In the waning stages of summer, Dan and Nancy McLaughlin drive from their home in Navarre Beach, Florida, to Indiana to experience approximately three months of apartment living.
Not coincidentally, the extended road trip overlaps with the high school soccer season.
Dan, in his third season as an assistant girls coach at Whiteland, is never put in the uncomfortable position of competing against the second of his three children. Jameson McLaughlin is Center Grove’s boys soccer coach.
Same sport. Different gigs. No shortage of quality family time.
“It works out. It’s just wonderful,” said Dan McLaughlin, 70, who a few years back helped make temporary living quarters out of what had previously been office space located no more than a corner kick from the residence that Jameson occupies with his wife, Katie, and their three children.
“I am really blessed that I am close to all three of my children, and that all three of the kids are really close.”
Dan and Nancy celebrate their 40th anniversary on Sept. 19. His first wife, Debbie, the mother of his three adult children, is close friends with Nancy. Moreover, the kids, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild all live in the Indianapolis area.
Blessed indeed.
Soccer has long played a significant role in the relationship Dan enjoys with his children.
“My dad, my brother (Danny), my sister (Amanda), we always played soccer around our house growing up,” said Jameson, 45. “My dad always made me play with my brother, who is five years older than me. It’s the only sport I played growing up. All my friends played, so that’s kind of who I grew up with.
“I thought about playing football one time. I think I went to one summer event.”
The continuous motion of soccer was preferred by Jameson. He started playing when he was 4 and the family lived in Speedway.
His mother was his first soccer coach.
All of Dan and Debbie’s kids eventually played soccer at and graduated from Center Grove — Danny in 1989, Jameson in 1994 and Amanda in 1996.
Dan McLaughlin, a Southsider himself (Southport, Class of 1969), has coached girls soccer teams at Center Grove and Southport, with another stint at Steilacoom High School in Washington state, where he was both boys and girls coach.
His introduction into coaching took place years earlier.
“I was 30 years old when I started,” said Dan, referring to the 1981-82 school year. “Danny was 10, and he came home from school one day with a sign-up for soccer. I filled out the form, and I put on there that I would help coach. Two weeks later, I got a call and they said, ‘Your team is this, this is your roster and here are the nights you practice’.
“I said who’s the coach, and they said, ‘You are.’”
Dan McLaughlin rounded up as many soccer books as he could and watched VHS tapes on the sport, basically absorbing as much information as possible.
The elder McLaughlin liked being around people, the sense of leading a team and helping players grow both on and off the field. Like his children years later, the constant action once the first whistle blew appealed to Dan.
Dan tells the story of how his father once took him, Danny and Jameson to an Indianapolis Indians game at old Bush Stadium when the boys were young.
By the third inning, the brothers were asking when they could leave.
Dan McLaughlin led Center Grove girls soccer for 12 seasons (1991-2002), claiming the first eight of the program’s state-leading 23 sectional titles. His 1997 squad made it to the state championship match, losing to Carmel, 3-0, at Kuntz Stadium in Indianapolis.
It is the deepest postseason run by any Center Grove girls soccer squad; Jameson holds that same distinction on the boys side.
In 2015, Jameson’s first season, the Trojans captured the Class 2A crown by knocking off West Lafayette Harrison, 4-0, in the finale at IUPUI. It remains the boys’ lone appearance in a state final.
Prior to the 2019 season, Whiteland hired Nick Magdalinos to be the girls soccer coach. One of his first phone calls was to Dan McLaughlin, who the coach reasoned was the ideal assistant as long as McLaughlin was willing to sacrifice a few months of Florida weather each year.
“Dan brings a wealth of experience, knowledge and fun to our program,” Magdalinos said. “When I was contemplating getting back into coaching, he told me that he would come help me, and here we are.”
Similarities in coaching style do exist between father and son, though there are differences, too.
“I’m a social person like him. I just like being around people and love being part of a team,” said Jameson, a claims team manager at Liberty Mutual Insurance for the past 17 years. “We’re both analytical. While he does have more patience than me … I would say I’m hypercompetitive.
“My dad has taken over some programs that were not winning programs that I know I couldn’t do it. But he’s turned them around.”
Best of all, when it comes to all things soccer, both McLaughlins know a reliable sounding board is only a short distance away, no matter who’s doing the asking.
