Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

I had a few minutes today, so I thought I’d give former Olathe North coach Gene Wier a call. He’s been coaching Richland (Texas) football since 2003. When he left Olathe North, after the 2002 season, Olathe North was riding a 38-game winning streak.

In his 22 seasons in charge of the Eagles’ program, Wier compiled a 188-36 record, an .839 winning percentage. Only five coaches in state history have a better winning percentage. He had an impressive streak from 1996-2002, as well. Olathe North won titles in 1996, 97, 98, 2000, 2001, 2002. Olathe North won in 2003, as well.

The conversation was interesting, as I talked to him about differences between Texas and Kansas football.

Here’s our conversation:

“I hated that I left, in terms that I left an unbelievable place, which is still what I consider home. I love where I went, too. It’s different…. I wanted the combination of AD and football, and we do football all the time,  just about all times of the year. For a person that likes to do it, it’s perfect.”

Wier on the differences between the states:
“The first thing that sticks out, I think is that the rules in Kansas really limit a football player. They limit all sports, but the other kids in other sports have other areas to go, traveling baseball, AAU basketball,  to supplement what they don’t receive in high school. A football player doesn’t have that opportunity. They have to seek it out.
Here every athlete is involved in an athletic class all year long. You can work on your sport or weight training. That’s why you see so many quarterbacks coming out of Texas vs. Kansas because they’re throwing the ball all the time, the receivers are catching the ball all the time.

(The athletic class is a swap for a P.E. class). It’s up to the coach’s discretion as to what they want them to do. When we can’t wear pads, they still work on linemen drills. It’s a large state and there are more athletes, but the kids are allowed to become good at the game, with their coaches coaching them.

“The next main one that would stick out is spring football. It’s 18 padded days, 3 more days than Division I has…. The third and probably something that would not necessarily say is a big one, but it is, is all coaches here have to be a member of the district. They have to be employed by the school district. We have 16 assistant coaches, and all are on our campus, all  in our building. All eight middle school coaches are under my contracts, so they answer directly to me. All coaches answer to me, basically, so athletics is run by athletic people. A lot of schools in Kansas, very few of the coaches are in the building. I think it’s detrimental to the growth of a player…. We have coaches in every area of the building.”

Wier hired former Olathe South coach Mark Littrell this year, John McCall, who coached Olathe North for the two years after Wier left, and former Olathe North quarterback Jeremy Milne, who was coaching at Lawrence.

Another issue is the financial rewards are pretty high here. (Littrell) came to be an assistant, and he came for a big raise. He teaches a full load; our coordinators don’t teach a full load of classes. When I was in Kansas, I taught a full load of classes. I don’t teach any here.”

On Richland’s chances this year:

“We feel pretty good about it. We tied for a playoff spot and were beat in a tiebreaker (in 2007). This summer we were state 7 on 7 champs and won the addidas national championship. We feel our skill kids are pretty good at what we do.
We’re not loaded with a lot of Division I athletes like others are. They are learning and playing pretty hard. Another big difference is, and I don’t mean this in a derogatory way, but sometimes at Olathe North, there would be weeks where it would be a miracle if we lost a game. We have no games like that here. Every night, we’re at the stage where we go to a stadium and feel that we have a pretty good chance. That means about .500.
We played with about everyone, except Southlake Carroll, and we were without some players.
But for nine games we were competitive and we could have won eight of them. We could have lost a few, too. But we tell our people, too, go to Richland, you can ride to the stadium knowing we have a chance tonight. Before, when we came here, after the first year when we were in the playoffs , we moved up to 5A and weren’t competitive.”

In 2003 — 7-4 and playoff berth

2004 — 1-9

2005 — 1-9

Those first two years in  5A, we were playing the Chase Daniels (type of kids). And out of 254 5A schools, we were 252 in enrollment. We’re 19 kids away from being (4A).

2006 — 5-5
2007 — 5-5
We tied for a playoff spot last year. We feel like things are in the upswing. We won the 7 on 7 , it’s on television. It’s a big deal, it’s good for confidence.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 3:27 p.m. and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.