Women’s soccer Head Coach Wedemeyer named faith-based coaches national award-winner

Liberty University fifth-year Women’s Soccer Head Coach Lang Wedemeyer was named the Faith-Based Coaches Award winner for the 2021 United Soccer Coaches Advocacy Awards of Excellence, an honor he will receive at the Jan. 19-23 United Soccer Coaches Convention in Kansas City, Mo.

The United Soccer Coaches Advocacy Group Awards of Excellence recognize an individual, organization, or group that have shown a commitment and outstanding work on behalf of the values of each of the respective groups, meeting the association’s highest ideals of inclusion and diversity in the game.

“I am honored and humbled to receive this award,” said Wedemeyer, who eclipsed the 200-win milestone for his women’s soccer collegiate coaching career on Sept. 23 against ASUN newcomer Jacksonville State. (The first 161 of those wins came during his 17-year career as head coach at South Dakota State University). “I am also very blessed that I am able to coach at an institute like Liberty where the coaching staff can holistically develop the young women in our program, especially in their spiritual journeys. Being able to share and discuss my faith has been integral to my coaching and is the centerpiece of everything we do within our program.”

Wedemeyer has had a successful calendar year in 2021, leading the Lady Flames to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2016 after winning its first ASUN Tournament title in the 2021 Spring campaign. During the 2021 Fall season, Liberty was named co-champions of the ASUN East Division after finishing the season with an 11-7-1 record and a 6-3 record during conference play. The Lady Flames finished the month of September with a 7-1-1 record, tying the program record set in 2016 with seven consecutive shutouts.

As a collegiate player, Wedemeyer, a native of Roanoke, Va., was twice named the top defender for Virginia Tech in 1991-92 before becoming Old Dominion University’s team captain as a senior, earning CoSIDA All-America second-team honors.

As a staff coach with the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) for the past 20 years, Wedemeyer has been around elite competition coaching against youth national teams in The Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Belgium with Olympic Development Program (ODP) Regional teams.

Wedemeyer and his wife, Tabitha, live in Forest, Va., and have four children: Brooks, Isabella, Caroline, and Hunter.

>> Read more about the Liberty Womens’ Soccer program on the Athletics team page.