Greenwood, Loyal school boards continue to discuss co-op football coach
By Valorie Brecht The Greenwood and Loyal school districts have yet to reach a final decision on who will be the head coach or coaches for the cooperative varsity football program, although both boards discussed the matter at their meetings last week and the Greenwood board voted to approve one person.
At last week’s meetings – Loyal’s on Nov. 27 and Greenwood’s on Nov. 29 — the athletic directors from each district floated the idea of having co-head coaches, one representing each school district. The coaches would share responsibilities, with one focused on offense and the other on defense. The Loyal School Board discussed the issue at length, but did not take any action. The Greenwood board voted to approve Dean Lindner as their half of a co-coaching agreement, and to approve whomever the Loyal School Board chose for their half, essentially pushing the issue back on Loyal.
The Loyal School Board decided to hold a special meeting Wednesday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. in the district conference room to discuss the item again.
Context An interview panel consisting of the athletic directors from both schools (one of whom has since changed), Greenwood District Administrator Joe Green and Loyal Principal Doug Dieckman interviewed four candidates for the head coach position in mid-April, and afterward made the recommendation to hire Chris Lindner, the Loyal head coach for 20-plus years and district administrator, as the co-op head coach. However, both boards had reservations about hiring Chris Lindner as the sole head coach and, in June, both decided to table the issue until after completion of the 2023 season.
Now that the season is over, the interview panel brought back a revised recommendation to hire Chris Lindner and Dean Lindner as co-head coaches. Dean Lindner is the current Greenwood head coach, with 15-plus years of coaching experience, and also a Greenwood School Board member. He abstained from the coaching vote.
Loyal Loyal School District athletic director Jeff Bell (who is also the assistant principal) outlined several things he viewed as positives to having co-head coaches.
“This way, you have site people at both locations. Your previous relationships stay intact. Also, each community has a person who’s right there in the community… With this, there would have to be one that would kind of take the lead, with like communication with parents, players, etc. and kind of that final call, but for the most
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part it would be split 49-51, pretty closely even,” said Bell.
“The athletic directors both feel comfortable and confident that this will help the program in the future, at least to start. Football is unique in that a co-coaching model works better than in a lot of other sports, because you can have one in control of offense and one in control of defense, and they still have control of the team, in a sense.”
He suggested a simple color scheme at least for the first year of black and white, with black pants.
Loyal School Board member Dave Clintsman said he was concerned because the school did not post the position as co-coaches, and it was only fair for it be advertised as such. He said maybe two different people would have been interested in applying for the job if they had known it was a shared role. Fellow board members Dennis Roehl, Carrie Becker and Harlan Hinkelmann all voiced their agreement. Bell explained the reason Dean Lindner didn’t interview was he had wanted to give Chris Lindner the first opportunity to be head coach, if he wanted it.
Clintsman also questioned who would have the final say in decisions, because if there was a conflict or the coaching staff was split, someone would have to decide.
“When you talk about final say, I think we have two coaches that would be pretty comfortable saying, ‘Chris, you have all offensive decisions. Dean, you have all defensive decisions.’ It’s pretty black and white that way. And then when it comes down to parental issues or whatever that might be, the main contact person would be one of them instead of ‘I’m going to go to this coach because I know I can twist his arm.’ So that’s the discussion we had,” said Bell.
“In talking with Joe and Dean, both are comfortable with Chris being that lead person. So we talked about that lead communication person, so to me it’s almost as if he’s hiring an assistant that has more control and more representation. It’s not just a facade of we’re doing it together, but it’s a co-head coach role.”
Bell said he had talked Chris Lindner and Dean Lindner individually about roles and responsibilities, but not together, because he didn’t want to get too far down the planning path if it wasn’t going to happen.
Board member Tom Odeen felt that the athletics committee needed to first decide if they wanted to go with a co-head coach or not, and then the board could discuss the recommendation. He also would like to know how other schools did with cohead coaches.
Bell also said that some people had taken issue with Chris Lindner not making it to practices on time, due to having things to do as a district administrator that took precedent over football practice. He said having Dean Lindner as one of the head coaches would help, as he could lead the practice until Chris Lindner could get there.
