Former Coastal Carolina soccer coach with local and global influence dies
Joel Banta heard from a number of people around the Grand Strand on Thursday.
He heard from a lot of people around the country, and from more than 100 in foreign countries after they learned of his father’s death.
“He had a global impact,” Joel said. “People from all over the world are texting me. He was a special person to so many.”
Former Coastal Carolina University men’s soccer coach Paul Banta, an owner and operator of soccer clubs on the Grand Strand who had an international reach, died Thursday at the age of 75.
Banta coached CCU for 14 seasons from 1984 to 1997. He built a quality program that joins the baseball program as the two at Coastal with the longest periods of sustained excellence.
Banta won five Big South Conference tournament championships between 1986-95, reached the NCAA tournament twice, and had a record of 166-94-13 before current coach Shaun Docking took over the program in 1998.
He held soccer camps while at CCU, then started the Coastal Futbol Club, a youth all-star travel program that turned into Coastal Soccer Club, which in turn morphed into the current Coast Futbol Alliance.
Joel Banta is a Coast FA partner and its director of coaching, and said the club had nearly 2,000 kids in the rec program and more than 25 travel teams prior to the coronavirus’ impact. It hosts soccer tournaments, including a pair in the spring that attract 400 or so teams largely from the Southeast.
Banta founded the non-profit Global Soccer Ministries International in 2001, which had a mission of teaching better coaching and Christianity and had missionaries in Jamaica, Guatemala and Romania. He authored a book entitled Coaching Soccer with Passion and Purpose in 2007.
“That’s one thing dad always did, he gave so much to other people. He was a servant,” Joel said. “The thing dad was so fond of was coaching education. He was a competitor, loved coaching games but he just loved teaching guys how to make players better both on the field and off the field.
“Of all the messages I’ve gotten today, he’s changed so many lives.”
Banta coached in Jamaica and New York in the 1970s and Illinois in the early 1980s before moving to Myrtle Beach.
“Dad’s been around the world with soccer,” said Joel, who played for his father at CCU from 1995-97. “All the players he’s brought into the country over the years, the coaches at his soccer camps, thousands of people – soccer is a universal sport.”
Banta recruited internationally at Coastal, building the team with players from areas that included Iceland, Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Eastern Europe, Central America, the Caribbean and Africa.
Banta continued to coach and travel until he had a stroke two years ago that limited his mobility.
“He was a special man,” Joel said.
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 10:08 PM.
