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LAUREL — With the departure of Laurel- Concord-Coleridge football coach Alan Gottula and girls’ basketball coach Marcus Messersmith, the LCC school board hired a couple of young coaches to fill the spots.
Both hires are familiar names, one a former Bear and the other a former Bear rival, but both up-and-coming coaches getting their first head coaching chances.
Former LCC standout Izac Reifenrath will take the football job and Blake Brown, a former Wakefield standout will guide the Lady Bears on the hardwood. The duo competed against each other in high school.
“I remember he stole the ball from me a couple times in basketball when we played each other,” Brown said. “That was a few years ago, I’m happy to get the job and look forward to the opportunity.”
Reifenrath already started his coaching career with the Bears as Messersmith’s assistant, and will be a boys basketball assistant next winter. He was a bit surprised when he was asked to take over the Laurel-Concord-Coleridge football fortunes.
“I stopped by Jeremy’s (Christiansen) office for something else and he asked if I would be interested in the head football job,” Reifenrath said. “I hadn’t really thought about it and asked him for some time to think about it. “The more I thought about it the more excited I got. I met with him a couple of days later and took the job.”
The new coach is anxious to see what he has coming back and knows he has some talent.
“I know we have some speed and we’ll figure out how to use that,” he said. “We might not be very deep but we’ll have some talent.”
The former Bear was a part of Laurel-Concord-Coleridge’s firstever playoff football team before graduating back in 2019.
“We kind of got pushed around but we bonded together my senior year and made the playoffs,” said Reifenrath. “We need to get in the weight room and get stronger and faster.”
He will also be keeping Gottula’s top assistants.
Nate Sims will return to run the Bears’ offensive fortunes and Pat Harrington will return to run the defense.
Brown, a 2021 graduate at Wakefield, inherits a more than solid nucleus for a successful first season on the bench.
He also kind of stumbled into the opportunity.
“I was at Melanie’s (Hartung) beauty shop and she said Laurel-Concord-Coleridge was looking for a girls’ basketball coach,” said Brown. “I was going to graduate from college so I thought I’d put my hat in the ring.”
After graduating from Wakefield, he played football for Morningside College and ran one year of track for the Mustangs.
The recent graduate plans to assess his talent and decide on his plan of attack for the Lady Bears next winter.
“There’s a few things I want to do, like press and get up and down the court,” he said. “I’ll listen to the team and we’ll figure out the best way for us to be successful.”
He is excited to start his career both on the court and in the classroom.
“I really love teaching, it doesn’t matter the subject, basketball, classroom , doesn’t matter,” the future coach said. “I’m excited to get started for both.”
