Family business booming for Klingmans

There are families that grow up dreaming of being athletes, the pursuit of that kind of greatness dominating their lives. They train. They practice. They play. Then they do it all over again, driving miles to find batting cages or ice time, looking desperately for just the right seven-on-seven tournaments or AAU basketball situations to suit their needs.

It's not that someone like Colin Klingman didn't dream of that, didn't push for that type of athletic success, wouldn't have sought that multi-million-dollar career in soccer if the opportunity presented itself.

It's just that, he always had a different idea of what a career in athletics could be. And, maybe, should be.

Go figure.

Klingman might not have grown up aiming for a career in the NBA or the English Premier League, but when the 26-year-old got hired earlier this month as the head men's soccer coach at his alma mater, Ursinus College in the Philadelphia suburbs, it completed a hard fought-for journey into the career he always knew he wanted to enter.

Building teams. Then, leading them to new heights.

"I had a good experience here, but I want to make it the experience better for the current student-athletes," Klingman said. "For me, it's like a full-circle moment."

In more ways than one, in fact.

Colin becomes the latest in a long line of Klingman family members to become a college head coach. Their story is pretty well known around here, but to refresh:

* Colin is the son of Steve Klingman, the legendary former head men's soccer coach at the University of Scranton for a 22-year stretch that started in 1973.

* His mother, Deanna, is as at least big an icon at Scranton thanks to her time as a basketball player. But she also was interim head coach of the Lady Royals in 2014 and, for a handful of seasons earlier in her career, led the women's program at Keystone. Now, she's one of the area's top high school coaches, leading the girls team at Abington Heights.

* His brother, Justin, is not a University of Scranton legend, but he did lead a team that beat the Royals twice last season during his first year as head men's basketball coach at Goucher College.

Try to think of another family, anywhere, for which calling of coaching became such a passion that four of its members became head coaches at the college level.

When Justin heard that Colin pushed the family total to four head coaches earlier this month, he said he didn't feel any sense of surprise. He and Colin lived together in Washington D.C. for a while a few years back as he worked as a top assistant hoops coach at Catholic University and Colin, fresh out of college, began coaching youth soccer programs there. He knew that it takes a certain amount of courage for athletic directors to bring on a first-time head coach, but he also knew how Colin would present himself, clearly and with drive.

These are conversations, he said, the family had together around the dinner table since before they were teenagers.

"It was one of those things where, we all grew up at the University of Scranton," Justin said. "We were just kind of always around it, and that can go both ways. You get to see what coaching is, for what it is, and Colin and I definitely gravitated toward that.

"Just being around our parents, seeing the relationships they had with their alumni, kind of the lives they've impacted; It was always 'What is he doing now?' or 'What is she doing?' or 'How's this family doing?' It was just really cool to be able to get to grow up around that kind of environment and then get to throw yourself into it."

When Justin talks about what made his first season at Goucher a success in 2023-24, he mentions building a new culture, seeing players working tirelessly in the gym, watching them build bonds off the court that restored pride in a program that won just 16 games in its previous five seasons.

When Colin talks about what he wants to accomplish at Ursinus, there aren't many differences: He never mentions winning a lot of games, because he knows from so many of those dinner conversations with mom and dad that wins are a product of doing everything else the right way. Even though everyone wants to win, and even though his parents won (and still win) relentlessly.

The family business, he knows from his parents, is more about mentorship than celebrating Ws.

"I love the game, and I love soccer," Colin Klingman said. "But for me, I want to help young adults grow into their careers. I kind of want to help them throughout their whole lives. That's why I want to coach.

"It's all about challenging people, and how you treat people. I've obviously noticed their coaching philosophy and their styles and who they are as people. They naturally care about people, and I think that's the biggest thing in mentorship, truly caring about the people you work with. For me, I know I'm going to truly challenge our players, and challenge them as people, but I really want to be someone they can look up to."

Not a bad motto for the family business.