Soccer Head Coach

Coach Tom Noonan returns for his fourth year at Lincoln Land Community College.

Coach Noonan grew up in Springfield and played soccer for Springfield High School.  He played sweeper his junior year and led the city in scoring his senior year as a forward.  He still holds a share of the school record for most goals scored in one game (5).  He played soccer at DePauw University where he was a 4 year letterman.

After graduating, Tom was an assistant soccer coach at Springfield High School for 5 years.  He was a head coach for the CIYSL Olympic Development Program (ODP) and for the Prairie State Games.

He coached 3 USYSA Competitive Club teams.  One of those teams - the Springfield Strikers- was

the U15 State Cup Champion.

Tom coached Springfield College in Illinois for 5 years (1994-1998).  In his 5 years, SCI won 4

NJCAA Region 24 Championships and advanced to NJCAA National Tournament twice.  The team was nationally ranked every year and was ranked as high as #5 in the nation.  He was named Region 24 Coach of the Year in 1994 and coached 5 All-Americans.

Coach Noonan holds an Advanced National Diploma from the National Soccer Coaches Association of

America (NSCAA).  He has been an instructor at the Aydin Gonulsen Soccer Academy and the University of  Notre Dame’s Youth Soccer Camp.

Assistant Coaches

T.J. Mabie,Rene Troppa and Jason Vlcek

T.J. returns in 2009 for his seventh season as an assistant coach for the LLCC Men’s Soccer Team.  T.J. began his soccer career by playing 10 years of club soccer for the Springfield Magic and Springfield Strikers.  He also was a two-year member of the Illinois Olympic Development State Team.  T.J. attended SoutheastHigh School where he was a varsity player all four years and was named All-Sectional in his Junior and Senior years and All-Conference all four years.  He was the team’s leading scorer his senior year.  T.J. also was a two-year member of the Soccer World High School All-Star team.

After high school, T.J. attended SpringfieldCollege in Illinois where he was a member of the 1998 third place team at the National Soccer Tournament in New Jersey.  He attended LincolnLand his sophomore year, where he was a captain and a member of the 2000 Collegiate Conference of Central Illinois Championship Team.  T.J. finished his Junior and Senior years of college at the University of Illinois at Springfield where, in his senior year, he participated in the national tournament in Bowling Green, KY.

René Troppa was born and raised in Berlin, Germany. The son of a professional soccer player, Troppa began playing soccer at age 5 for BFC Dynamo - which later became FC Berlin after the fall of The Wall in 1989 - and attended the Werner Seelenbinder School of Sport. In 1995, Troppa came to Springfield as a foreign exchange student. He played only five games for LanphierHigh School under the coaching of Patrick Phillips before an injury sidelined him for the season. In his five-game high school career, Troppa scored five goals and had five assists, which caught the eye of then-SCI men’s soccer coach, Tom Noonan. Troppa received a full soccer scholarship to SCI where he scored a total of 15 goals and had 29 assists during his two years on the team. He was also honored as an NSCAA First Team All-American player and was named to the NJCAA All-Region 24 Team. Troppa then received a full soccer scholarship to UIS, where he played under Aydin Gonulsen. Troppa scored nine goals and had 19 assists during his two years on the team. Over the past five years, Troppa has played for several elite men’s league teams in Milwaukee, WI and Columbus, OH, and has been coaching youth and competitive soccer since 1999. He is a trainer for the Springfield Area Soccer Association (SASA).