(Elk Horn) Elk Horn-Kimballton grad Eric Hjelle won a pair of girls basketball state titles as head coach at Underwood and is now leading the boys and girls cross country and girls track programs for the Eagles.
Hjelle was kind enough to visit with KSOM Sports for a “Why I Coach” segment. He recalls assuming in the back of his head he’d coach someday, but wasn’t dead set on it initially. His first job out of college was at Logan-Magnolia where he served as a volunteer coach for football, boys basketball, and golf just to get his foot in the door. In his second year the girls basketball job opened up and he took the gig. He eventually ascended to the top spot on the golf staff as well. It wasn’t long before Underwood came calling. “I was at Underwood from 4th-8th grade so I knew a lot of people here. I’d actually had some people call me. It wasn’t something I had even thought about-moving on. It was a good opportunity for coaching, but I didn’t come into this whole thing to coach originally. I was an elementary education major with a math minor and at Logan I was teaching 7th grade math and literature. I was doing literature on a temporary endorsement and was supposed to take classes during the summer to fulfill that. Underwood had a fourth grade opening which meant I didn’t have to take those classes. A lot of it was just to get into teach in the elementary. I was told how good they were when I came here, but I hadn’t seen them play and you hear a lot of things and you don’t really know. Honestly I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t know how good they were. It was really exciting to see them play. Really the move to me was more about teaching than coaching. It obviously became a coaching thing once you see what you’ve got. I had the opportunity to coach some great ones by coming here.”
He took over at a time when three future 1,000 point scorers were entering high school including IGHSAU Hall of Famer Jamie Boyd who went on to play at Kansas. They won state championships in 2003 and 2004. Hjelle was in the running for jobs at SE Polk and Mason City just to name a couple, but ended up making Underwood his home. After nearly a decade on the sideline it was time for other things in his life to take priority. “Basketball takes a lot of time to do it well. What I found was that it was all I was thinking about all the time. Watching film and learning more about coaching basketball, it was consuming everything in my life. It was time to re-evaluate my priorities. Stepping away was good, but then in a couple years I stepped back in and started coaching track and some other things to fill that void.”
Baseball was his favorite sport to play and he always thought he’d find his way around the diamond as a coach, but his career followed a different route. “Basketball is probably my favorite to coach. I do really enjoy the competitiveness of track and field and helping kids get to another level in achieving success that many times even they didn’t know was possible. But basketball was probably my favorite.”
While he eventually reached the pinnacle in hoops, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The early stages of his coaching career brought many learning opportunities. “If we made a mistake or did something incorrectly I would spend all of my time and energy figuring out how we were going to correct that. Early in my career if something happened because I was out coached, which happened early in my career, I was going to figure out what we did wrong or what we could have done different. I remember at Logan my first year there we only won one game and there were only a couple of teams in our conference at that honestly at that point in time we could compete with.”
In total, Hjelle has 25 years of experience in education and has spent 23 of those years coaching. He says he’s enjoyed the new challenges and learning involved with each different sport.
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)
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
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
