PODCAST: “Why I Coach” with Bud Legg

(Anita) An Anita native joins the Why I Coach podcast. Prior to joining the Iowa High School Athletic Association, Bud Legg was in teaching and education for 35 years.

Legg started Oakland in 1966, spent ten years at South Hamilton, and also coached for fourteen years at Ames. “I had a great experience in coaching and just a terrific experience in education. It was a great run.”

After getting married Legg start to give up some of his coaching roles, but that didn’t last long. “I was out for one year and Wayne Clinton the Ames High School boys basketball coach who was a football officiating partner of mine lost one of his assistant coaches and asked me to join him. I told him ff you can convince my wife I’ll give you five years. He asked why five years and I told him it was quite simple, Fred Hoiberg is in 8th grade.”

Upon Ames winning the state championship in 1991 he turned his focus from coaching to administration for the next decade. The biggest thing he missed about coaching was practices. “I always loved practices. I enjoyed them even when I was an athlete and I know that might sound a little bit strange. Practice is where you try to get everything set so you can have a big performance on game day. Practice is the big thing I missed. You get a closer relationship with a greater number of athletes in practice situations.”

Legg speaks highly of the mentors he was surrounded by while growing up in Anita. “Great and caring coaches at Anita. They were excellent teachers like my classroom teachers. They played an important role in my life. The things they always stressed was if you emphasized the fundamentals the process will take care of itself. There was never a priority placed on having to win, but there was a huge priority on doing your best and being sportsmanlike.”

Girls basketball and softball were the sports he spent the most time coaching. He learned in his early days at Oakland to network with other coaches and it served him well throughout his career. One of his biggest coaching adages was picked up from the bottom of a coke bottle. “No deposit, no return.” You get out of something what you put into it.

He says the #1 thing he’s noticed among successful coaches he encountered in his time with the Iowa High School Athletic Association is how much they all care about their athletes and how positive they are.