By Dave Krider
MaxPreps.com
Perhaps, because he feels he had poor coaching as a high school baseball player, Larry Niemeyer became such a great teacher and handler of athletes that he now holds the national record for most coaching victories in the history of high school softball.
In 49 years at two Iowa high schools (Adel and Cedar Rapids Jefferson), the 70-year-old coach has won an incredible 1,619 games against 327 losses and captured three state championships. Though fall softball does not count toward national records, Niemeyer’s overall record stands at a mind-boggling 1,950-390. He coached Adel to a fall state title when all the schools participated in the tournament.
He also has coached girls basketball over the same period with an 830-285 record (second-most wins in Iowa history), one state title and three runner-up finishes. In addition, he has won a state title in cross country and indoor track, making him Iowa’s only coach to win titles in four different sports.
The highly-decorated Iowan has been named National Coach of the Year in both softball and basketball by the National High School Coaches Association and belongs to that organization’s Hall of Fame. Inside the state, he has won every major award for coaching girls sports.
“He’s phenomenal,” says Mike Jorgensen, head coach at Southeast Webster-Grand in Burnside, Iowa. “The success he’s had over extended time is unreal. I’m a pretty dedicated coach, but I don’t know if I ever could put in the number of years that he has. He’s highly respected.”
Longtime mentor Dick Wagner of Burlington muses, “Larry was such a masculine person. Whoever thought he would coach girls? If they don’t do what he says, they’re out of the game. His kids are really disciplined. He gives the impression that he’s really tough, but he’s a softie underneath. I don’t think I ever saw him yell at anybody.
“When his mom died, I was just shocked at the number of people who came (100 miles from Cedar Rapids to Burlington) for the funeral. That’s how much they thought of him. The thing I don’t understand is why they haven’t named the (softball) field after him. This man is nationally famous.”
Niemeyer was born in Burlington, Iowa, but played high school baseball in Beardstown, Ill. At 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, he was a promising pitcher with a good fastball and curve. However, coaches in the 1950’s overworked their pitchers. He generally had to pitch an hour of batting practice before his regular starts.
A Washington Senators scout had been following him until he suffered a sore arm as a sophomore. “I was never the same,” he sighed. “I just didn’t take care of myself and threw too much. Around the fourth or fifth inning, I’d get tired. Coaching really was different then. I wish I would have had better coaching. Even in American Legion, the coach had liquor on his breath.”
However, Niemeyer had been born with a major dose of baseball in his blood and that eventually led him into coaching, although – ironically – he never has coached baseball on the high school level. Three generations of his family have been Chicago Cubs fans. In fact, he was named after a Cub pitcher, Larry French, whom his father called “the only gentleman on the team.”
His grandfather’s last words to him before he died from cancer at age 75 were: “Those (expletive) Cubs are losing again!”
Since he couldn’t play anymore, Niemeyer spent his final two years of high school serving as president of both the local Babe Ruth and Little League baseball programs. He also ran the concessions, did the announcing and kept score.
Niemeyer graduated from Beardstown High School in 1955. While attending Western Illinois University he began coaching Babe Ruth baseball in the summer while also following his father as a railroad worker. “The first year I took the kids who nobody wanted,” he said proudly. “The second year we won with the same kids.
“Coaching was easy for me. I understood it and paid attention to it. I just enjoyed the strategies more than the games. I could just practice and not play games. The thing that keeps you in there is the competitive spirit. It’s a great thrill when you beat somebody.”
Still, when he graduated from Western Illinois in 1959, he had majored in business with only a minor in physical education. “I never dreamed I’d be a teacher,” he admitted. He doesn’t even remember why, but his first job just happened to be teaching business at tiny Adel, Iowa, in the fall of 1959. The superintendent asked him if he would coach girls basketball and when he found out it was worth $200 he jumped at it.
Niemeyer never even had seen a girls basketball game in his life. His first team posted a 5-10 record, his second team was 2-17, but after that he had only one other losing season. During 18 years at Adel, Niemeyer coached four varsity sports, taught six classes, ran the school newspaper and coached all junior high sports.
It didn’t take Niemeyer long to decide “It was more fun coaching girls. They’d listen to you more. I always thought good coaching would show up more in girls than in boys. I don’t coach them as girls. I coach them as athletes.”
Miraculously, Niemeyer found enough time to get married at age 32. His future wife, Gwen, must be a saint because their dates basically consisted of him picking her up while teaching driver training late in the evening and giving her a one-hour ride home.
Despite – or because of – his astounding success at Adel, Niemeyer took over a downtrodden program at Cedar Rapids Jefferson in 1978. “I got tired of winning,” he said seriously. “We won the conference 17 or 18 years in a row. I needed a new challenge. The fun had gone out. The expectations were too much. I wanted to see if I was a good enough coach to do the same thing at another school.
“I looked for the poorest program I could find,” he continued on a serious note. “They were really bad. They played (softball) in a city park. If it rained them out, there was no makeup, because others had the future dates. The principal had to promise he would let me build a softball field. They had won (a total of) 25 games during the previous five years in basketball. They weren’t used to working very hard. They didn’t have very high expectations. They played for fun. I think winning is fun.”
Apparently Niemeyer, indeed, was an exceptional coach because his first girls basketball team won over half of its games and was nipped in the regional by two points in overtime.
Five years after he took over at Jefferson, Niemeyer won the state softball championship. He won a basketball crown in the 1992-93 campaign with a flawless 29-0 record. That one was special because his oldest daughter, Nancee, was a senior starter and middle daughter Norene was a sophomore reserve. Both also were school valedictorians. “It doesn’t get any better than that,” he noted.
Nancee, now age 32 with two children of her own, says her father “really teaches basics and athletes come away really understanding basics. He keeps it simple and that’s why he wins. He enjoys the preparation – the challenge of preparing and scouting. He really enjoys taking a player and watching her develop.”
Niemeyer has taken the Jefferson softball team to the state tournament 26 times, including seven in a row. “I teach them to be winners,” he says. “Our kids are not the most talented, but when the chips are down our kids know how to win. We were third in the state this year with an eighth grade pitcher.”
He has coached his basketball team to the state finals an even dozen times.
Though he’ll turn 71 on Sept. 15, Niemeyer still coaches both sports and works full-time in Jefferson’s business department. Not surprisingly, he has no hobbies because his summers are filled with state softball, basketball camps and leagues. Even in the summer his days start at 6 a.m. and generally end around midnight.
When he finally does call it a day, he admits, “Right before I go to bed, I read Baseball America.”
How about retirement? “I never even thought about it,” he claims.
“My wife wouldn’t let me, but I almost bought a hat that said, ‘Don’t Ask!’ I’m still competitive. Why don’t (people) just leave me alone and let me coach?”