(Atlantic) As the son of two coaches, there was never much of any consideration that Alan Jenkins wouldn’t become a coach. “The short answer to that is no. I always thought I was going to coach. I kind of groomed myself my entire life for this profession and I don’t think there is any other profession I would choose. I absolutely love it equal to teaching. Teaching is a branch of coaching. Having some parents that were in it and in it my only life it was the only thing I ever wanted to do and I don’t foresee myself stopping.”
Jenkins, the Atlantic alum current SE Polk Boys Basketball coach is our guest on the “Why I Coach” series. Among the main things he learned from his parents was how much time goes into it. “There’s going to be a lot of hidden hours from the public. There’s not always going to be a ton of gratitude shown towards you, but you’ve got to do it because you like to invest in kids, you want the best for kids, and ultimately you’re a competitor yourself.”
Competitiveness, intensity, and a willingness to push people out of their comfort zone are all listed by Alan Jenkins as similarities between he and his dad Don, who is in the Hall of Fame as a girls basketball coach. But they aren’t a carbon copy of each other. “I think we have our differences too. I think how he would structure practice and how I do is different. I probably spend a lot more time offensively than he ever did. I think it probably drives him nuts that we don’t do more defensively. There’s a lot of different ways to go about this and I respect him and all of the coaches that go about things differently.”
Jenkins says he had a lot of great coaches in Atlantic. That includes Steve Blazek in basketball, Gaylord Schelling in football, and Dan Duskin in baseball. “I thoroughly enjoyed playing high school baseball for Dan Duskin. I thought he was an absolute genius when it came to the game. When he told me something it was gold. I hung onto every word he ever said.”
He says he always appreciated the athlete first approach of coach Schelling and did anything ever possibly could to impress Steve Blazek. “I did whatever I could to try and impress coach Blazek. Basketball was always my first love. I remember going to middle school PE and we would run for three minutes everyday and I ran as hard as I could every single day. Not because I wanted to run as hard as I could for three minutes, but because I wanted impress coach Blazek because I wanted to play for coach Blazek someday. So those guys all had a huge influence on me.”
Jenkins got his feet wet in coaching when he was still in college. He helped BJ Windhorst at SE Polk. “I really enjoyed getting an opportunity to learn under him. It was really my first experience in high school basketball outside of being a player. I took a lot of what I learned from him in those three or four months. I did a lot of scouting and behind the scenes work and it was a tremendous amount of fun and I learned a lot. The odd thing is today I’m the head coach at SE Polk and we compete against him twice a year as he’s at Valley.”
His first job out of college was as freshman coach at Abraham Lincoln and it was a job he took very seriously. He held freshman practice in the mornings so he could also get to participate in varsity practice after school. “I was pulling two a days for five straight straight years over there. What I was really trying to do more than anything was learn. I think I started off in the first couple of years and I really thought I knew how to coach and looking back I really didn’t have a clue at all. I thought everything came down to X’s and O’s and that’s all I focused on. As we continued to move through that process at Abraham Lincoln that’s really when I started to mold and understand the much bigger picture of this profession that it goes way beyond your wins and losses. It goes way beyond your knowledge of strategy. There’s a lot of other tools you’re going to have to use to be able to coach. I think that probably shaped me more than anything. I learned a lot in those five years of what not to do and I learned from a lot of mistakes.”
In 2013 the opportunity arose to come back home to Atlantic. “For me it was a no-brainer. It was a chance to slide into not only the head basketball position, but also the head track job which I had been serving at Abraham Lincoln. I wanted more than anything to do right for my alma and families and community members that I had grown up with. I took that job with a tremendous amount of pride, understanding that I really needed to deliver for everybody. Not myself, it was never about me. I always wanted to make sure I put Atlantic and the community first. Boy I’m sure glad I took that job because those are some of the best memories I have.”
Guiding the Trojans to the 2017 boys state basketball tournament was among the biggest memories, but even above that was the state runner-up finish in track in 2018. “Without a doubt at the top of my list was our state track run in 2018. It was the best three days of just guys on a trip to the state track meet that had zero interest in all of the hoopla that went with it. I’m talking about guys that acted like professionals. They were there to try and win a state title. Their focus and demeanor and care for one another is something that I’m never going to forget. Because the state track meet for a lot of people is an end of the year celebration. You get done with the race and go out to the food stand. Our guys wouldn’t put anything in their bodies they felt would deter them from performing at the highest level.”
SE Polk came calling in 2018. “I certainly wasn’t looking. I was pretty happy in Atlantic. Their athletic director and high school principal reached out. I thought I owed it to myself to at least listen to them. The more I dug in and looked into it I thought it would be a good spot for me professionally.”
Jenkins has guided SE Polk to the Substate final round in two of the last three years.
Previous Coaches
(Click to listen)
John Kesselring, Adair-Casey alum
Eric Maassen, (AHST grad) Sheldon
Jerome Hoegh, Atlantic grad (West Sioux)
Gaylord Schelling, Atlantic and Tri-Center
Dick Strittmatter, Atlantic native
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)
Jason Mehrhoff, Anita Native (Carlisle)
Eric Hjelle, Elk Horn-Kimballton grad (Underwood)
Warren Watson, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Chris Stimson, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Scott Yates, Elk Horn-Kimballton
Jan Jensen, Elk Horn-Kimballton alum
Seth Poldberg, EH-K grad and Guthrie Center coach
Marc Bierbaum, Griswold grad and Iowa Western track/cross country assistant
Trevor Gipple, (Griswold grad) SW Valley
Curt Schulte, Harlan graduate (Glenwood)
Angie Spangenberg, Harlan and Red Oak
Eric Stein (Harlan grad) Iowa Central
Darrell Burmeister, Nodaway Valley
Lanny Kliefoth, Nodaway Valley
Chad Harder, (Walnut Grad) Tri-Center
