High school soccer: Waterford coach leaving for teaching job in Switzerland

SANDY — Nearly three decades ago, Bob Capener was in the midst of his second professional career as a business consultant in the health care industry.

He didn't particularly enjoy what he was doing, and he wasn't sure he wanted to continue doing it.

Through some of his church associations, he came in contact with the daughter of the founder of the Waterford School, and when an opening in the school became available, Capener pursued it, opting to move from Boston back to Utah.

That decision has had monumental consequences for the Waterford School and for the entire soccer community in the state of Utah.

In both instances, those consequences have been overwhelmingly positive.

A teacher in the classroom and a head coach on the soccer pitch, Capener has devoted himself to Waterford over the past 28 years, and it's pretty difficult to overstate what he's accomplished in both arenas.

Capener has been an instrumental figure in Waterford's upper school, and on the soccer pitch, he's taken the tiny private school in Sandy to pretty epic heights. Known as a guy who, more than anyone, has done more with less, Capener has enjoyed tremendous success while doing so with the utmost dignity and class.

But now it's nearly time for him to say "goodbye" to Waterford and to Utah.

Capener has accepted a teaching position at the American School in Switzerland in Lugano, Switzerland, so this spring represents his last hurrah as a teacher and coach at Waterford.

Waterford assistant coach Kent Hercules, who's been with Capener for most of the past two decades, says the thing that sets Capener apart is his ability to make the sum greater than its parts.

"I've just never seen anyone better than Bob Capener at making sure that a whole group knows what the group is aiming for," says Hercules. "They all learn their role in a way that I've never seen exceeded. I've coached 18 years of basketball at this school; I've coached 21 years of soccer between here and Lehi — plus club coaching and all the sports I've played in my life — and I've never seen a better coach than him.

"It's not that he knows more soccer than everyone else, although his soccer knowledge is vast. It's not just in his ability to manage and motivate people, although he's very good at that. He has a clear vision of what we're going after, and he gets everyone on the same page and he teaches them their role."