New Comets coach hopes to bring the excitement

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

When Ben Klapperich took a guided tour through Charles City’s new gymnasium, he better understood the task at hand.

“I knew I’d better field a team that will fill that place night after night,” Klapperich said while referring the gym’s immense grandeur. “It’s an extremely nice facility … one of the best I’ve seen at any level.

“It’s going to provide a great opportunity to bring excitement back to Charles City basketball.”

Last week, Klapperich was officially named as the Comets’ new varsity boys basketball head coach, taking over for Todd Forsyth, who was at the helm for more than two decades.

Klapperich currently is an elementary school teacher at Rockford, where he coached the Warriors varsity boys program for the past three years.

In Klapperich’s first two years, the Warriors placed second twice in the defunct Corn Bowl Conference. His coaching tenure at Rockford will remain in effect through the weekend as Klapperich — also Rockford’s head girls track coach — has several athletes who have qualified for the Class 1A State Track and Field Meet.

When Klapperich made the decision to come to Charles City, he made sure his former players were among the first to know.

“I had a meeting with them early the following morning,” Klapperich said. “I guess you could say there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

“But I wanted them to hear it first from me, not through Twitter or anything like that. We talked about the good times we had together, and they were happy for me. It was nice that throughout the rest of the day they would come one after another to my room and congratulate me.”

Though coaching at a bigger school was an opportunity Klapperich couldn’t pass up, even for a young single guy it wasn’t going to be enough alone to pay the bills.

“That’s why I was so glad that a fourth-grade teaching position also opened up at Charles City,” