The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Longtime Gilmour coach Teisl mourned
Gilmour and the area high school soccer community is mourning the loss of Tiho Teisl, pictured in 1975, who died Dec. 12 at age 69. Teisl served 30 years as Lancers’ boys soccer coach.
The collective heart at Gilmour — and in area high school soccer — is heavy and will be for the foreseeable future after the loss of a community institution.
Tiho Teisl, who served as the Lancers’ boys soccer coach from 1974 to 2003 and was a beloved staff member at the school for 45 years, died Dec. 12 after a brave battle with thyroid cancer. He was 69.
For current Gilmour boys coach Joe Ciuni Sr., much of his life story has been intertwined with Teisl.
A 1977 Gilmour graduate, Ciuni Sr. played for Teisl, and his sons Joe Jr., now the Lancers’ girls coach, and Tom also played for Teisl toward the end of his tenure.
“He had been a friend for over 40 years,” Ciuni Sr. said. “He was my coach, and that was kind of the relationship — I cherished it. I always called him Coach. We were friends and became good friends.
“And the school is going to miss him — there is no question about it.”
Teisl was born in Rome to Slovenian parents before his family emigrated to Argentina and later to the United States. He was a 1967 St. Ignatius graduate and a four-year letterman as a defender and midfielder at Cleveland State, including earning honorable mention all-Ohio as a senior in 1970.
He started at Gilmour in 1972 as a varsity assistant and junior varsity soccer coach before taking over as head coach when Ciuni Sr. was a sophomore for the Lancers in the fall of 1974.
“He taught us to love the game,” Ciuni Sr. said. “I always wanted to go to practice. I didn’t dread going to practice because he made it fun for us. And that’s because of his passion for the game.”
In addition to serving as boys soccer coach for three decades, Teisl was a longtime dean of students and Spanish teacher at Gilmour.
“He was a unique person, but he was the same with everybody,” Ciuni Jr. said. “A lot of people call him stern but fair, and I think that’s a good way to describe him. He didn’t treat anyone differently. He expected a lot out of everyone. He pushed everyone to be their best. He was able to deal with boys and girls, people of different generations — it didn’t matter. He was able to have a huge impact on them.”
Teisl won 246 matches over his 30 seasons at Gilmour and was the 1990 recipient of the Ohio Scholastic Soccer Coaches Association’s Ron Pischenbaum Award.
Ciuni Sr. didn’t entertain the idea of coaching at the high school level until 2008, when Teisl and others approached him to guide the Gilmour girls program after the previous coach had resigned just before the season
began. Ciuni Sr. had been a youth coach with Gesu and Eastside Kickers.
When Ciuni Sr. expressed his concerns about how his coaching would translate to the high school level, Teisl told him, “Don’t worry — I’ll be there to help you.”
West Geauga boys coach Mario Gerhardt, Ohio’s alltime winningest coach, first got to know Teisl in the 1970s at Hawken camps and — when regulations were less restrictive on soccer — summer matches at University in which coaches would officiate. Gerhardt said Teisl mailed him notes to signify milestones in his career.
“I think pretty much everyone on Facebook said it — the kind of guy he was, how friendly he was, how nice he was,” Gerhardt said. “You’d run into him, always shake the hands or a hug. I mean, that was Tiho.
“On the sidelines, we’d sometimes just watch the games instead of being across from each other. We were next to each other, where we really should be in my opinion. And we would watch the game. We didn’t yell at the players as to what to do. We’d talk to each other and we’d laugh at each other and the mistakes
that they made and the good stuff they made. I supported him. He supported us. I think he did that with pretty much all of the teams and coaches.”
Ciuni Sr. moved over to guide the Lancers’ boys prior to the 2016 season, with Ciuni Jr. taking over the girls side and leading them to the Division III state championship.
Teisl was a fixture long after his coaching tenure concluded, serving as soccer public-address announcer and a de facto consultant for both Ciunis when asked. After his diagnosis, Teisl was unable to make it to matches regularly. But transported by his son and placed by the bench in a wheelchair, Teisl did make it to the Lancers’ 2-1 Division II boys sectional final win Oct. 21 at Geneva.
“As a player and then as a coach, I leaned on him many times to help me — and at times, with non-soccer stuff as well,” Ciuni Jr. said. “He always listened well and was able to give good advice as well.
“I think he was able to impact so many people because, again, he listened to them, but also he was able to see through any front
they would put up and connect with the real person inside and make a connection with them that way.”
Teisl is survived by his father, two sisters, three sons and six grandchildren.
His wake will be Dec 15 from 3 to 8 p.m. at Gilmour, followed by a mass Dec. 16 at St. Francis of Assisi in Gates Mills at 10 a.m.
“Just the past couple of days, as I’ve seen all of the tributes and remembrances that have come in from people all over the place, the amount of people that he has had an impact on and an effect on is huge,” Ciuni Jr. said. “And most of them end up saying in some capacity, ‘When I think of Gilmour, Tiho is one of the first things I think about.’
“When you’re there at an institution for that long — as you’re as special a person as he is — you’re going to become synonymous almost with that institution. And Tiho definitely is. When you think Gilmour, you think Tiho Teisl.”
For more on Teisl, looking at his charity work in Honduras, read Chris Lillstrung’s prep column Dec. 19 online and in the Dec. 20 print edition.