Recent events have brought a name back to the forefront in local sports talk, at least among the coaches and longtime fans I talk to. John Pelzer. You remember John don’t you? Football coach at Shenandoah, good guy, used to win three or four games a year as head coach of the Mustangs. Won a state title before coming to Shenandoah. Helped to build the weight room too.
See, no one could ever understand why he got run out of town. The coaches I have talked with all respect his abilities (like I said he did coach a state championship team) and when you look at the numbers its clear that the Mustangs would have loved to average three or four wins a year over the last few seasons. Just like they did under Pelzer. He preached the value of hard work, the need to hit the weight room and didn’t care what your last name was as long as you played hard. Of course that last little tidbit caused him a lot of problems, which isn’t unique to Shen. Not making the right people happy can cause you problems in a lot of towns.
Of course every action has an opposite and equal reaction and for Shenandoah that bill came due immediately to the tune of three winless seasons in a row. Let’s not go pinning that on Brett Roberts either. Not only was Roberts taking over a program that had been completely pulled apart by factors that had nothing to do with football, the Mustangs also just didn’t have a ton of size or speed. Couple that with a really tough district, there wasn’t really any other logical outcome. Most coaches would have quit, but not Roberts.
No quit in Brett. Despite awful long bus rides and a team too small to compete with a lot of the giants they would face each Friday, he persevered. Slowly but surely he built from the ground up and the team was turning the corner. Change like this requires a lot of time. This isn’t a video game where you can build a dynasty in four years. This is real life and its a zero sum game. One winner, one loser. Every time. Roberts was forced out anyway. He never got to see the fruition of his work and experience some wins.
P.J. Hedrington got those wins listed next to his name and all the credit that goes with it. Well, not really. I get a pretty steady stream of anonymous feedback throughout the year, but it peaked during football season. Last season I got the biggest explosion of material after the games that P.J.’s team won, telling me what players did and didn’t deserve credit, and how Hedrington was responsible for none of it. Didn’t hear much after the losses. Presumably he was being given full credit for the losses. The writing, as they say, was on the wall.
Admittedly I don’t communicate with as many Shen kids as I do some of the other schools, but I haven’t heard any of the ones I do talk to say anything positive about the decision not to bring back Hedrington. Mostly just a sense of frustration and sadness, and the ever creeping realization that they, the very ones all the choices are made in the name of, don’t figure much into things at all. I heard a small group of kids had said they wouldn’t play football if Hedrington was coach again, but doesn’t every program everywhere have a group of kids just looking for a reason to quit? Especially under coaches who believe in hard work and fair chances at starting spots? Not unique to Shen.
Anyway, at the end of the day it’s not my school district. For those that it is, its their choice if they want to send their kids to the high school or not, and no one can make that choice for them. I know if my child was lucky enough be able to have Hedrington (Or Pelzer, or Roberts), and then that chance was taken from them and no good reason given, I would most certainly demand some answers. At any rate, over the last four years I have heard many, many reasons why athletic programs at Shen are such a mess. Lazy kids, bad coaches, poor facilities, you name it. Not one person said its because of inexplicable personnel decisions and an inability to treat our teachers and coaches like professionals, leading to absolute discord and chaos for graduating class after class. No one mentioned failing to provide protection from parents who have frequently crossed lines of good taste and in some cases the law in an effort to make said coaches miserable.
The facts are there. Trace the time line for yourself. Ask yourself, would you want to coach football for Shenandoah? There is not an infinite pool of talented coaches who are willing to move to rural Iowa to take over a losing program. Especially with the reputation Shenandoah is quickly earning itself in the area. Maybe it’s time to fix what’s really broken instead of what is easiest to blame.
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