Phil Gruensfelder flips through his 1979 Canyon del Oro High School yearbook until he gets to the page on the Dorados’ club soccer team. There is a familiar man in the photo. Wolfgang Weber, head coach.
Weber was 32, a pup. Soccer was not yet a certified sport in Arizona high schools. It is like rediscovering a long-ago photo of a young Vern Friedli or Dick McConnell, two of the most prolific and iconic high school coaches in Tucson history.
Exactly 20 years later, 1999, Gruensfelder became the athletic director at Salpointe Catholic. Guess who was coaching the Lancers’ boys soccer team? Wolfgang Weber, then 52, a pup no longer. He had coached Salpointe to three state championships and was generally known as the Father of Soccer in this town
Little did Gruensfelder, or anyone, know that best was yet to come from the son of a coal miner from Aachen, Germany.
Last week, Gruensfelder watched as Weber coached Salpointe to a 10th state soccer championship. If you’re counting, that’s three in a row — unprecedented in Tucson boys soccer and the most boys championships in Arizona history.
“Wolfgang is 76 and I haven’t seen him lose a step,” says Gruensfelder. “He hasn’t lost his passion. At the end of every season he always asks if I will bring him back for another season.”
Salpointe Catholic coach Wolfgang Weber enjoys his team's fourth goal against Scottsdale Saguaro, the Lancers' final strike in what became a 4-1 win Feb. 24 in the Class 4A boys state championship match at Glendale High School.
In a Tucson perspective, that’s like Bill Belichick asking New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft if he can coach the Pats another season.
Some might call Weber a survivor. He has overcome a near-fatal heart attack and triple-bypass surgery. His wife, Nina, died in 2013. But he is not limping to some imagined coaching finish line. He is doing his best work.
“I’ve never seen anything like ‘OK, I’ve won X amount of championships, I can sit back now,’” says Gruensfelder. “He tries to get better every year. He’s still a student of the game.”
What is there Wolfgang Weber possibly doesn’t know about soccer?
Thirty years ago he co-founded the uber-successful FC Tucson Youth (formerly the Tucson Soccer Academy), a labor of love that still finds Weber coaching multiple Tucson age-group soccer teams eight months each year. He is also the organization’s bookkeeper. In June, he operates his well-attended soccer camps.
Time off? When?
He’s up at 5 most mornings, working at 76 like you’d imagine he did at 25, when he first moved to Tucson from Germany and opened a downtown restaurant, Benjees, starring Wolfgang Weber, chef.
If there’s anything like a young 76, Wolfgang Weber is the model.
In an attempt to relate to the teenagers on his Salpointe teams, Weber, a music aficionado from the Beatles and Rolling Stones days, recently attended a Young Tuck concert with his 25-year-old assistant coach Luis Gonzalez, a notable player on rival Tucson High’s 2014 state soccer championship team.
Young Tuck? Really?
“When the guys found out I had gone to see Young Tuck, my stock soared through the roof,” Weber says with a laugh. “One of the best things I’ve done late in life was hire Luis to coach with me. He’s just a sponge, one of the best young coaches. It’s like I won the lottery because he’s so good at what he does. He helps me to understand what motivates and drives these young players.”
Weber has reversed the normal role of a big-name coach. Instead of having the players adjust to him, he adjusts to his players.
His last three Salpointe teams have gone a combined 57-5-3. He has now coached the Lancers to 741 victories. No other Arizona prep soccer coach has reached 400.
“Coaching has changed so much,” says Weber. “When I started soccer at Salpointe in 1982, some of those I coached against were shop teachers or those who had never played the game, learning on the run. I would sometimes feel sorry for them.”
Salpointe Catholic head coach Wolfgang Weber gets doused in the aftermath of the Lancers' 5-1 win against Walden Grove in the 4A boys state championship game on March 20, 2021, at Mountain View High School in Marana.
But following Weber’s lead, Tucson has become a soccer hot spot like few in the United States. Sabino, Sahuaro, Rincon, Sunnyside, Catalina Foothills, CDO and Pueblo have all won boys state titles.
His stepson, Matt Panipinto, coached Salpointe’s girls team to the first of their 10 state soccer championships, 1990. Tucson teams, boys and girls, have combined to win 39 state championships in the last 37 years.
Weber showed the way.
His passion and energy for soccer is as deep as ever. Last fall, just before the 2022-23 high school season, Weber and Gonzalez flew to Qatar, spending two weeks watching the World Cup. It was bliss.
“It felt like we were in an Indiana Jones movie,” Weber says, chuckling. “We’d be in taxis in the middle of the night, stadium to stadium, town to town. What a great experience. It invigorated me, it let me know that I want to keep doing this. And god willing, I will be able to do this for at least a couple of more years.”
Ego? Try again.
“We’ve won 10 championships,” he says. “That means there were 31 years that we didn’t win. I’m not counting, I’m just coaching.”
A slow-motion capture of Salpointe Catholic's first goal in the Lancers' eventual 4-1 win in the Arizona class 4A state championship on Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Leo Gutierrez assisted Nicolas Valenzuela for the first goal of the night in the 67th minute. Video by James Kelley, Special to the Arizona Daily Star
