Rob Blake returns for his third year as head coach of the Lakeland women’s soccer team.
The Muskies showed more improvement in his second year, posting a 6-11-2 overall record and finishing 2-8-1 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference. The six wins were the most by a Lakeland women’s soccer team since 2008, and the team’s 3-1-1 start was the Muskies’ best through five games since 2001.
In his first season in 2017, Blake paced the Muskies to a 5-13 overall record, including 1-9 in the NACC. The five wins were tied for the most by a Lakeland team in the last 10 years, and the Muskies also posted a 5-4 record in their first season playing at Taylor Memorial Field.
Blake came to Lakeland from Black Hills State University, where he was the first head women’s soccer coach at the NCAA Division II school in Spearfish. S.D. He also worked as a coach and staff member with the Olympic Development Program for the region covering Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and was president/director of coaching for the Spearfish Soccer Association.
Before moving west, Blake was head varsity girls soccer coach at Greenfield High School (Wis.) and head women’s soccer coach at Milwaukee Area Technical College. Blake’s Greenfield teams won two regional championships.
Blake is a 2008 graduate of Cardinal Stritch University, where he received a bachelor of science degree in business. After graduation, he served as assistant head men's soccer coach and head women's soccer coach.
He began his coaching career in Grimsby, England, where he coached boys’ club soccer. In 2004, he left England for Cardinal Stritch, where he was a member of the nationally ranked Wolves program in his four years of action. In 2007, he helped the program become the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference runners-up.
He also has experience in club soccer, first with the Whitefish Bay Soccer Club from 2009-12 and then with the Fusion Soccer Club from 2012-14.
He played club soccer in Grimsby before ascending to the semi-professional level with Cleethorpes Community FC. He had two professional soccer tryouts before coming to the U.S.
Blake owns a United States Soccer Federation National C License along with an F.A Level One Coaching License, F.A. Level Two Coaching License and FMA Coaching Certification.
