In some ways, GCU Men’s Club Soccer came full circle when Luke Pilarski arrived on the GCU campus last August to become the next head coach of the team. Why? Because Pilarski is a valued disciple of the man who helped start the club soccer program a decade ago, Lance Thompson, and was referred to the Lopes by Thompson himself this past summer while club sports personnel were in Hawaii conducting clinics.
While 2025-26 was Pilarski’s first year as a college head coach, Luke has been feverishly adding to his coaching resume’ ever since finishing college in 2020. Pilarski’s coaching stops have already included the NCAA Division II (Missouri Western State University as a grad assistant in 2019), NAIA (the next two years at Warner Pacific University as an assistant) and Division III levels (Whitman College as an assistant in 2023) and as well as two high schools (Lincoln High in his native Portland, Oregon in 2020-21 and as Thompson’s assistant last season at Campbell High School in Ewa Beach, Hawaii). Pilarski has also been a head coach twice on the youth soccer level, overseeing young proteges at Portland’s United PDX Soccer Club for four years, then spending a year in Gresham, Oregon, working with the Eastside Timbers. Finally, while helping at Campbell High School, Pilarski has spent much of the past two years as the Director of Coaching at BVB Academy in Hawaii.
Pilarski graduated with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration in Sports Marketing from Portland State University. Luke also has his “C” coaching license from the United States Soccer Federation and his certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine as a personal trainer.
