Sports

Bender named girl’s basketball head coach

By Tyler Ohmann

05/29/2012

For the past 21 years Joe Bender has been coaching basketball. He has coached junior high, ninth grade, ‘C’ squad and junior varsity.
Next season he will finally become top dog as he has accepted the position of Girl’s Head Basketball Coach at Bottineau High School after the retirement of Mike Forsberg.

“I applied three different times for head coaching jobs, and every time I lost out to an in-house teacher,” Bender said. “That’s the system, and I understand that. I guess the way I should have fixed that was to get my teaching degree.”

All joking aside, Bender said he is ready for the opportunity to be in charge of a program.

“I guess it has taken this long to find a great AD in Dave and Jason to give me a chance, and say ‘ok, here’s an opportunity,’ hopefully it works,” Bender said. “I am just lucky they are giving me this opportunity.”

BHS is happy to have him, as he beat out four other interested parties in landing the gig.

“We had about five applicants or people interested in the job,” said Bottineau Athletic Director David Hoff. “But we liked the fact that he has been part of our basketball program for the last few years, and he’d been interested in moving to a head coaching spot when that came available.”

Bender has coached on the Bottineau boy’s side of basketball for the past three seasons, with being the junior varsity coach and top assistant under Nate Simpson each of the past two seasons.

Though he is excited for the opportunity to head the girl’s program, he said he will miss coaching the boys.

“One thing I am going to miss is the relationship Nate and I have had the past three years,” Bender said. “But seeing Nate’s philosophies and drills, the more you see the more you pick up as a coach.”

Bender has also coached junior varsity football the past three years, and has been the school’s head golf coach the past two years.

He thinks that being in the system and involved in a lot of Bottineau sports is a definite plus.

“Being in the system, knowing all the girls, having watched all the girls play, that is a huge benefit,” Bender said. “I think it is going to help a lot, and it is going to make the transition easier.”

However, Bender also knows that Forsberg’s shoes won’t be easy to fill. Forsberg amassed four state titles and more than 700 wins in his coaching career, with the bulk of that being at BHS.

“I don’t think I have to change a lot, obviously Mike (Forsberg) was a great coach,” Bender said. “His philosophies and his way of coaching has led this program to be a very influential program in the state of North Dakota.”

“Obviously I want to keep those same goals, but every coach is going to have different philosophies,” Bender added.

Hoff too acknowledged the difficulty in following such a successful coach.

“It wasn’t easy to replace Mike, he has done a great job for a lot of years,” Hoff said. “We have had a great run of girl athletes for a good period of time too, but Joe has a great opportunity. There are a lot of young girls in the program, and good basketball players.”

Bender knows that Forsberg’s legacy won’t be the only challenge in the upcoming years.

“I think the challenges are going to be the girls adjusting from a system they have known for years to a new system, a new coach, new ideas and new everything,” Bender said. “There will be some challenges in that.”

Bender said he hopes to start with fundamentals when the girls hit the gym.

“I am a very hands on coach, and I like to work on the fundamentals and get the fundamentals to work before throwing everybody into a system,” Bender said. “I think the biggest thing I’d like to see is that all the girls coaches in the program be on the same page, be it from hoopsters to junior high to freshman and sophomore to varsity, so that the transition from each age group is easier.”

He also hopes to see them in the gym this summer, working on their game.

“I think the girls seem excited, and now I need to get to know them better, and set up gym time for them,” Bender said. “I have to hope they go to summer camps and practice and don’t put the ball away over the summer. I am more than happy to help them in any way that I can.”

Hoff thinks that Bender will be a good fit.

“He’s done a good job with some of our sub-varsity teams, and we are looking forward to him being the head of our girl’s program here,” Hoff said. “With Mike retiring, it gives Joe a chance to do things the way he wants to see them done, and hopefully he does a good job with our girls basketball team, and they keep getting better.”

As for Bender’s goals, they are quite lofty, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“As far as goals it is to win a district championship, and then go on to state and it should be that way every year,” Bender said. “The girls shouldn’t have different goals, and I’m not going to have different goals.”

“We aren’t doing anybody justice if we go in there just playing to play,” Bender added.

Bottineau went 12-11 in Forsberg’s final season, falling to eventual state entrant Bishop Ryan in the first round of the Region 6 tournament.