Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Wier Likely to Return to Olathe North

Gene Wier
It appears as though Olathe North's "delay" in naming a new head coach was strategic after all.  According to Tod Palmer of the Kansas City Star, Gene Wier will be rehired as the head football coach at Olathe North, pending the approval of the Olathe School District Board of Education on Thursday night.

His hiring will fill the void left by Pete Flood, who resigned from the head coaching position with the Eagles after six years on the job.

The younger generation of Sunflower League players and fans may not remember just how dominant Wier was at Olathe North--in fact, nine seasons have passed since Wier last graced the league in 2002--but his status as a coaching legend in Kansas still stands tall.

Wier spent 22 seasons as Olathe North's head coach, starting in 1981 and going until 2002.  During that time he compiled a 188-36 record, winning six state championships.

Wier left Olathe North following the 2002 season to take over the head coaching duties at Richland High School in Richland, Texas, where he's spent the past nine seasons.  He also doubled as the athletic director at Richland.

Wier's current coaching tree includes head coaches Tim Callaghan of SM West, Ryan Lonergan of SM South and John McCall of Blue Valley North.  All three were coaches on Wier's staff in 2002 when Olathe North went 13-0 winning its third-straight 6A title.

6 comments:

MahValley said...

"Under Wier, Richland went 42-51, including 4-6 last season (3-5 in District 6-5A). The Rebels' best season in his tenure was a 9-2 record in 2008. Wier was 188-36 with six state titles at Olathe (Kan.) North before coming to Richland."
http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=rebelsfootball

Looks like winning in Texas is just a little bit harder than KS.;)

Todd Haley said...

Anyone coach could win a State Championship with players such as Darren Sproles, Maurice Mack, and Josh Carroll. Just Saying

Eli Underwood said...

Keep in mind, Richland was in Class 4A when Wier inherited the program in 2003, and they went 7-4 that year and qualified for the playoffs.

The next season they jumped to 5A, the highest classification in Texas (featuring 254 high schools), which is not exactly an easy undertaking for a football program.

Pound-for-pound, Texas high school football is played at a much higher level of competition than that of Kansas--but I wouldn't write off Wier as a coach who always had more talent than everyone else. The last thing he needs is bulletin board material.

Govannon Grey said...

Eli, I would tend to agree, but you have to acknowledge that it's just a fact that he did have more talent then almost everyone he played. He'll probably be the first to admit that. But I've seen coaches lose to lesser talented teams on a regular basis. Winning with talent is the sing of a competent coach, in my opinion. Let's not kid ourselves. High School football is 95% about having the most talented players on the field. The coach just has to be competent enough to not screw it up when it comes around.

I don't think Texas being more competitive has anything to do with ability as a coach. If you can coach lesser talent in Kansas, you should be able to coach greater talent in Texas.

Govannon Grey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Charlie Cleveland said...

There is no question that overwhelming talent wins games. However, of the six Championship teams Coach Wier coached I would say only 2 or possible 3 of those teams had "overwhelming" talant. I've been around North Football for a long time and I've seen more games decided by missed assignments rather than physical mismatches!

To win Championships talent as well as COACHING is required. To simplify it by saying, "The coach just has to be competent enough to not screw it up when it comes around" is naive.

Great coaching plus great talent equals hardware. Great coaching plus mediocre talent equals sound fundamental football with little margin for error. Great talent plus mediocre coaching equals teams that don't achieve like they should.

Coach Wier has said that none of his RB's at Richland could've of played for any North team he coached. A few years ago Richland's eight team district produced more D-1 players than did the entire KC Metro area that season.

My point is that he didn't forget how to coach at Richland. You could argue that they overachieved in the DFW area with the personnel they had. His teams played good football, they just had little to no room for error against some of the teams they played (Richland playing Southlake Carroll is like Leavenworth playing Olathe North).