"I chose to become a college coach because I did not want to miss out on the feeling of competition on Saturdays. I soon realized how rewarding the work was each week leading up to the games. I love being able to witness a student-athlete improving each and every week." - Assistant Football Coach Ted Soenksen '06

 

Ted Soenksen, who graduated from Lake Forest in 2006, is in his fourth season as the Foresters’ offensive coordinator and offensive line coach and sixth as a member of the staff. He was also promoted to associate head coach this year.

Under Soenksen’s direction, the Foresters posted the total yards and scoring averages in program history during the last two seasons with the team’s 38.6 points per game in 2016 and 452.2 yards per contest last year atop the lists. Members of the offense have also set or tied 27 other passing, rushing, receiving, scoring, or total yardage school records during his three seasons as coordinator. With 232.2 yards per game passing and 220 rushing in 2017, Lake Forest’s balanced attack included a First Team All-American running back to go with a First Team All-Midwest Conference quaterback and wide receiver. 

Eight Foresters from the offensive side of the ball earned All-MWC South honors in 2017, including First Team selection Andrew Johnson and Second Teamers Tom Steen and Ethan Sheirer on the line. Eight different Lake Forest linemen have now been named all-conference a combined 11 times in Soenksen’s six years as their position coach.

Soenksen was also on the Forester coaching staff in 2011 and in the 2012 MWC title season. He worked with offensive linemen and tight ends and helped the team set program records for points, yards, and passing yards per game.

Soenksen’s second stint as a coach at the College came after two seasons as the offensive line coach at NCAA Division II member Limestone College (Gaffney, S.C.). He has also spent two seasons as the offensive line coach and assistant special teams coordinator at Briar Cliff University in Sioux City, Iowa, as well as two years as the running backs coach and video coordinator at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri, where he also earned a master’s degree in education. His first collegiate coaching job was in 2006 at MacMurray College, where he was the offensive line and tight ends coach.

A four-year letter winner and two-year starter on the offensive line, Soenksen was part of the Foresters’ 2002 MWC championship team that made the program’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament. Lake Forest’s 28 victories during his career is still the most of any four-year run in program history and he graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Soenksen is also a 2002 graduate of Vernon Hills High School. The offensive lineman and linebacker earned all-conference and all-area honors his junior and senior seasons.

Soenksen lives in nearby Gurnee with his wife Clare.