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AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


Growing the Family Tree

Emporia State\'s Dave Wiemers continues the family business
by: Patrick Finley
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It’s not the coaching Dave Wiemers minds. It’s what so many coaches go through when they become a head coach…

You see, the pressures of diagramming a game plan and mentoring Division II players at Emporia State isn’t that difficult to him. Drawing up plays, inserting the right personnel – that’s easy. You’d think it was easy too if you grew up where Wiemers did, sharing a house with the same family that he did. Coaching is work, but it isn’t work. It’s second nature.

Wiemers was born into the family business. His father is a coach, as is his mother. Larry Wiemers and his wife, Sandi, met and married, and had three children – Dave, his brother Jon and his sister Susan.

Larry Wiemers was, and is, a legend in Kansas high school football history. He coached Clay Center (Kan.) High School – where Dave would shine as a prep athlete – to a record of 114-62. He won eight league titles, went to the playoffs nine times and coached in the Kansas Shrine Bowl in 1985.

Sandi Wiemers also has the competitive drive of coaching in her blood. As the president of the United States Twirling Association, Sandi teaches baton twirling to teams throughout the United States and the world. She is pushing for twirling to be treated as a scholarship sport in college, like basketball or volleyball or football.

The three Wiemers children had no choice. Coaching was in their nature. Dave is now the head coach at Emporia State, where Jon will begin his first season as the team’s offensive coordinator after serving as the offensive line coach.

Dave’s sister Susan, 31, is the head volleyball coach at Kansas State University. A half-hour from Clay Center in Manhattan, Kan., she won the school’s first Big 12 title this year. She married another coach who grew up in Kansas – Steve Fritz, from Gypsum, Kan., who is an assistant track coach at K-State.

Imagine the family get-togethers.

“It’s usually very relaxing – we don’t really compete that often,” Wiemers said. “But if we’re going to play Trivia Pursuit at Christmas time, there’s going to be a coach there to get the game started.”

“It was in the bloodline, I guess. We were all going to be coaches, there’s no question about that.”

Wiemers first got the coaching bug when he was an all-state quarterback while playing for his dad at Clay Center. A two-sport star, Wiemers played quarterback and pitched for Dodge City Community College and Washburn University, an ESU rival.

After stops as an assistant at a Kansas high school and Pittsburg State, Wiemers went to Saginaw Valley State, where his defense set school records while he was the coordinator and associate head coach. He became the associate head coach and offensive coordinator at Emporia State at age 31, and took over the program two years later when coach Jerry Kill left for Division I-AA Southern Illinois after the 2000 season.

“The kids and coaches really stood behind me when the job opened up,” Wiemers said. “I’ve seen both sides of what happens sometimes when you’re the associate head coach and something opens up – I think a lot of coaches have – so I’m glad it worked out.”

Wiemers had to tread lightly at first when designing a game plan for rebuilding the team. The players on Wiemers’ roster had come to play for Kill and were skittish about the change. Wiemers decided he wanted to make changes to the program, but it had to be done slowly.

“First, we started with a good foundation, and we were able to build on it,” Wiemers said. “Not a lot really changed, except for the nameplate on the head coach’s desk.

“At the same time, you’ve got to convince the kids that even though things are going to stay the same, there will still be a few changes, and that might benefit them.”

This was what Wiemers wasn’t used to – managing. Coaching is easy, but having to balance the egos and support of his players against the changes he wanted to make was something new to him. Plus, coming from a role as assistant, Wiemers was used to being his players’ friend and confidant – in short, the good cop.

Every player stayed with the team, something Wiemers is proud of. Still, he admits that he handled his players more gingerly than he would otherwise during his first season.

“It affected the way I coached – I was a little easier on them that first year,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but that’s how it happened here. It was like, ‘Let’s get along, but we’ve got to work now.’ I had to explain to them that I have to be the bad cop sometimes.

“It took us about a year to really convince the kids that everything was going to be O.K.”

