{"id":18660,"date":"2022-07-12T17:43:33","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T17:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=18660"},"modified":"2026-02-27T22:46:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:46:51","slug":"field-named-in-honor-of-coach-john-leaney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2022\/07\/field-named-in-honor-of-coach-john-leaney\/","title":{"rendered":"Field named in honor of Coach John Leaney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Macalester will name its athletic field after former soccer coach John Leaney. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coach Leaney came to Macalester as head men\u2019s soccer coach in 1986 and two years later also took control of the women\u2019s program, which went on to win the NCAA Division III national championship in 1998 and finished second the following year. He retired from coaching as one of the most accomplished winners in Division III history with <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">489 combined victories, <\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">seventeen MIAC championships, and <\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">twenty-two national playoff berths. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was also named MIAC Coach of the Year thirteen times, coached nineteen All-Americans, and fourteen MIAC Players of the Year. Beyond that, Leaney <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">was a mentor and leader who made a significant impact on the development of students.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The college hopes to raise $2 million to fully fund an endowment for the field, which would ensure Macalester has a state-of-the-art playing surface for soccer, football, club sport teams, and for the Macalester campus and local community.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The endowment was established by Becca Van Dyck \u201891 and Erik Thomsen \u201891 to honor Leaney. This gift ensures that his legacy lives on at Macalester and his name will forever be a part of Macalester athletics.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cCoach Leaney\u2019s legacy has made a long-lasting impact on hundreds of students,\u201d says Donnie Brooks, Macalester\u2019s athletic director. \u201cI\u2019m so excited that through the generosity of Becca, Erik, and many others that we can recognize him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Help honor one of Macalester\u2019s most celebrated coaches during our mini campaign August 2-16, 2022.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The field will be dedicated and renamed the John Leaney Field in fall of 2023 as part of the 25th anniversary celebrating the 1998 National Championship for women&#8217;s soccer.&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For more information about this project please contact Tony Jennison, associate director of philanthropic giving, Athletics, at 651-696-6269 or <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">jennison@macalester.edu<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Athletic field to be renamed in honor of John Leaney<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18665,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18660"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30833,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18660\/revisions\/30833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}