If you think soccer is a game for wimps, you haven't met John Basalyga.

The Queens, N.Y.-born hockey defenseman and baseball catcher - who is now coach of the No.1-ranked Northern Kentucky University men's soccer team - began his coaching career in football, at Greenhills High School.

He's never let a lack of organized playing experience in a sport keep him from coaching it, though.

He played only a year of soccer, as a goalie. His organized football-playing experience? One year playing quarterback in high school.

But Basalyga has been playing - and coaching - sports for as long as he can remember. In New York City, he and a fellow 13-year-old co-founded, co-financed (with fundraisers) and co-coached their neighborhood roller hockey team.

"We were like the Young Rascals," said Basalyga, a 1973 graduate of Bowling Green University. "In our neighborhood, we had teams in all sports - but hockey was the most fun. Before the season started, we walked into a group of adults holding a hockey meeting and they said, 'Whaddaya want?' We said, 'We're here to play hockey.' They couldn't believe it. But we ran the whole operation."

Roller hockey?

"Yeah, it's basically hockey for guys that can't ice-skate," he said.

Basalyga's NKU soccer team is 22-1 and hosts Lincoln Memorial (Tenn.) in the NCAA Division II National Quarterfinals at 1 p.m. today at Town & Country Sports Complex in Wilder.

At stake is a berth in the NCAA Division II Final Four at Orange Beach, Ala., Nov 30-Dec. 2.

Basalyga emphasizes a defense-rich philosophy that was forged on the mean streets of New York and refined in his college-playing days in baseball and hockey at Bowling Green.

"There were only two or three ice rinks in New York City when I was growing up in the early '60s," he said. "So we all played roller hockey. If you couldn't fight, you couldn't play. That was the only difference between ice hockey and roller hockey - we fought more."

So excuse "Coach Bass" if he doesn't buy your characterization of soccer as a game for Slush Puppie-eating wimps who are chauffeured to and from practice by suburban moms in their mini-vans.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it's not what Basalyga's players at NKU are about - not now, anyway.

"I've got a problem with your coaching style," an NKU player told him during Basalyga's rookie season at NKU five years ago.

Uh-oh. Not a good move.

"Coach Bass" responded by telling the fellow what he thought of somebody having such a soft upbringing in the sport that it would inspire whining to the coach.

Needless to say, the complainant isn't among the seniors who have survived Basalyga's "problematic" coaching style, which led NKU to its first-ever NCAA men's soccer tournament last year and to the top of the rankings this year. His five-year mark is 65-27-10.

At Turpin High School, Coach Bass won three state soccer championships. His teams have won three times as many games as they lost in his 24 years.

But why soccer? After all, Basalyga's career sum total of soccer-playing experience was only that one season of goalkeeping at BG, which he did just to stay in shape for baseball and hockey.

Yes, why soccer, indeed?

Simple: Hockey in high school wasn't widely available in Cincinnati back in the 1970s and 1980s.

"But, believe me, there are more similarities between hockey and soccer than I could have imagined," Basalyga said.

You better believe Basalyga has told his NKU soccer players that. Oh, has he told them.

"And he's right - I'd say 60 percent to 70 percent of soccer is just like hockey," said Dan Impellizzeri, a former multi-sport star at Anderson High who typifies Basalyga's defense-first approach.

"He's the only coach who actively recruited me (for college soccer)," Impellizzeri said.

"He knew I could do it, because he had a (multi-sport) background."

Many of Basalyga's players are from local high schools, so most of the upperclassmen at least knew of his hard-nosed reputation.

But Steven Beattie, a freshman from Dublin, Ireland, who didn't know a puck from a potato, had a lot of learning to do when he arrived in Highland Heights.

"Coach gave me a DVD of 'Miracle,'" the 2004 movie about the U.S Olympic hockey team's shocking upset of the Soviets en route to the gold medal at Lake Placid in 1980," said Beattie.

"After watching the movie, I understand Coach Bass a little better," he said. "But it's a good thing he and Kevin McCloskey (the Belfast-born pro with the Cincinnati Kings) were straight up with me when I was being recruited. They told me about all the running we'd be doing (at NKU). If they hadn't, I guarantee you I'd have been on the first plane back home once I saw it.

"I can hardly believe he's never played soccer. He's one of the best coaches I've ever had. And in Ireland, all of our coaches have played at a very high level."

Basalyga manages to keep tensions from boiling over. He has funny quips and valuable lessons from other sports that usually fit - but sometimes leave players scratching their heads.

"He uses baseball analogies a lot," said Impellizzeri, "but sometimes it's a stretch. We're pretty close to blowing it off when it comes to his baseball stories. He's always bringing up the Yankees. That's OK, though, because they haven't won it all in awhile. We give him a rough time about that."

Basalyga always gets his way. Early in practice he lines up his players for sprints so they'll be tired when scrimmaging begins - which is the way they'll feel during games.

How tough is Basalyga?

To appreciate his conditioning program, one must cue up the scene in "Miracle" where the U.S. hockey team has just skated to a disappointing tie on the road in preparation for the Olympics.

If you've seen the movie, you'll remember one word - "Again" - because of the number of times Coach Herb Brooks uses it as a signal for his assistant to blow the whistle to begin the team's gassers - short line-to-line sprints that build in length.

Again.

Again.

Again.

"Soon as I saw that scene," said Beattie, "I went, aha! There it is. There's Coach Basalyga. That's NKU soccer."

The freshmen at Lincoln Memorial will learn about it today.