As Wiemers grew into his new role, he started making slight philosophical changes in his team’s game plan. The team redoubled its effort to run the ball more on offense. On defense, Wiemers relaxed what he saw as complicating factors in the team’s 4-2-5 defense. He boiled down his defenders’ responsibilities and called less complicated schemes out of that formation.

“We like to think that we now play a grass-roots version of the defense,” he said. “We decided, ‘Hey, let’s not get too carried away here.’ We let our kids believe in what they see, and make plays from that.”

Wiemers was getting help from two close advisors. His brother, Jon – who had started at ESU with Dave in 1999 – became the Hornets’ offensive line coach. His father, Larry, who had volunteered as a running backs and cornerbacks coach at Saginaw Valley with Dave and Jon, became the team’s linebackers coach.

“I mean this as the ultimate compliment – my dad’s the best coach I’ve ever been around,” Dave Wiemers said. “His players just adore him. The linebackers think he walks on water. I’d never want to model myself after anyone but my father.”

The improvement came slowly. After going 5-6 in 1999 and 6-5 in 2000 under Kill, ESU went 5-6 in Wiemers’ first season. In 2002, Wiemers’ devotion to the run started to pay off when then-junior tailback Tyler Paul took over the starting job.

That year, ESU went 9-2 and lost in the Division II playoffs to Winona State. The team had the same record in 2003, and even lost its lone playoff game to the same team.

Paul’s play made a giant difference in the team’s success. Paul, a first-team MIAA selection, led the league in rushing in 2003 with 1,730 yards. He finished sixth in the MIAA in total yards, the only running back among the top nine. He became only the third player in ESU history with a 300-yard rushing game and even galloped for an 85-yard game against Fort Hays State in 2003. Most importantly, in the two years Paul started at tailback, ESU had an 18-6 record. The team was 13-3 when he rushed for more than 100 yards.

“We’ve relied a lot on building relationships with our players, and I think that’s what has helped us remain successful,” Wiemers said. “There’s a trust factor there. We enter every week and every season believing that we’re going to be pretty good.”

With success has come a new series of challenges for Wiemers, as it would with any coach who has resurrected a program to national prominence. Specifically, it’s those management responsibilities that every coach who becomes a head coach goes through. With winning comes the personal appearances, speeches, fund raising, more paperwork – everything but coaching.

“It gets more that way every year – it’s been the toughest adjustment for me,” he said. “The demands outside of just coaching football get greater every year.”

Namely, Wiemers is trying to simultaneously promote his program to locals and recruits while staying focused on his team’s performance in the classroom, weight room and on the field. It’s management, not coaching, although the line keeps blurring.

He said that maintaining a relationship with the town and campus at Emporia is crucial to his program’s success. When he took over the program, Wiemers focused on re-ingratiating the Hornets with the community, which had cooled to the team after a few public incidents involving graduation rates and off-the-field behavior.

“I realized it’s a community effort,” he said. “We spent a lot of effort cleaning up our act and making folks realize what we’re doing here is trying to put out a good product with hard-working people.

“It didn’t take long for the town to warm up to us. They’re excited. Winning helps, too.”

Buoyed by his team’s success, Wiemers is trying to make improvements to the team’s facilities, specifically the weight room.

“Right now, it isn’t adequate,” he said. “It’s something we need in the so-called ‘arms race.’ Even in our conference, we’re middle-of-the-road in terms of facilities. As far as a recruiting tool, it’s important to be able to fit your whole team in to conserve time. Right now, we need to lift in shifts.

“My job as a manager, as a fund-raiser, is to strike while the iron is hot.” Wiemers said he’s received a “lukewarm” response to his fund-raising efforts, but knows that another winning season will make it a much easier sell. “You’ve got to do this for more than two years,” he said.

Make no mistake – Wiemers will happily embrace the management challenges of an upstart program as long as the team keeps winning. After all, the Hornets have put together back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in recent memory, rekindling an appetite for football at Emporia State. It’s because of his team’s success on the field that Wiemers can now push for a new weight room and reach out to the community for support, both emotional and financial.

Like most young first-time head coaches, Wiemers is still finding his way. But if he wasn’t so good at winning football games, he wouldn’t have to sweat the management responsibilities. He thinks those are good problems to have.

