Majority are private schools.
High School Sports Thread
- Thread starter qwerty
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Kevin Kanaskie is the coach at Waukee High. The coach at Waukee NW is Brett Watson.
Waukee High won 4A in 2021, their last year as a single high school. That team had Tucker DeVries, Payton Sandfort, Pryce Sandfort, and Omaha Billew. Justin Ohl was the head coach and was slated to be the head coach at Waukee NW, and Kanaskie had been named head coach at Waukee High.
The middle school AD at Prairieview (then Waukee NW's feeder school) left, and Ohl took the position, becoming the AD-in-waiting at Waukee NW. Jim Duea, the AD at Waukee NW, hired Brett Watson from Norwalk to be the head coach at Waukee NW.
The 2022 NW team with Pryce and Cade Kelderman made it to state and lost in the first round. Omaha transferred to the prep school in Kansas for his junior year, then returned to play for Waukee High his senior year. Omaha came back to Waukee High instead of Waukee NW because he had a relationship with Kevin Kanaskie.
Both schools qualified for state in 2023 when Cade, Pryce, and Omaha were all seniors and met in the semifinals. NW won and then lost to Valley in the championship game.
Both my kids graduated from Waukee High, and my youngest graduated in the same class as Omaha in 2023.
Yeah, I got my teams mixed up....that Waukee team in 2022 was good...bunch of juniors and then add Omaha for 2023. We beat them to go to state in 2022 but they had junior big that was really good. Adding Omaha should have made that team a slam dunk to win, but they had Omaha doing all kinds of ball handling etc and it seemed to throw off the team vibe (just my assessment from the outside anyway). At state in 2023 remember Price getting if foul trouble and thought this game is over....it was, but in the other direction....which stunned the heck out of me at the time.
It's all perspective. According to the people on each U.S. coast, Des Moines East is in the middle of nowhere.West Lyon is also in the middle of nowhere.
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You guys that like big schools should be happy with these small schools with names you don’t like. That means more money for big schools. You should attend one of their school board meetings and ask why they come up with the name .
Ya, all the schools to the south would come down the gravel, turn north and then cross the RR tracks to get to the school, coming from VB you would have gone right by Tom Stone's house, lived in that white farmhouse on the corner before you jogged back west before the RR tracks. Pekin has a nice stet up, with all being paved because of the former airport runway.
That’s a little harsh. I, and many others grew up in those little towns, and even though they were not large, and didn’t have many commercial opportunities, those little towns, to all of my friends and neighbors, felt like home. The schools were the heart of those communities, and when consolidations occurred, it was like ripping the heartbeat out of those little towns.
They are spread in pockets all through the state, not just in one given area. Yes, the towns are dying, but when a school goes under or is forced to merge with another district the town dies some more. In a lot of these small communities the town is the leading employer, without the money, the town becomes even worse. Have some held out too long, probably, but that was their choice, when a school closes it feels like an old friend has passed away, that is now gone forever.
Didn’t know that is where Tom Stone lived. If I remember correctly, pretty close to the school is someone who put their mailbox on a grocery cart.
I got to know Tom and the rest of the Pekin coaches over twenty years. Tom was the real deal, the kids loved playing for him and representing their school. I had the guy from Danco that used to sell uniforms and equipment to schools tell me that every school is the same except Pekin. You walk into that place and every kid is wearing a Pekin sports shirt. They just oozed school pride, and was getting every kid out. Heck their track teams would have 50 to 60 out for both boys and girls. In MS they had to bring two busses for track they had so many kids out. Most small schools specialize in one or two sports, and are bad at the rest, no Pekin they were good in every sport.
they were very good at track. Gary Loeffler, Van Burens coach, really looked forward to meeting Pekin in track. They had some fierce battles over the years.
It's a little easier to have that kind of school spirit when you have two of the very best coaches in the state with Idle and Stone for25+ year career. Both are Iowa Hall of Famers and I think Idle still might be coaching there.
I know and coached against Gary, and the rest of the VB staff as well, Simmons, Roe and all of them are gone now. Guess we are all getting old
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