Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

There will be new head football coaches at four different schools in the Your Prep Sports area this fall.

With all the shuffling on the sideline this season Your Prep Sports is helping area fans get to know the new coaches with series of question and answer sessions that will publish in the weeks leading up to the season.

Clear Creek Amana is one of three area programs with a head coach that is new to the school with former Mount Vernon defensive coordinator Matt Haddy taking over for the 2021 season.

Haddy was hired in April to replace Gabe Bakker who was hired as the head coach at Waukee High School after posting a 20-16 record in four seasons at Clear Creek Amana.

Clear Creek Amana has been .500 or better each of the past three seasons and is coming off a 4-4 season that ended with a loss to Marion in the opening round of the Class 3A playoffs last season.

The Clippers open the season August 27 at Marion.

Your Prep Sports: Can you tell us your background, where you went to school and how you got into high school coaching?

Matt Haddy: I went to high school at Marion and then went to college at Iowa. I got my first coaching job fresh out of high school as a freshman in college at Clear Creek. That was my first coaching spot, I coached freshman basketball that first year for coach (Steve) Ottoson so it is kind of a full circle deal here. I coached a couple more years there with him, did a couple of years of sophomores and them moved on.”

A majority of my early coaching background was in basketball. I got my start in coaching football at Lisbon. I was the defensive coordinator at Lisbon for four years, including the 2011 season when we won a state title there. Went from there to Independence for two years where I was the head basketball coach and head baseball coach and worked with the football program as well and then after that went to Mount Vernon and was at Mount Vernon for six years and was the defensive coordinator at Mount Vernon for all six of those years and had a lot of success at Mount Vernon including the first two years I was there in 2015 and 2016 going to the UNI-Dome and 2015 playing in the title game.”

YPS: You have coached football obviously but you’ve also coached girls and boys basketball, baseball, golf. Is there a sport that you haven’t coached?

Haddy: There are a couple (laughter). Wrestling is one and track. Those would be the two that I haven’t really dabbled in but I’ve coached a lot of different things. I’ve always enjoyed being in multiple different things and coaching different types of kids and the different type of coaching that goes into it. Obviously coaching football and coaching golf are two very, very different things. I like to be involved but one of the things and one of the draws with Clear Creek is that I am at a point in my life where I am ready to focus on one thing.”

YPS: What made Clear Creek Amana and this position attractive to you?  

Haddy: There are a lot of things that went into it. When I have applied for jobs, and I’ve only applied for a couple in the six years I’ve been at Mount Vernon just because Mount Vernon has been a great place for me and a place that I will always hold very dear but when I looked at possibilities I look at a couple of things.

I looked at is it a place that I can see my wife enjoying being a part of the district and the community. Is it a place that has success going on in multiple sports? And is it a place that legitimately has the pieces in place to compete for a state championship for me all of those boxes got checked at Clear Creek.

It’s a growing district obviously, it’s a district with great facilities, it’s a district with plenty of athletes and it’s a district with great people. I have known Kurt Ronnfeldt for a long time, obviously the Mount Vernon connection, we weren’t at Mount Vernon together but I’ve known Kurt for many years. The two years I was at Independence I was assistant AD so I got good knowledge of the ADs in the WAMAC conference and I coached a couple of years at Iowa City West when Mark Moody the principal at Clear Creek was there so I knew of Mark and then a lot of the head coaches at Clear Creek I am very familiar with. Brandon Clubb and I used to scrimmage each other when he was at North Tama and I was the basketball coach at Lisbon so I’ve known Brandon for many years. Obviously, I know PJ Sweeney from coaching against him on the girls side the last four years. Nick Zumsande I spent a couple of years as the director of baseball operations at Iowa and Nick and I roomed together on the road so I’ve known Nick for a long time. My familiarity with a lot of the people at Clear Creek all of those things really rolled into it.

I’ve said to a lot of people, I’ve always thought that Clear Creek as a school in general and then the football program especially I’ve always seen as kind of a sleeping giant or diamond in the rough. I think Gabe was just getting going in that direction before he left for Waukee, you don’t get a chance to go to a place like Waukee if you aren’t doing things right where you are at. All of those things kind of rolled into one big ball were the reason that I finally pulled the trigger on one and it being Clear Creek.

YPS: How much different does Clear Creek Amana look now than when you were helping Coach Ottoson 20 year ago?

Haddy: I remember coaching in that old gym that is now in the middle school and that was a great gym back in the Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference days where we had some really great basketball battles. I would have never guessed 21 years ago when I was there first starting that it would be what it is now. The way it has blown up, the way that area has blown up, it’s just been crazy to see how it has taken off.

YPS: What do you want someone to say about a Clear Creek Amana football team that you are coaching?

Haddy: I want people to look at us and know that we aren’t going to beat ourselves, we are going to be disciplined, we are going to be sound in our assignments both offensively and defensively and we are going to be a team that tries really hard to excel in all three phases of the game. I’m a person that has spent a lot of time around the Iowa program. One of the great things to come out of the whole COVID thing and the lockdown, quarantine last year was that for about two and half months or so I was fortunate to be able set up some Zoom sessions with some other high school coaches that included the Iowa staff and I got to know the Iowa staff really well and listen in on different things and ways that they do things. There are a lot of things that they do that I believe in just in terms of we are going to be sound defensively and that’s where we are going to start. We are not going to make mistakes offensively and special teams are going to be a really important part of what we are as a program.

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