And like most Division II coaches, the challenge of winning doesn’t get any easier from year to year. During the offseason, Wiemers lost both his coordinators, not to mention his best offensive player. Jon Wiemers will be the new offensive coordinator and former TCU graduate assistant Andre Bruce will run the defense. TCU also runs the 4-2-5 defense.

“Terminology-wise, it’s a great idea to have someone with the same ideas,” he said.

As he has had his entire life, Wiemers will be able to lean on his family for support. His brother is his new right-hand man, and his father, now 58 years old, will return to the team for at least one more season.

“He keeps telling me that he’s only got one more year left, and he keeps showing up the next season,” Wiemers said. “He’s had the most influence on me, playing for him and coaching with him. He’s the best coach on the planet.

“Pops keeps us all line, including myself. The best part is that my brother and I get to spend every day with our dad. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

With the help of his father and his brother – and with a competitive fire no doubt fueled by his mother and sister – Wiemers, a native Kansan, will continue to build the Emporia State program.

If the past is any indication, he’ll keep winning and pushing the Hornets toward national prominence in Division II. With a background like his – being raised in a family of excellent coaches – how could he not?

“It’s hard to pick a better coaching family,” Wiemers admitted.

With his family’s support, Wiemers can only improve on that reputation.

Searching for Assistance

By Patrick Finley

Emporia State coach Dave Wiemers didn’t have much time to celebrate a successful season. Following a 9-2 regular-season record and a trip to the playoffs, a handful of Wiemers’ assistant coaches – namely his two coordinators – left the team.

Offensive coordinator Todd Hafner became the Head Coach at William Penn University in Iowa, and defensive coordinator Clayt Birmingham went to Western Michigan.

What Wiemers had to do was nothing unusual in the world of Division II football coaches. Weimer had to find replacements quickly – preferably some who knew his system – and with a tight budget.

Luckily, his new offensive coordinator was right in front of his nose. He had been his entire life. Dave’s Wiemers’ brother, Jon, was his offensive line coach.

“He was a natural fit,” Dave Wiemers said. “He knows what we’re trying to do, and he’s a very good coach. It was almost a no-brainer.”

Not many Division II coaches can count their siblings among their candidates for a coaching position, not to mention Jon’s familiarity with Emporia State’s players and offensive system. Jon Wiemers got the job. Trying to fill a void at defensive coordinator was another story.

“You’ve got to have a list of people you might want to hire in the future,” Dave Wiemers said. “But it’s a tough thing to deal with. Personally, I wanted to hire someone I knew personally. I’d rather hire someone as a person than as a coach.

“But I’m not sure I knew that many people, honestly.”

Wiemers fell back on a proven formula for coaches at smaller schools. He sought out assistant coaches who taught the 4-2-5 defense at major schools like Texas Christian, Baylor and Western Michigan. Emporia State runs the 4-2-5.

“I know people there, and I called up there to see if they had a younger coach who would want to come work for us,” he said. “I really don’t feel comfortable opening a position to people who aren’t in our system, or to coaches I don’t know.”

A few coaches at Texas Christian recommended Andre Bruce, a 23-year-old graduate assistant and the cousin of former Iowa State star Seneca Wallace. Bruce knew the defensive scheme, and Wiemers thought he’d be a good fit. Bruce beat out the other eight or so candidates Wiemers seriously considered.

“It’s a difficult thing to do, hiring people,” Wiemers said. “First, you have to make sure the coach is ready enough and that the money is right. Then, you have to make sure they like the town here in Emporia, that they can live here. We don’t want them to leave the very next year.”

Still, Wiemers knows that his assistants probably won’t stay for long. While the lure of a coordinator job is enough to get a young coach to Emporia State, the odds of a coordinator staying at the school for more than a few years are slim.

“It’s a fact we have to live with,” Wiemers said. “You don’t coach Division II for the money. We know that the coach’s former school might come back and take our guy back once he’s been here a few years. In a way, it’s a minor-league system.

“ But we’re very happy with what we found in Andre. We think he’ll be a nice fit.”






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