The road to becoming an NCAA Division I college coach is never the straightest. It is usually filled with a few winding turns and a couple stops along the way.

That’s no different for Iowa State soccer Coach Tony Minatta, whose winding path to Ames, Iowa, involves a national championship game, a stint in the Marine Corps and the managing of a premier Las Vegas night club.

Minatta was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, where his coaching career would ultimately start after he graduated college, though like some college students, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do after graduating.

While in college, Minatta served in the U.S. Marine Corps where he earned a Navy Achievement Medal for his outstanding leadership while being overseas.

Upon returning to school at Colorado State, Minatta started to get into the night club scene. He then transferred from Colorado State and finished his degree in 2003 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Minatta managed a bar on the famous Las Vegas strip called Utopia, which at the time, Minnatta said, was one of the top four bars in the world.

“During my time there, 28 nightclubs [were opened] on the strip,” Minatta said. “At the time, there was only like four or five, so it goes back a few years.”

After he graduated, Minatta found himself back in Fort Collins, working as the director of coaching for what is now Arsenal Colorado.

There, Minatta was in charge of developing a curriculum to coach a multitude of national teams, with a focus on being the head coach of the U-18 girls team.

Minatta led one team to a national championship while having another that hadn’t lost a game in a year and a half.

It was evident that he had the system figured out.

“I was looking for another challenge,” Minatta said. “You get to a national final at the club level and I don’t want to say it was easy, but I always look for more challenges.”

The Fort Collins native received a call from then Iowa State coach Wendy Dillinger asking him to come aboard.

She reached out to Minatta because he had coached two players who were already on the team, and was also coaching four Iowa State commits at the time.

After two years of being an assistant, Minatta was named interim, and later, head coach of the team in December of 2013.

“I felt like this level would be the next challenge for me,” Minatta said. “I didn’t anticipate at the time becoming the head coach a year and a half later, but I’m very fortunate and very honored to have the opportunity.”

Even though he knew it would be a challenge adjusting, Minatta was confident he could turn the ship around.

“It’s different,” Minatta said. “You don’t get to actually coach as much. In club soccer, you’re training year-round. Here you are so limited to what you can do with a team, and getting them prepared has been an adjustment.”

So far, the move has proved to be the best in Iowa State program history.

“We put a lot of work into evolving and adapting,” Minatta said. “I feel like for us in year three last year when that happened, we’re doing some things that have taken others a long time to do.”

Minatta’s 2016 squad finished with a 10-8-1 record, and finished with the highest RPI in school history at 48th.

His team, which is coached to play defensive minded, also finished the season by allowing 20 goals, good enough for fifth in the conference.

“You realize that it’s a never-ending process of trying to establish yourself as one of those teams,” Minatta said. “So, you get there and then you have to stay there.”

The Cyclones remain a strongly defensive minded team under the guidance of Minatta.

That coaching style has attracted a variety of talented players that want to turn the program around.

“That was one of the main reasons I chose to come here – their coaching styles,” said Hannah Cade, sophomore in biology. “I like that he holds us to a high standard. He doesn’t let up when we get down on ourselves.”