The 19th head coach in Franklin & Marshall history, Dan Wagner enters his eighth season as the squad's mentor. A two-time National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)/adidas Mid-Atlantic Region Coach of the Year, he led the Diplomats to their best season in program history with 15 wins along with a return trip to the NCAA tournament in 2007.
F&M also went undefeated at home during the regular season, starting the year 12-0 and not allowing a goal in the first six games. The Diplomats won the Centennial Conference (CC) regular-season championship and reached as high as No. 9 in the Division III national coaches poll, ending the season ranked 21st with a 15-4 record. Wagner mentored Brandon Corday to his second straight CC Player of the Year honors, becoming the only player to accomplish this feat.
In 2006, the Diplomats tallied a then program-best 13-4-3
record, capped with the school's first NCAA Division III Soccer
Championship berth in a quarter century, a myriad postseason
awards, including First Team All-America honors and Conference MVP
honors for Brandon Corday.
During the course of the 2006 campaign, Franklin & Marshall
piled up a 14-match unbeaten streak, and was not defeated on its
home field at any point in the year. Combined with a pair of home
wins at the tail end of the 2005 campaign, the Diplomats did not
lose in its last nine games at home which aided Franklin &
Marshall in maintaining a consistent top-three ranking in the
NSCAA/adidas Mid-Atlantic Poll.
The regional ranking was accompanied by a spot in the National Top
20, defying the preseason prognostication of the Centennial
Conference's coaches, who collectively tabbed the Diplomats for a
sixth place finish. Franklin & Marshall finished the regular
season in second place in the Centennial, and was the runner-up to
Johns Hopkins in the Conference Championship Tournament.
The men's soccer class of 2007 was the first recruited to
Lancaster by Wagner. As freshmen, their squad won just three games.
They came back the following year with 11 wins, marking one of the
ten best season-to-season turnarounds for a program in the NCAA
that year.
Wagner also directs the F&M Soccer Africa Project, a
cooperative venture with Ethan Zohn and Grassroots Soccer. The
Project is intended to capitalize on soccer's international
popularity in order to raise HIV/AIDS awareness, as well as support
clinics and communities across the African continent.
The Diplomats will act as goodwill ambassadors, traveling to Cape
Town, South Africa, in March of 2008 to play matches against
professional teams. Franklin & Marshall soccer will also lend
"boots on the ground" support to Grassroots Soccer. The Diplomats
will travel with donated soccer goods, and a donation of several
thousand dollars specifically earmarked for soccer balls and
uniforms. Wagner hopes the trip will be the beginning of a budding
transatlantic soccer relationship.
Wagner's soccer pedigree is rich. Steeped in the rich tradition of
Messiah soccer, where he excelled as an undergrad, Wagner is the
only player to captain the Falcons for three seasons. While playing
in Grantham, he earned All-Middle Atlantic Conference honors in
1991, 1994 and 1995. He finished his career at Messiah with 16
goals and 23 assists for 55 points.
In addition to his time on the F&M sidelines, Wagner is the
Co-Director of Tactical Team Trainers, conducting high school
soccer team and player development camps. Amongst the teams
benefiting from Wagner's tutelage are Warwick High School, which
won the 2005 AAA Pennsylvania State Champion, and Manheim Central,
a 2006 AA State Finalist.
Wagner first went from the pitch to the sideline at Northern York
High School, coaching the girls' junior varsity (1994) and varsity
(1995) teams. From Dillsburg, it was on to Pequea Valley High
School, where he stood at the helm for two seasons. In that time,
he raised the varsity boys' program from a 5-13 record in 1997, to
14-4 in 1998. The sudden turnaround earned Wagner the 1998
Lancaster-Lebanon League Section III Coach of the Year award, and
demonstrated his uncanny knack for making his teams instantly
competitive.
Prior to his joining the staff at Franklin & Marshall, Wagner
served as the head boys' soccer coach at Penn Manor High School
from 1999 through the spring of 2002. Wagner serves as a teacher
and Social Studies Coordinator at Penn Manor High School. He
currently resides in Lancaster Township with his wife, Shelby, and
children, Tyler and Cassidy.
An accomplished soccer player in the collegiate ranks, Matt
Bills is quickly establishing himself as an accomplished soccer
coach. Assisting Dan Wagner is all aspects of running the program,
Bills has been instrumental in Franklin & Marshall's soccer
resurgence over the past three seasons.
A 2004 graduate of Messiah College, Bills played in four NCAA
Division III Championship Tournaments, winning a pair of NCAA
Division III National Championships.
Bills finished his career at Messiah tied for the lead in career
goals scored (68), and was second on the Falcons books in total
points (162). He was twice named the Commonwealth Conference MVP,
and landed on the Conference's First Team in three times. He was
named to the NSCAA All Mid-Atlantic Region First Team in 2002 and
2003, and was an NSCAA Third Team All-America selection in
2002.
With several years experience on the camp circuit, Bills attained
his NSCAA State Coaching Diploma in December of 2005, immediately
following his first season on the F&M sideline.
Dwayne Lawrence joined the Franklin & Marshall's soccer
staff in 2007 after stringing together nearly a decade of highly
successful seasons coaching both boys' and girls' soccer on the
high school level. Lawrence's varsity boys soccer team at Camp Hill
High School compiled a 114-43-11 record under his tutelage, going
65-10-7 in league play.
Those wins added up to four championships, seven trips to the
District Championships, and four trips to States, including a trip
to the Pennsylvania State Semifinals in 2005. The most successful
coach in Camp Hill's history was named the Coach of the Year by the
Carlisle Sentinel in both 2000 and 2005. He was also named the Mid
Penn Division Coach of the Year four times.
In addition to his work with the boys time, Lawrence orchestrated
the turnaround of Camp Hill's girls team. In 2004, took over a team
that posted a 5-12-2 record the previous season. It took him two
seasons to produce an undefeated league champion. For that effort,
Lawrence earned 2005 Mid Penn "AA" Coach of the Year honors.
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