Joe Veal begins his fourteenth year leading the men's soccer program at Aquinas College. In 2011 Veal became the winningest coach in Aquinas history and in 2012 achieved his 100th win as an Aquinas coach and his 200th win as a College coach.
Coach Veal now has a 167-75-18 overall record at Aquinas and a 85-37-11 record in conference games at Aquinas. In 25 years of college coaching Veal has an overall record of 270-192-36 which places him as the 11th winningest active coach in the NAIA.
In his 13 years at the helm of the program the Saints have won the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) regular season championship 3 times in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and the WHAC tournament three times, in 1996 and 2007, and 2012.
He credits the success of the program to the influence of his Assistant Coaches during those years. “Matt Roberts, Tony Rowe, Levi Swaney, Brian McKeough, Chad DuRussel, Rodger Garner, Tony Deakin, Ty Vander Poel, are all former players who love the game of soccer and love Aquinas and worked very hard to maintain a program of excellence.”
After playing high school football, Veal took up the game of soccer. From that point on, he has never looked back and soccer has been a big part of his life. Upon graduation, Veal continued his education and playing career at Bethel College in Mishawaka, IN. He was a four year varsity player on the men's soccer team and was selected as a team captain his junior and senior seasons. He also garnered All-District recognition his junior year. Veal completed his education at Bethel College and graduated with a triple major in Biblical Literature, Health and Physical Education. Initially Veal coached High School for 5 years while completing his Master’s Degree at Indiana University. He then started his college coaching career at Bethel College.
After 3 years at Bethel, Veal was ready for a new challenge and he was selected as the first head coach at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, IUPUI, for two seasons. He was named district coach of the year one of those years.
Veal then moved to Grand Rapids, MI where for the next seven years he was an Assistant Professor and head soccer coach at WHAC rival Cornerstone University. The Golden Eagles won a conference championship under Veal's leadership in 1993.
In 1996 Veal joined the Aquinas College Saints program in a co-coaching position with Coach Pat Hoatlin. The Saints won the WHAC tournament that season. After coaching 9 years at Rockford High School Veal became the Men's soccer coach at Aquinas in 2005.
Veal has a strong conviction regarding developing a servant leader mentality in his players. He explains, “One of the five NAIA Champions of Character traits is servant leadership. Jesus was the ultimate role model of servant leadership. The original Saints, the disciples, at first sought to be the greatest among each other and Jesus taught them otherwise when He said, “just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:26-28)
Joe Veal is married to Sylvia and they have four adult children, two sons and two daughters.
