Joe Webb was a high school football player who had never seen a soccer ball until some friends happened by with one.

“They said they were going to practice and I went with them and watched,” the 62-year-old Mountain Brook boys soccer coach said. “All these years later, I’m still with it.”

Webb’s love affair with soccer – that became an actual love affair – has spanned generations at his home and in the homes of countless young people he has coached in 29 years at Mountain Brook High School plus a year and a half at his alma mater, Huffman High.

The coach’s wife of 28 years, Christa, is the daughter of his mentor – legendary coach Ray Woodard, who brought the sport to Alabama at Indian Springs School. Woodard, known as the “Father of soccer in Alabama,” amassed a 396-228-70 record from 1963-2000 with his early teams playing primarily an out-of-state schedule as the Alabama High School Athletic Association didn’t begin its championship program until 19991.

Christa Webb played on Huntingdon College’s first soccer team, the coach said, and coached at John Carroll from 1995-97 and Pelham from 1999-2000. The couple’s oldest son, Jason, played at Huntingdon for a year before returning home to finish his career at Birmingham-Southern College.

The elder Webb, after starting soccer on the team at Huffman as a sophomore, went on to Birmingham-Southern where he scored the winning goal in another legend’s first game – coach Preston Goldfarb. Jason became the first – and last – men’s legacy soccer player at BSC, although Webb said there was a former men’s player who had a daughter on the women’s team.

On Thursday with a 2-1 win over Dothan in the Wiregrass Cup at the Westgate Soccer Complex, Webb’s 2025 team gave him his 500th victory with the Spartans. His career record of 520-210-58 is second only to Vestavia Hills’ Rick Grammer’s 633-158-50 mark as tops in the state. Grammer (another Huffman High graduate) ranks 14th in all-time wins in the nation, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations’ record book latest update following the 2021 season. Webb was No. 24 – ninth among active coaches – coming into this season.

‘You have a sister?’

And while soccer is easily the No. 1 sport for Webb, it’s not the only one. “I’m also an assistant wrestling coach,” he said. “I never put a singlet on one time in my life, but I can coach kids. Several (wrestling) coaches ago they needed help and I said, ‘I’m a fast learner.’ Twenty-something years later, I’m still at it.

“I’ve coached volleyball and I loved that experience. I coached flag football this past fall and that was a lot of fun. I’m really glad there’s another venue for girls to show what they can do athletically. Our season was not great, but we had fun. I told them at the start that we’re going to have fun and we’re going to get better. I think we did.”

After discovering soccer and starting his playing career as a sophomore at Huffman, Webb was drawn to also be a teacher. As a junior for the Vikings, he started coaching a youth team and a couple weeks after he became a coach, a referee named Otto Mueller – who became another mentor – suggested he also add officiating to his resume.

“He said I ought to be a referee and as a player you can learn what you can get away with,” Webb said. “That was brilliant. It turns out that I enjoy refereeing. I like to try to teach people the game and I can do that as a referee.”

But, back to Webb’s origin story and the Woodard family.

“We played Indian Springs my sophomore year and they beat us like a dog,” he said. “After the game I asked Ray Woodard if he’d give me a lesson. That summer, I drove out there a few times a week for lessons. He wouldn’t let me pay him, but he was addicted to Mountain Dew. So, I’d always take him a Mountain Dew.

“There was a kid out there running around and it turns out it was my now brother-in-law, Eric. The kid and I became friends. Years later, we were talking and he said something about sisters. ‘You have a sister?’ I had no clue. Then, I married one.”

Webb and his brother-in-law – who coached soccer at Pelham, Homewood, Indian Springs (where he led the team to the state championship game, falling on penalty kicks) and John Carroll – once acted as co-coaches at Indian Springs when they were head coaches at Mountain Brook and Homewood. “Ray had a stroke in the van on the way back from a first-round playoff game,” Webb said. “Eric and I co-coached Indian Springs in the second-round game that year, which we won. They lost in the next round, but we got him through that next game.”

Woodard died on July 16, 2009, after suffering multiple health issues from the 1997 stroke. An obituary for the coach said he had led Indian Springs to numerous unsanctioned state championships in a time when the team played mostly teams in Georgia and Tennessee. When the school won its first boys title in 2008, Woodard was watching from his wheelchair on the sidelines – and the players ran to his side at game’s end.

