Washington’s Clift wins 2025 CSM Boys Soccer Coach of the Year

Washington soccer captured many hearts during its 2025 season. 

The Panthers, who had never made a state finals appearance entering the year, broke that trend and dominated their way to the Class 2A state championship game before falling to Chicago De La Salle in a penalty kick shootout. 

Still, the Panthers had plenty to be proud of despite the loss as they set a new bar for what Panthers soccer can be while breaking multiple records in the process. The man behind it all, head coach Chad Clift, is Clutch Sports Media’s 2025 Boys Soccer Coach of the Year. 

Clift led the Panthers in a season where they finished tied second in IHSA history for most wins (29) and shutouts (22) in a season. The 29 wins were also a Washington school record. The team won with emphasis too, setting new program records for most goals (133) in a season and fewest goals allowed (15) in a season as well. 

Washington won its first 14 games of the season before earning a scoreless draw — its only such result of the season — against St. Charles East on Sept. 26 and falling to Dunlap 2-0 on Sept. 30. From there, the Panthers won their next 14 games and finished the season with wins over powers such as East Moline United, Rock Island, Mendota, Arcadia (WI), Morton, Normal West and Belleville Althoff Catholic. 

Clift’s Panthers were bolstered by a class of eight seniors and having a team that has played together since their respective soccer journeys started. Washington featured six Clutch Sports Media All-Area selections, including first-team players Hudson Scrivner, Isaac Reetz, John Clift, Truman Lenover and Oliver Wettstein, plus honorable mention Finn McGreevy. 

A former collegiate soccer player at Bradley, Clift coached at East Peoria from 1995-1998 and led the Raiders to a 48-33-11 record during that span, including a 20-win campaign in 1998. He returned to the high school coaching ranks in 2021 with Washington. Since then, he has led the Panthers to a 103-25-7 mark with at least 17 wins in each season and over 20 in each of the last two years. 

Hear more from Clift about this past season and his career in our interview with him below. Some responses have been minimally edited for clarity.

What have you been able to reflect on in the days since the season has ended? 

“Reflecting on the season and what they accomplished, I have a pretty good idea of what they've done, but I started thinking more about just how special it was. I was looking back on it, watching the [state championship] game and we were really, really close to winning a state title. I think we've had teams in the past who could have gotten to state as well but this year, these kids, every day came to practice and they worked. As I’ve been reflecting on the season, I’ve had nothing but good memories of the team.” 

In your mind, what made the team so special this year?

“Their attitude and effort all season. They always came to practice with great effort and great attitude, they always worked hard, they're just good kids who wanted to get better. Even when I would get on them about some of our play, they would put their head down and work harder. They were just very coachable. Even our senior leadership with our three team captains, we’ve never had three more positive captains. Even when things were going down, they always put a positive spin and they always try to lift the kids up. We say ‘family’ at the end of every game, win or lose, and we say at the end of every practice and that’s true of where we were. It was just a really fun group to be around.”

“We had a lot of talent but the chemistry we had was as good as anyone’s in the state. The kids, they just know each other. They know what they do, they know their strengths, they know their teammates weaknesses. It was nothing but help with having that team chemistry and then we also, we didn't have any egos. Everyone was sure. We didn't care who scored, we didn’t care who got the assist, we just wanted to win games.”

What’s your coaching background? 

“So I played at Bradley, then I coached at East Peoria for four years and then I moved to Florida actually. Then when I came back to Illinois, I got married and had my family and this was in the early 2000s. [My son] John, who was a senior this year, began playing soccer and he liked it, so I started coaching him and I coached him through the park district and then he got into travel, so I started coaching him in travel. I just kind of coached him all the way up until he became a freshman. I couldn’t coach him in travel once he got to high school because of state rules but most of these kids, I’ve coached since they were little kids, like when they were eight or nine years old."

What helps keep you going?

“What keeps me doing it is I love the game and I wanted my kids to have good coaching. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm fairly knowledgeable about soccer and I wanted to help my my kids and our Washington kids that have been playing just to become the best players that they can and get the most out of them. There's a little extra motivation with me having my son in there. I've told them all along, I've told them right up through the years in travel that 'For a lot of you, the pinnacle of your career is your high school career. I just want you guys to have the best high school experience possible and I said that years before they got to high school.'"

“I just wanted them to have a very good high school experience and it ended up being a magical high school experience. My motivation is just giving my son and his friends the best experience possible. I always talked to them and I said, ‘The way that we're going to play, if we have the buy-in with how we're trying to play, what we're trying to do, we’ll be just fine.’ This past season’s group had a one thousand percent buy-in. I’d ask some kids to run through a wall and they wouldn’t even ask, they’d just do it.”

Aside from winning, what’s a fun memory with your players that you’ve had from this past season?

“We had a lot of them, we went to Wisconsin on a three-night trip and aside from the games — we won them against a couple of good teams — but just being together, being in the hotel, going out to get dinner together. We went to La Crosse, Wisconsin and went up to what’s called The Bluff. You know, those things are not only the winning part of it, it's the memories that we made outside of the 29 victories and two losses.  We had team dinners all the time with dinners all the time at different kids' houses. Virtually about every kid came…and those things helped us become closer as teammates.”

What’s a piece of coaching advice you’d give?

“For high school coaches. I tell my kids this every day: play simple and play smart. If you play simple and you play smart, you’ll do really well in high school soccer. It's simple advice, and it's simple to do. Don't try to do too much. Don't try to do things you can't do. Don’t try to make the pass you see the pros do on TV. If you never turn the ball over, if you can pass the ball and trap it, it's hard for me to take you out of the game. My thing is always simple and smart.”