Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Shortly after West High players broke the post-practice huddle on Tuesday another huddle began to form.

Despite temperatures near freezing several guys hung around in the end zone under the Trojan Field lights and slowly another smaller circle formed.

The discussion started as recap of the recently concluded practice but certainly turned into just some football guys hanging out.

A few harmless verbal jabs were exchanged, there was a little lighthearted teasing and some laughter and smiles before the group finally broke up and headed for home.

The impromptu meeting was exactly what you would expect from members of an 11-0 team.

It was a group that loves the sport trying to savor every moment left in the fleeting weeks of a football season.

That group wasn’t West High players it was the Trojan coaching staff.

“We all played, we all enjoy working with each other, we like the kids we work with and the community and I don’t know what we would do in the fall if we weren’t coaching,” West High coach Garrett Hartwig said. “It’s fun and that’s the main ingredient.”

There have been plenty of fun times at West High the past two seasons.

Since being named head coach at West High four seasons ago Hartwig has taken the Trojans

from a seven-loss season in his second year to one of the top programs in Class 4A.

West High (11-0) enters a 4A semifinal with No. 4 Bettendorf (10-1) on Friday at 4:06 p.m. at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls top-ranked, the lone unbeaten team in 4A and seeking a second straight title game appearance.

The Trojans have gotten their behind a straight forward no-nonsense approach from its head coach, an unflappable senior quarterback in Evan Flitz and mostly importantly according to Hartwig a loyal, tight-knight coach staff that likes having fun and winning.

“I think the comradery that we have and the friendships that we have built keep you coming back,” West High offensive coordinator Andrew Durham said. “We are good it’s not like we are 0-9 every year. We’ve gotten better and as we’ve established ourselves the last four years I don’t know why I would leave when I have such a good thing.”

The core of the West High staff was already around when Hartwig was tabbed to replace former West High coach Brian Sauser in June of 2014.

Four years later the staff is still mostly together and has West High a win away from its first back-to-back title game appearances since 1998 and 1999.

“That continuity among the coaches is huge,” West High defensive coordinator Tyler Meade said. “We have including me, three others that have been here for 10 years now and a couple others that are on eight years. It’s just the simple things of knowing the other guys’ personalities.”

In his first move after becoming a first-time head coach Hartwig appointed Durham and Meade his coordinators.

Then he made sure current assistants like Travis Meade, Josh Flammang and Chad Geary weren’t going anywhere.

“They all do a great good job,” Hartwig said. “I try to just set the table to the point where all they have to think about is coming out and coaching.”

Like Hartwig, Durham and Meade had coached at West High under Sauser but took on much larger roles when Hartwig was hired.

“I wouldn’t have taken the job if I wouldn’t have had those two right there with me,” Hartwig said. “They are so integral to what we do. The best thing I can do with those two is just stay away.”

The coordinator duo has played an essential role in the Trojans’ impressive string of success the past two seasons.

Durham came to West High as a college senior as a volunteer assistant for Sauser in 2008.

A standout quarterback in his playing days at Muscatine, Durham was the sophomore coach when Hartwig was hired before the 2014 season.

Now he is the play caller behind one of the most prolific offenses in 4A.

“(Hartwig) explained how things would work and said he would let me have the reins and I have run with that,” Durham said. “With the trust he had in me why would I leave it?”

Durham has settled into his role as a play caller.

West High scored more than 40 points four times in 23 games in Durham’s first two seasons as offensive coordinator.

This season the Trojans are averaging better than 43 points per game and rank fifth in 4A with 443 total yards per game.

Durham pulls motivation from being around the same core group of coaches that welcomed him in as a volunteer coach as a college senior.  

“The respect between each other is important, the friendship that we have is important,” Durham said. “If you trust everybody enough you want to win it for them, you want to win it together you don’t want to be the weak link.”

Opposite Durham, a West High transplant, on the West High coaching staff is Meade, a West High lifer.

The son of a coach and a 2007 West High graduate, Meade has been on the sideline at West High since he was in fifth grade.

“I was always around,” Meade said. “I was the little kid that came to practice and went to football camp in the summer and it’s really just what I liked to do. When it came to playing and then after that it was do I want to play in college or do I want to get into coaching and I was ready to do it.”

Meade graduated from West High in the spring and was an 18-year old sophomore assistant for the Trojans the following fall.

He held headset cables and coordinated equipment during his early assistant coach years.

Meade did everything except call plays as a West High assistant that changed when Hartwig tabbed him to run the defense.

“Every year just as an assistant I would think about if it were my defense how would I fit the players into those spots,” Meade said. “That finally gave me the chance to actually do it and see what happens.”

Under the tutelage of Meade West High has been among the best defensive teams in 4A over the past two seasons.

Over the past two seasons West High is allowing just 15.2 points per game and has held teams to 13.2 points and 251 yards per game this season.

The Trojans have held four straight teams to single digits entering Friday’s semifinal tilt with Bettendorf.

“It’s tough in the moment because you aren’t thinking about being 11-0 you are so focused on the week that you don’t get to enjoy it until it’s over,” Meade said. “But when you get to look back and see where we were 10 years ago to where we are now it’s a good feeling.”