
was an all-state midfielder from Lake
Zurich; Chris Prince was a lethal
goal-scorer from Naperville; Trevor
Wheeler was an all-state midfielder
from Arlington Heights.
Trask reached out to each of the
committed players. There was an
urgency to keep this class together,
he said, because Wisconsin simply
couldn't afford another void in the
recruiting cycle.
Especially since Trask, an Indiana
grad, was the third UW coach in three
years; albeit a decorated coach who
had a successful resume from the
University of Illinois at Chicago and
a Major League Soccer background.
"I looked at it," Janus said of Trask's
hiring, "as a blessing because I had
heard so much about what he had
done at UIC. Coach Yeagley is a great
coach, too, a fantastic coach.
"But none of us really wavered as
far as leaving Wisconsin. We weren't
actually his (Trask's) recruiting class.
But he made us his own. He believed
in me and I believed in him."
DAVID STLUKA
ost of the seniors have been recruited
not once, but twice to the Wisconsin men's
soccer program. They verbally committed
to one coach, Todd Yeagley, and signed with another,
John Trask.
"They fell in love with Todd Yeagley," said Trask,
who was hired to replace Yeagley on Jan. 20, 2010
and had two weeks to secure those commitments
before the National Letter of Intent signing date.
"More importantly," Trask said of those recruits,
40
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VARSITY November 7, 2013
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