Webb said he also counts his father, the late John “Buddy” Webb, as a strong influence on his career. “His name was John, but if you called him that nobody knew who you were talking about. He was Buddy.

“He was my best friend and it crushed me when he passed. His quiet observations were just brilliant. Dad was an English teacher at Phillips for many years. He never played soccer in his life, but he was a great sounding board after games for what went well or didn’t.”

Webb’s first high school coaching job was at his alma mater, when he was asked to take over when the school’s coach left at the last moment.

‘If I had a superpower’

Webb counts his daughter, Loryn, as his biggest fan. The 25-year-old has Down syndrome and her father said she played soccer for a year in her younger days, but preferred watching his teams play.

“When she was younger, it didn’t matter what was going on, she’d walk over and give me a hug,” he said. “She came up at halftime of one game, I don’t know who we were playing or what the score was, but I was not happy and I was lighting the guys up. She’s about 12 and she pushes her way into the huddle and I’m still lighting them up. She says, ‘I love you, Daddy.’ It was deathly silent for about five or 10 seconds – and she walked away. Nobody is saying a word. Then I say, ‘Y’all go out there and straighten it out!’

“I don’t have a clue who won that game.”

Webb said Loryn has a regular spot on the field where she sits to watch.

“It’s amazing. If I had a superpower, I’d love to live in her brain for a day. If there is a happier or more caring girl in the world, I haven’t met her. She loves everybody. Only one time we heard her say, ‘That person is not very nice.’ We decided that really must not be a very nice person.”

Giving back

Like his father-in-law, Webb continues to promote the sport that has grown into one of the most popular in the state. Several years ago, he took over the AHSAA soccer coaches’ weekly polls from another coach who had used his expertise to rank the entire state. Webb agreed to take the responsibility if statewide coaches would start sending in their top 10 choices for him to tabulate and distribute.

The coach, who once traveled the South with Woodard for coaching clinics and continues to serve as a referee, now is called upon by many of his peers to conduct clinics to help teams – sometimes even those that have a regular opponent.

“Every bit of success I’ve had here or anywhere, somewhere, sometime in the past somebody has helped me,” Webb said. “I say that all the time. My job is to pass it on.

“I’ve been out to Huffman three times to do clinics for them. I don’t remember where I met their coach, but I told him if he needed anything to just call. He called and asked if I would help. I took my youngest son (22-year-old Ryan) with me because I can’t do demos like I used to. We had a great time.

“Woodlawn is another team we’ve played once already because they are an area opponent. They have a great group of kids.”

A tradition of excellence

Webb’s 2022 team won the state championship after his 2009 team finished as the state runner-up and the 2018 team was third. Four of his players have been named the Alabama Gatorade Boys Soccer Player of the Year.

He was named the United Soccer Coaches Association and NFHS State and Region III Coach of the Year in 2022. In 2021, he won the AHSAA’s Making a Difference Award for Class 6A. The USCA named him the High School Coach of Significance for Alabama in 2020 and he was the winning coach for the North-South All-Star game in 2007, 2013 and 2019.

How has Webb been able to pile up season after season of success at Mountain Brook?

“Winning 500 at Mountain Brook proves I’ve been around a long time,” said Webb. “That’s about all it proves. I love to do numbers, but numbers are just numbers.

“The kids and the community here,” he said, “it’s just what they do. The community is what it is. Yeah, it’s very successful financially and all that, but what is it about a person that makes them become successful? Our school has won 199 state championships in various sports because the community supports us.

“What is it you need to be successful? Boom. They make it happen.”

He praised the school gymnasium that can be used as indoor practice facilities, the turf baseball and softball fields and football stadium with its Jumbotron. “We did an outdoor wrestling event and showed it live on the Jumbotron,” Webb said.

Webb said despite having a knee creaky from three surgeries, there’s nothing he’d rather be doing than teaching the sport, mentoring young referees and coaches.

“I was in my 50s when I finally stopped playing,” he said. “I was just talking to another teacher and I told them I don’t plan on going anywhere. I still love what I do. How many people can say that?”