Gary Mayrwieser, a Kentucky soccer coaching legend at Tates Creek, dies at 83

Just last week, Lexington was host to Kentucky’s high school soccer state championships.

Many of the players on Henry Clay’s state champion boys team and Lexington Catholic’s state runner-up girls squad were products of a robust youth soccer program in Central Kentucky.

Lexington, of course, is also home to professional men’s and women’s soccer franchises at Lexington Sporting Club.

None of this would have been possible without the sport’s pioneers in this part of the state.

And few of those pioneers were more influential than Gerhard Ferdinand “Gary” Mayrwieser, who arrived in the United States from Germany in 1951 and led Tates Creek High School to five boys soccer state championships in the 1970s and ‘80s.

Mayrwieser, who coached Tates Creek for 16 years before stepping down in 1991, died last week at age 83.

“I really think he established soccer in this area, if you look back since soccer became a varsity sport,” then-Montgomery County coach Jeff Lendon told the Herald-Leader upon Mayrwieser’s retirement.

“He always got the most out of his players even when he didn’t have much talent,” then-Lexington Catholic coach Bob Pugh said at the time. “He is one of the most respected coaches in the state.”

Mayrwieser left Tates Creek with 259 career victories which, at the time, was a state record.

In 1993, Mayrwieser was inducted into the Kentucky High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

Among the players Mayrwieser coached was longtime NFL place-kicker David Akers, who got his start playing soccer for Tates Creek.

“I remember he had a powerful left foot,” Mayrwieser said after Akers became an NFL star. “He had the hardest shot of any soccer player we ever had.”

Mayrwieser led the Commodores to state soccer championships in 1978, ‘79, ‘80, ‘85 and ‘88, while also undergoing treatments for cancer.

His 1988 team had a then-state-record 15 shutouts on their way to a 23-2-1 record.

Mayrwieser came to America from Germany — where he was a fan of Bayern Munich — when he was 10 years old in 1951. Soccer was a little-played sport in America at the time, so he turned to football and basketball.

It wasn’t until Mayrwieser served in the Air Force from 1961 to 1965 that he was able to again watch soccer in Germany as a spectator. He returned to the States, graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1969 and began teaching German at Tates Creek. In 1976, he took over the school’s 2-year-old soccer program.

Mayrwieser was also known for introducing the team’s goat mascot, Oscar, and remembered for coaching a state championship table tennis team at Tates Creek.

“He was like a big brother; he took me in and helped me to get my start,” former Henry Clay coach Hossein Hosseini said upon Mayrwieser’s retirement. “He is a super human being.”

Mayrwieser is survived by his wife of 62 years, Judith, along with his son and daughter and several grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The family will schedule a Celebration of Life in the near future.