(Audubon) His first love was baseball, but football has worked out pretty well for Audubon native Chad Klein. He’s featured on our weekly “Why I Coach” series.
The current Boone head coach, rose to great heights during his recent run with Kuemper Catholic. He started off with teaching being a top priority and a love for baseball. However, he got involved with junior high football, found a passion for it, and rose to a head coaching role. “It was something to help pay the bills a little bit, but I found that I really liked the aspect of it where you have to break things down and work with a lot of different coaches. I worked my way up with Coach Penner whose gone on to have great success at Western Dubuque, Coach Webb whose done some really good things at different programs, and then finally had my opportunity to take over after 13 years as an assistant.”
He points to his brother Alan as a big influence on him when growing up in Audubon along with his coaches. “My coaches at Audubon were great. Jim Willet, Monte Riebhoff, Randy Spies, those are guys I looked up to. They instilled that passion for athletics.”
When looking back at his time at Kuemper he says great kids and great people are what made it special. They made the playoffs in seven straight seasons and won the 2013 state championship, something they enjoyed every step along the way. “A lot of times my memories go back to the night before and the last team meal that we had together. They were excited to know that they got to practice as long as they did. The team meal that night was probably three or four ours telling stories and nobody wanted to leave that moment. Then to travel up to Cedar Falls and win the state title that next day was really special.”
Klein gave up his role as Kuemper’s football coach upon accepting the school’s AD position. However, a recent change of heart landed him in Boone. “Part of my taking that job was that I would be on the way out of the coaching role and into a more permanent AD role. Then Covid hits and with having some time to reflect a little bit, I wasn’t ready to give up coaching in another year and there wasn’t any path back to where I was. I had to look forward and get back to where my passion was. I wanted to be in a classroom and I wanted to be coaching.”
With Toreadors he’s looking forward to a fresh start and calls it reinvigorating.
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
