The 2011-12 season will be the 44th (1968-present) as head coach of the Forester handball program for Mike Dau '58.

Dau, a member of both the Lake Forest College Athletic and U.S. Handball Association (USHA) Hall of Fames, has led the Foresters to 39 total national championships. The Foresters title run began in 1971 and included a streak of seven straight national championships from 1978 to 1984. Lake Forest has claimed men's, women's, and combined championships nine times each in the last 14 years and have finished no worse than third in any of the team standings since 1996.

The Foresters claimed the men's, women's, and combined team championships at the 2011 USHA Collegiate Championships, joining the 2001, 2005, 2009, and 2010 squads as the only five in program history to win all three titles.

Five Foresters earned Handball All-America honors in 2011. Nikolai Nahorniak repeated as both Open Singles and Open Doubles champion. He defeated teammate Victor Perez in the singles final and the pair claimed the doubles title with a victory over fellow Foresters Pat Jarvis and Isaac Acosta. Acosta also reached the Open Singles semifinals before falling to Nahorniak. On the women's side, Sandy Ng was the Open Singles runner-up. Under Dau's direction, 66 players have been named All-America a total of 166 times with a combined 46 Open Singles and Open Doubles collegiate national championships.

While an undergraduate at Lake Forest, Dau earned varsity letters in track and football, was selected team Most Valuable Player of the 1957 College Conference of Illinois Championship squad, and received First Team Collegiate All-State (Peoria Journal Star) recognition and All-America honors. After graduating from Lake Forest in 1958, Dau entered the Marine Corps Officer Candidate program, played football again in 1959, earning All-Marine honors and served as an assistant coach for the 1960 and '61 seasons. He returned to Lake Forest College as an assistant football coach in 1962, coached at Carmel High School (IL) in 1963 and returned to Lake Forest in 1964, assisting in football and basketball. Dau was named head football coach in 1966 and served in that capacity until 1991. He has also served as baseball coach and athletic director.

With the completion of the Sports Center in 1968, handball was added to the athletic program and Dau was appointed the team's first head coach. A tournament player himself, Dau has won numerous local singles championships, advanced to the national Masters Doubles finals in 1980 and, at the age of 56, won the United States Marine Corps Open Doubles championship with his son, Perry. He currently serves as chairman of the USHA Hall of Fame committee and secretary of the Illinois Handball Association. 

A social area in Halas Hall called the Dau Room was dedicated in his honor in 2001, shortly after the building's renovation.

Coach Dau and his wife, Paula, also a 1958 graduate of Lake Forest College, reside in Lake Forest, Illinois.