Many coaches have had the privilege of teaching boy and girl athletes lessons on and off the field, but few have been able to come full circle and instill those lessons at the high school where they once learned so much as a student-athlete.
Growing up in Beecher, the now 43-year-old Dawn Compton has been able to do just that after spending about 20 years as the Bobcats’ head boys and girls soccer coach.
During her career at Beecher, Compton has accumulated a 187-144-11 record in girls soccer since 2002-03 and a 194-115-20 record in boys soccer since 2007-08. In addition, she also has spent nine years coaching cheer (2009-16, 2017-18) with two state final appearances to show for it.
It’s that success on the pitch and on the sidelines, as well as off of them, that has made Compton this year’s Daily Journal Female Sports Citizen of the Year.
“At the end of the day, my biggest hope is that I have taught these student-athletes more than just to play the game of soccer,” Compton said. “I hope they walk away with lessons they will carry with them throughout their lifetime.
“There is so much more to coaching than the X’s and O’s,” she added. “It is about hoping your athletes leave your program as well-rounded individuals who are ready to apply what they have learned to their future endeavors.”
Compton began her own soccer career by the time her mother and father, Mike and Cindy, moved her to Beecher Elementary in the second grade. Moving to a new town, her parents wanted to get her involved in sports, signing her up for the Manteno Youth Soccer Association. She was coached by her father until eighth grade.
“That experience is what got me into soccer, and I, obviously, have never walked away from it,” Compton said. “My love for soccer has only continued to grow from there. It’s been awesome, and I’ve built a lot of relationships through soccer.”
The love for the game and determination to play at a higher level allowed Compton to eventually become one of Beecher’s first-ever girls soccer players when the school began offering a co-ed team during her sophomore year of high school in 1993-94. From there, the former midfielder wound up using her talents to earn a softball scholarship at Trinity Christian College, where she also wound up becoming a dual-athlete, playing soccer as part of the school’s first-ever girls soccer team as a freshman before graduating in 2000.
Learning how to maneuver as a player in a new program at both the high school and collegiate levels only helped Compton when she got her first gig as the junior varsity coach at Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School in Chicago, where she spent three years coaching, including her senior year of college, before moving into her role as Beecher’s girls soccer coach in the early 2000s.
“When I first started coaching girls soccer at Beecher in 2002, we didn’t have enough interest for just a Beecher-filled team,” Compton said. “So, we actually started as a co-op team with Peotone, and if you know anything about Beecher and Peotone soccer, that’s a huge rivalry.”
After posting a 54-25-6 record through her first five seasons coaching the girls program, Compton was handed the keys to take over the reins of the boys team beginning with the 2007-08 season. She was lucky enough to be afforded the chance to coach some of the boys she previously had coached in the MYSA league during her free time while coaching at Mother McAuley. Her transition into coaching a male-dominated sport was made that much easier.
“I was very fortunate when I first started coaching the boys soccer team that we had a bunch of players that I had previously coached in MYSA when they were 5 years old,” Compton said. “So, they knew me, and I had good relationships with their families. I think that was a huge reason why it worked because that respect was already there, and so gaining their trust wasn’t an issue.”
Growing up playing co-ed soccer with the addition of having previous relationships with players and families of the boys team allowed Compton to feel more comfortable in her early years coaching the boys team, a somewhat rare sight in a field that sees several girls programs coached by men.
“Having spent so many years in the area of Beecher, that stigma has gone away throughout the years,” Compton said. “I think it was definitely there a little bit in the beginning, but it quickly went away, and I appreciate the respect I always received from other coaches. It was never really a barrier for me.”
That sentiment was backed by some of her current and former players, including Garret Short, who played for Compton from 2011-15.
“Honestly, I never thought anything of it,” Short said. “I never thought it was weird having a female head coach.
“Nobody ever said anything bad; it was just normal because she knows the game, and she’s as good a coach — especially when it comes to firing up her team — as any male coach.”
Through time, the veteran head coach learned she couldn’t coach the boys and girls teams the same way, noting they have different ways of responding to certain exercises and practices.
“They both bring different things to the game,” Compton said. “There’s things I can do with the boys team that I would never do with the girls team and vice versa.
“You have to know your audience, and that’s something I’ve had to learn over the years.”
Being able to know how to separate certain things from each program helped her lead the 2021 boys team to its best season in school history. The team notched 22 wins, the most in school history, surpassing the 2015-16 and 2016-17 squads that finished with 19 wins, to help secure the second sectional title in program history.
“I look at our 2021 team versus that 2015-16 team and I see a lot of similarities,” Compton said. “I think, on paper, at the beginning of the season, I don’t think anyone expected us to be where we ended up.
“I give a lot of that credit to our players because they really believed in the system.”
The 3-0 victory against Grant Park in the IHSA Class 1A Manteno Sectional championship was something Compton and her team never will forget.
“We all worked hard and worked together,” Beecher’s senior captain and midfielder Bryce Beck said. “We finally beat Grant Park in the sectional after having lost to them twice in the regular season.
“It was the first time in my high school career we beat them in general, and so winning that game was really cool and exciting. In fact, it was almost picture perfect.”
Between 34 combined seasons of coaching both the boys and girls teams, Compton has displayed nothing but consistency. During her time at Beecher, Compton has helped her programs notch 13 girl seasons with an overall record above .500, including three River Valley Conference titles and four RVC titles, two regional titles and two sectional crowns in boys. Her success even helped her land Kankakee Daily Journal Coach of the Year honors in 2014 and 2015.
“Compton deserves this award because she not only has love and enthusiasm for the sport, but she loves her kids, too,” said Alyssa Kraus, Compton’s current assistant coach and former girls player and cheerleader. “Obviously, as a coach, you want to win, but she never lets that get in they way of keeping the kids safe and doing the right things, which can be hard at times.
“She is a great role model for the kids and always pushes them to be the best they can be.”