Jerry Nikkel, Gary Boeyink Dec. 30, 2008

Hoops beats retirement for Nikkel, Boeyink

by Scott Kretzmann    

When most of the current Central College women’s basketball  players were still in high school, Jerry Nikkel and Gary Boeyink were doing what many men their age are doing right now: not much. They were retired, free to play golf all summer and head south for warmth in the winter.

Now the head coach for the Dutch women’s program, Nikkel retired in 2003 after a 29-year high school coaching career, guiding  Pella Christian High School i to three Iowa state boys’ titles and making four state tournament appearances with Marshalltown High School. Boeyink, now an assistant to Nikkel and junior varsity coach, was the Central women’s basketball program’s first and only coach from 1973-2001. He led the Dutch to the NCAA Division III playoffs five times and a national championships in 1993.

However the pull of coaching was too strong to keep either one away for too long. In 2005 Nikkel came back to help out the women’s program after getting a call from Central athletics director Al Dorenkamp during the school’s Christmas break following an assistant coach’s mid-season departure.       

“I found out that being totally retired isn’t a real good deal at a younger age,” Nikkel said. “You need things to do; at least I need things to do.”

Then when head coach Natalie Nakic resigned last spring after a 4-21 season, Nikkel was enticed by the familiar challenges of being a head coach.

“I checked with my wife first to see if it was okay with her,” he said. “But I thought I saw some things that were happening in the program here and I thought that maybe I could make some changes here and there, turn things around and (help it) become a successful program once again.”

It was similar to the challenge that provoked Nikkel to take on the job at Marshalltown High School after experiencing success at Pella Christian.

“I guess I found out the things I was doing at Pella Christian worked,” said Nikkel. “Because of that I thought that if I got the chance at a bigger school I could see if those same things would work, so I went to Marshalltown and found out that, yes, those same things do work.”

Taking the reins at Central is yet another chance for Nikkel to see if those things work.

Boeyink also found that retirement was not yet the right fit for him.

“The itch didn’t go away,” he said. “I missed coaching a great deal. I missed the excitement, the contact you have with the players and the fun of being a part of their lives.”

Boeyink, like Nikkel, also saw the decline of the program that he had started and said that it was tough to watch. So when the chance to come back arose before the 2007-08 season, he took it.

Nikkel and Boeyink aren’t the only ones benefitting from their presence on the court again. Assistant coach Andy Campbell has found being around them to be a great learning opportunity.

“It’s very humbling to have the chance to work with them because what they know about coaching is so extensive,” said Campbell. “I hear something new every day and I’m very grateful for the experience.”

On the court, the Dutch aren’t yet title contenders again, but the turnaround has clearly begun. Central matched last year’s win total after only 10 games.The two coaches now share a vision of returning Central’s women’s basketball program to prominence, and they plan to do it by coaching the way they always have. Even with the large age gap—not only with the players but with assistant Campbell—neither coach feels that coming back to coach has been difficult.

“People are people,” said Boeyink. “Young people have to relate to parents and grandparents in their lives all the time.

“It’s not at all difficult for me to relate to college-age women and some of that I would suspect is because it wasn’t a long period of time ago when I wasn’t making contact with college-age people.”

Nikkel believes that kids today are still basically the same as they were 30-plus years ago.

“They still want to be disciplined and have people coach them that will show a great interest in them not only as athletes but also in their personal life,” Nikkel said. “That’s one of the things I’ve tried to do is be involved with them as much as I can during the time period I have to work with them.”

Campbell hasn’t noticed the age gap affecting their player-coach relationship either.

“The interactions I’ve had with them are not what I had expected,” said Campbell. “ When we’ve had coaches meetings it’s like we’re all peers of the same age, and they have a great connection with all the players that comes off so naturally.”

But not all aspects of coaching have remained as they once were for the two coaches.

“At some point I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do the kind of demonstrations or the physical drill work, but that hasn’t kept a lot of successful coaches from being very successful,” Boeyink said. “But I’ve realized over the last 20 years that the coaching I did when I demonstrated was probably more for comic relief.”

Age has not kept them from enjoying their role or being ready every day when they step on the court.       

“I get excited for practice every day and I definitely get excited for games,” said Nikkel. “I had a lot of butterflies the first day of practice and I was anxious to teach some new things that would hopefully be challenging for them. I was excited about that and still am.”       

There is certainly awareness for both that a day will eventually come when they turn in their whistles for good. But they don’t know when that’s going to be.

“As long as I’m healthy, as long as I still feel I’m helping them become better players and as long as the college still wants me I’ll keep doing it,” Nikkel said. “But it may not always be at the head level.”

Boeyink tries not to think about a time when he’ll no longer be coaching again.

“That’ll happen but not this year,” he said  “I play it a year at a time and at the end of this season we’ll look at it, think about it, talk about it and go from there.”

Despite their own thoughts about returning to coaching, Nikkel and Boeyink still hear some other opinions from their peers.

“Some people think I’m crazy,” said Nikkel. “ ‘Why would you do something like that, you’re tied down all the time?’ And I think, well, why not? I enjoy it and I love the game. I hear all those things but I don’t put a lot of stock into them.”