Head Women’s Coach Alf Bilbao

Handling two NCAA Division II soccer programs in the same season hasn't proven to be anything but a successful task for Drury coach Alf Bilbao.

The 2007 campaign represented Bilbao's second year in a row of coaching both the Drury men's and women's programs, and both continued their rapid rise toward NCAA-II competitiveness, with young squads primed to take another step forward in 2008.

In fact, Bilbao's DU women's squad set a new standard for excellence last fall, finishing with a 17-5-3 overall mark, winning its first Great Lakes Valley Conference championship and advancing to the NCAA-II Sweet 16 for the first time in the program's history with a starting lineup made up entirely of underclassmen.

The 17 victories represented a new mark for the DU women's program, and the GLVC title - courtesy of a shootout victory over Missouri-St. Louis in the GLVC Tournament finals - came for a Panthers' squad picked ninth in the 14-team preseason poll of league coaches. The effort gives Bilbao a two-year record of 26-11-6 of guiding the Panthers' women's coach.

Bilbao's men's squad in 2007 completed play with a 13-7-0 record, including a 12-3 start to the campaign. Drury finished with a 6-7 league mark and just missed the eighth and final spot for the league's post-season tournament.

In three seasons of guiding the DU men, Bilbao has compiled a record of 30-22-7, including a 23-12-5 mark over the past two campaigns

After opening his DU era with a 7-10-2 mark in 2005, Bilbao's Panthers reeled off a 10-5-5 overall mark in 2006 that included an 8-0-3 start to the season. Drury also cracked the national Top 25 for the first time in the program's history, reaching as high as No. 6 in the country with the quick beginning, which led to Drury's most victories in a season since 1995.

The final overall record included a 5-5-3 record in Great Lakes Valley Conference play, an improvement over the 4-7-2 mark the Panthers posted in 2005 as a first-year GLVC member. This in addition to leading the DU women to a 9-6-3 overall mark, their most wins since 1998.

Then again, success is not a foreign concept to Bilbao.

Before coming to Drury, he helped build the Truman State University soccer program into an NCAA Division II contender. He led his alma mater into the National Top 25 in five of his seven seasons, including three trips to the NCAA Tournament (1998, 1999, 2003).

Arguably his best team with the Bulldogs came in 2003, when Truman posted a 19-0 regular season mark. The Bulldogs won their first game 5-2 against Southern Illinois Edwardsville, but fell in the national quarterfinals to Findlay Ohio 2-1.

For his efforts, Bilbao was named Coach of the Year for the Central region by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. All told, Bilbao left Truman with a school-record 96 victories and .716 winning percentage with his 96-28-10 record. His players excelled in the classroom at Truman as well, with 66 Bulldogs earning recognition on the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association's commissioner's honor roll.

Bilbao, a native of Hillsboro, Oregon, played at Truman State from 1998 to 1992, playing in 66 games for his career and scoring four goals, with six assists for a total of 14 points. The Bulldogs' team captain is senior year, Bilbao graduated with a degree in exercise science in 1993 while serving as an assistant coach that year.

Bilbao then left to become a high school assistant coach in Lake Zurich, Ill., for one season before moving to Des Moines, Iowa, to play for the Des Moines Menace of the Premier Developmental League, also serving as head coach of Lincoln High School there for a year. Soon after, Bilbao moved on to coach Central College in Pella, Iowa, running both the men's and women's programs at the D-III program, for a season before returning to Truman State in July of 1998.

Bilbao and wife Carie - also a former Truman soccer standout - have two children, son Aidan (6) and daughter Abby (4).