Brummer brings home coaching award
HCHS Head Track and Field Coach Sam Brummer has won the 3A At Large Coach of the Year award.
“It’s a super good accomplishment,” Brummer said. “It’s a total team award is how I view it, but it’s just as much an attribute to coach [James] Cairney and coach [Steve] Wilwerding and the rest of the team on our success with how the season went. I’m just super honored and humbled to have received the award.”
During this season, the Cyclones track and field team took home a third place trophy at the state championship meet in Des Moines, which included Wil Neuharth, Jacob Birch, Aidan Hall, Brehden Eggerss, Matthew Sorfonden, Cade Sears, Wil Arkfeld and Bryce Van Baale.
“A little bit of reflection during the summer helps when you don’t have as much on your plate as a teacher, and we’re still doing camps for football and shootouts for basketball,” Brummer added. “But you do have a little more time to soak in the year as a whole and it was challenging in many aspects, but it was also very rewarding. To get those eight guys down there at state and do what we did, and we’ll have a lot of those memories for the rest of our lives.”
Brummer takes on multiple coaching roles outside of track and field, including assistant girls basketball coach with Mark Kohorst under head coach Zach Klaassen, along with an assistant football coach under head coach Todd Bladt.
“It’s something I definitely look forward to,” he said. “It’s kind of a role I got blessed with by Mitch Osborn believing in me to take over at a relatively young age. I had some things to work through and I wouldn’t say I know everything by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoy coaching, I enjoy what I do and it’s a lot of the kids that make it worthwhile.”
Brummer comes from a strong and supportive family where his wife, Michelle, and his parents, Tony and Laurie, play a key role in his success.
“Without the homefront, the coaching thing wouldn’t work,” Brummer said. “I’ve been blessed with a very supportive wife that allows me to coach three varsity sports, which pretty much take up all of the school year and a large part of the summer. My parents still live in town. Whenever there is a double conflict and Michelle can’t watch the kids and I’m at an away meet, my mom and dad are still willing and able to play the grandpa and grandma role.”
Three students who won’t be returning for track next spring due to graduation are Hall, Birch and Neuharth, but Brummer is excited to have the returners back, along with new faces that join the program.
“It’s every year you lose some heavy hitter seniors,” he said. “The show goes on and you need the underclassmen that were maybe juniors and sophomores to step up into some roles that were vacated, and then you get some younger guys to fill in where they’re needed and maybe have them take a bigger role if they’re ready for that, too.”
In December at Iowa State, Brummer will have the honor or receiving his award at a banquet.
“It’ll be a nice reflection to celebrate what happened last year and good momentum to propel us into what could be for next season,” he added. “I don’t know who will make it up [at the banquet]. A lot of it depends on weather, especially in December.”