(Audubon) When the Audubon Wheeler girls basketball team won a state title in 1999 the captain of the ship was Frank Howell. He’s the guest today on Why I Coach.
Howell led the Wheelers to prominence before moving on to Cedar Rapids Washington and eventually Graceland College, but he is getting back into coaching at the high school level. Howell is on the verge of his 29th season coaching basketball. This past offseason he was announced as the head girls basketball coach at Central Decatur. “I didn’t have the level of success at Graceland as I did as a high school coach and I think there was a desire to get back into the classroom. That’s become more and more important to me. It’s always been important to not just to be a coach, but to be a teacher and a coach so that’s put me back on track to get into the classroom. I’ve always looked at coaching basketball as a classroom in itself.
He says a lot of things fell into place in order to be successful at Audubon, but passion and enthusiasm were two of the main ingredients along with working with great people. “It was great to have Roger Randeris as an assistant coach and also Kim Subbert. And then on the boys side to work with Bob Monahan when he was the head coach and his assistant Monte Riebhoff. It was great to have people around you that were also passionate and you felt like they energized you.”
Howell says if you don’t have the right people on the ride with you then you won’t go very far. “Really Audubon was just a special time in my life. I think about those days quite frequently. And to think about the great people I got to work with like the Principal Dan Lowe, the AD Dean Keiger, and to have great colleagues Randy Spies. You think about all the time and devotion of all these people, just too many people to talk about. I’m leaving too man out, Steve Dvorak with the youth program. I’m leaving too many people out. We just had a lot of great people that were devoted to working with young people.”
And it took great parents and student-athletes to get where they did as well. Upon moving on to CR Washington it wasn’t the smoothest transition initially. “The first year that I was there, not to be mean about it, but it was probably the most miserable year I’d had as a person or a coach. It was rough. I had some great people that helped me get through it. It took a full year really to feel comfortable, but that second year things just kind of aligned and exploded. Year two, three, four, and five, those four consecutive years that we had at Cedar Rapids Washington it was just incredible. It seemed all the planets and the stars and the moon just aligned the right way for us and it was kind of a magical feeling for us.”
However, Howell doesn’t believe he’d have had the success he did at the 4A level without the challenges they endured in his first year at CR Washington. The Warriors made the state tournament in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. “We got going and I think that had not things been so rough that first year they would not have been nearly as successful. There were a lot of young kids that were with me and it inspired them to become great leaders and take ownership.”
He jumped at an opportunity to get to the college level four years ago and led the Graceland women’s basketball program. While things didn’t go quite as well as he might have hoped, it was still a good experience. “It was a great experience. There were a lot of great people and still are at Graceland. What’s remarkable about that experience is that I was there for four years and left…I was not shown the door, I left willingly…but I left with a smile on my face. I left with zero percent bitterness towards anybody that was there.”
Howell fondly recalls some of the rivalries of the Western Iowa Conference during his days at Audubon. “Some of the crazy games we had back when I was in Audubon it seems like very time we went up against Frank Nelsen (AHST) it was just a nutty game, it was just crazy and intense. It seems like there was almost always a wild finish at the end. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost. The wins were great and the losses seemed bordering tragic. Gail Hartigan at Treynor was always so difficult to score against with her matchup zone.”
Previous Coaches
John Kesselring, Adair-Casey alum
Eric Maassen, (AHST grad) Sheldon
Jerome Hoegh, Atlantic grad (West Sioux)
Gaylord Schelling, Atlantic and Tri-Center
Chad Klein, Audubon Native (Kuemper Catholic and Boone)
Jan Jensen, Elk Horn-Kimballton alum
Seth Poldberg, EH-K grad and Guthrie Center coach
Trevor Gipple, (Griswold grad) SW Valley
Eric Stein (Harlan grad) Iowa Central
Darrell Burmeister, Nodaway Valley
Lanny Kliefoth, Nodaway Valley
