(Anita) Anita native Brian Wedemeyer enjoyed a lot of success as a high school volleyball coach over the years. He joins the “Why I Coach” podcast to tell us how it all came about.
Wedemeyer went to college for business, but with his love for sports in the back of his mind decided to double major in education just in case he ever wanted to get involved in coaching. A field experience at Adair-Casey moved education to the front burner. “Really enjoyed working with the kids and the interactions with the kids. I didn’t really even do any coaching at the time. I just really liked that and it changed my focus from the business profession to the education field.”
Dan Leinen was one of several key influences on Wedemeyer as a youngster. “I had an ag teacher Dan Leinen that was at Anita for a while and ended up at Harlan for a long time and did some coaching. He was a real positive on me. He said ‘The education field could use people like you’ and that made me think about education. I think every coach you’ve ever had, positive or negative, has an influence on you one way or the other.”
Football and basketball were his first loves. After one year as a football assistant at Seymour he sought out a job closer to home, but being on the football staff at Cumberland-Massena wasn’t in the cards. “LeRoy Ortman was the Superintendent at the time and he said I had the ag job no problem, but we don’t have any football openings and we have a lot of guys wanting to coach football, but he told me I could coach volleyball. After about a half an hour of me telling him I didn’t know anything about the sport and didn’t want to coach girls I left that evening as the new volleyball coach at Cumberland-Massena. That was probably I guess what you could call my first big break.”
Admittedly, the first season was rough, but it quickly turned around. “There’s no doubt I didn’t have a lot of knowledge. I did go to a few camps and clinics and tried to read as much as I could. I am not going to lie, I was not very knowledgeable my first year. I think we were 3-20 so I felt sorry for those girls that had to have me as the coach because I didn’t know a whole lot to help them improve their fundamentals, but we did make a huge turnaround the second year and we won the conference. It was a big jump and that really lit my fire into coaching.”
He spent seven years at C&M before accepting the Middle School Principal and Activities Director position at Tri-Center where he coached volleyball for 15 strong seasons. At a time when Tri-Center was facing budget cuts, Wedemeyer landed at Clarinda. With the Carindals he got the special opportunity not only to turn a program around, but also coach his daughter.
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)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Monte Riebhoff)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Steve Ahrendsen)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Scott Weber)
In Memory of Bob Monahan, Audubon (Curt Mace)
Chris Stimson, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Jan Jensen, Elk Horn-Kimballton alum
Seth Poldberg, EH-K grad and Guthrie Center coach
Trevor Gipple, (Griswold grad) SW Valley
Angie Spangenberg, Harlan and Red Oak
Eric Stein (Harlan grad) Iowa Central
Darrell Burmeister, Nodaway Valley
Lanny Kliefoth, Nodaway Valley
