(Atlantic) He coached cross country, football, wrestling, track, golf, and softball for parts of three decaes in Atlantic. His name is Joel Simms and he’s the latest guest on “Why I Coach.”
Simms grew up on a dairy farm in Central Iowa and was involved in a lot of sports. He always envisioned himself as a football and baseball coach, but wrestled in college and Atlantic had a need for an assistant on the mat. Simms spent 17 years on staff before becoming the head coach of the Trojans, a post he held until 2001. Many of his early years were spent working with Lynn Barnes. “We were very close friends and he was easy to work with. He was new to wrestling too. It was a mutual deal, I learned a lot from him. One of the things is he was very much into fundamentals. I found later on that when all else fails you always fall back on fundamentals and it always seems to work. I don’t care if you’re a softball coach or a wrestling coach or football coach or whatever. It’s all about the basics.”
That line of thinking goes against what he expected coaching was going to be all about. “I thought it was going to be opposite of the basics. I thought you’d go out there and introduce some flashy plays or great moves and you’d be successful, but like I said before it was really important to go back and coach fundamentals because that was the basis of your program.”
Something Simms learned from head football coach Bob Younger was how to maximize practice time. “His football teams were never anything special individual wise, but what made him an outstanding coach and he had an outstanding record was he could put people in the best positions where they were going to be successful. He didn’t believe in practicing forever. If he practiced for an hour and a half that was plenty. That was probably his longest practice, but when they practiced, they practiced. It was hard, it was go, go go, all the time. I kind of adopted that too, especially in wrestling. If we couldn’t get it done in an hour and a half we weren’t going to get it done.”
One of his philosophies especially in wrestling was to hone in on your strengths and refine them. “You do what you do best all the time. You don’t try to make 20 moves successful. You have two or three moves and you get it to the place where it’s the best and it’s the best thing you do all the time.”
Simms launched the Atlantic softball program as its first head coach in the early 1970’s. He says a town team which was already in place helped the squad get going. “I liked the competitiveness. I would rather play six days a week than practice two. It got to the point where we got into the season and we just played. I really liked that. We had a pitcher which was the main things to start with, Suzie Allen. She didn’t overpower people, but she didn’t walk anybody either. We learned how to play defense real quick and it was a good thing.”
Simms got out of wrestling over 20 years ago and missed the kids and the competition. “I couldn’t go to a meet for about ten years. I just couldn’t handle it. I missed it a lot. I kind of wormed my way back into it and now I live over here by Iowa City so I go to the Iowa Hawkeye wrestling meets and they are really a lot of fun.”
Learning to deal with the highs and lows of coaching didn’t come easy. “When I started coaching I had to get used to the losses. Even though the wins were great the losses just tore me apart like I was not going to survive the day. It taught me a lot about not only sports, but about life too. You are going to have your bad days, but you have to pick yourself up and go on and it’s okay.”
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)
Brett Watson, Elk Horn-Kimballton alum (Waukee Northwest)
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
Josh Abel, (Walnut grad), Tri-Center
