(Atlantic) Between cross country, baskeball, and soccer Atlantic coach Dan Vargason is heavily involved on the high school sports scene. He’s our guest on the latest edition of Why I Coach.
The Bondurant-Farrar alum was asked to help coach a youth soccer team when he was in high school and he never looked back. “I had some friends at church that got stuck coaching their kid’s soccer team. They gave me a call when I was 17 and asked if I’d help coach their under-11 girls soccer team. I thought I’d give it a try and get some community service. I realized real quickly that I really liked coaching.”
It was the “a-ha” moment that got him hooked. “Those kids never played, they knew nothing about it. That moment when it clicked and they learned how to play the game…it just felt good. I think that’s what keeps me coaching today.”
Despite being advised not to take on any coaching roles while doing his student teaching, Vargason couldn’t stay away. “I knew right away that I’d be coaching as well so I thought if I couldn’t balance it as a student and student teach while I coached I probably wouldn’t be able to hack it when I got into the profession full-time.”
He describes himself as a very passionate coach, but he channels it in a different way than he used to. “It’s shifted tremendously. When I started I was a yeller. I coached with football guys from Texas.” Vargason says, “All the people I coached with were pretty intense guys. That’s how I started. When I coached boys it kind of worked. When I switched over to girls that doesn’t work the same. I had to adjust my coaching to the people I was coaching. Recently I’ve started to get into more of a positive side.”
A thirst for knowledge has been a big part of Vargason’s career. He’s soaked up a lot of information from a couple of veteran assistants, Brad Rasmussen in cross country and Craig Fredin in girls basketball. “When I started my first two head coaching jobs I had Brad Rasmussen and had Craig Fredin help me. Two guys that were way more qualified than the position I was in. They humbled themselves and took an assistant role to help build our programs up.”
Vargason says his experience as a coach has gone even better than he imagined it would. Among the highlights have been hearing from former players that have been successful in life after high school sports.
Previous Coaches
Eric Maassen, (AHST grad) Sheldon
Jerome Hoegh, Atlantic grad (West Sioux)
Gaylord Schelling, Atlantic and Tri-Center
Trevor Gipple, (Griswold grad) SW Valley
Eric Stein (Harlan grad) Iowa Central
Darrell Burmeister, Nodaway Valley