In the end, the Loyal School Board voted to table the issue until more information was presented. All voted aye, with Derek Weyer abstaining.
Greenwood The Greenwood School Board was presented with the same information, from District Administrator Joe Green and athletic director Jenni Mayenschein. Green urged the board to take action.
“There’s a lot of planning that needs to happen; I think we need to move on this,” he said. “I think Chris is more than qualified. I’m also comfortable with cohead coaches. I wouldn’t always say that, but football is different than other sports. I think it’s a mistake to table it. I think we need to move forward with something. The interview committee and athletic directors have given us highly-qualified applicants to drive the ship.”
Dean Lindner agreed, and said he felt good about a co-coaching arrangement.
“We’re looking to you guys to trust us, that we can fill the roles to the best of our abilities. I’m 100-percent OK with Chris being the sole coach, and I’m also OK with being the co-coach to take some of that responsibility off of him and balance it out. Chris definitely has strengths that I can lean on and there’s things he can lean on me for,” said Dean Lindner.
Despite the reassurances, the main hangup the Greenwood board had with the co-coach proposal was Chris Lindner’s ability to balance being district administrator and a head coach.
“What I really struggle with is, I need the superintendents at both schools focused on being superintendents,” said school board member Eliza Ruzic. “We still haven’t heard the results of the PIP (performance improvement plan) for Chris… I really want Chris to be on his A-game as superintendent because quite frankly, there’s a lot of lack of trust in the community in some areas and I feel like if we just look past that, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”
She felt especially as the school districts were looking at collaborating more in upcoming years, and seriously revisiting the consolidation conversation, that the two district administrators needed to be focused on that and not have their attention divided.
She made the motion, seconded by Jessica Wolf, for Greenwood to approve Dean Lindner as one half of the co-coach partnership and whomever Loyal picked for the other half.
Board member Jamie Gardner was not totally satisfied with the co-coaching idea itself, at least with how it was presented at the Loyal meeting.
“In the meeting I watched, I didn’t like when their AD said, ‘Well, Chris will be 51 and Dean’s 49. I just feel that…” said Gardner.
“That it should be a 50-50? And that’s true, but in the end, if there’s a decision to be made, someone has to make it. Even with co-head coaches,” said Green.
“OK, so why can’t Dean be the 51?” said Gardner. “And, I’m not trying to be (difficult). But you get what I’m saying. I mean, he was pro that way and I thought, ‘Well, wait. Why is he saying that when he could have said, ‘Well, Dean will be 51’? That’s the problem I have.”
“Here’s the thing. I think that’s the risk you run into; I don’t think Dean and Chris would have that problem. I don’t think they would; I think they’re a good match. But that’s the risk you run into,” said Green.
Dean Lindner also gave some background. He said he and Chris Lindner had some preliminary discussions about what a cooperative team could look like, and had talked about structuring the program to develop coaches. He mentioned the possibility of training some of the assistant coaches for one of them to eventually step into the head coach role.
“If the plan is to grow others into the head coach role, then that should be made clear,” said Green.
Roehl, who attended the meeting, was given permission to speak on behalf of the Loyal board. He suggested having the boards meet jointly to discuss the issue so that everyone could be in on the conversation. He proposed adding the coaching discussion to the agenda of the upcoming joint board meeting Dec. 13.
“We can say, ‘This is the board meeting where this is getting hashed out,’” Roehl said. “That way, you can ask questions of people directly.”
He asked Green if he foresaw any problems with that. Green said he was fine with it, as long as it didn’t turn into a personnel meeting, because that wasn’t fair to the people involved.
In the end, though, the board returned to Ruzic’s motion and passed it unanimously, with Dean Lindner abstaining. There was no indication in the motion of who the final decision-maker for the coop program would be. The board also did not iron out a time frame for the coaching agreement – whether it would be a oneyear trial run or ongoing – nor did they talk further about a plan to train someone for the head coach position.
Check out next week’s TRG for coverage of the Dec. 6 special Loyal School Board meeting on hiring a co-op coach.
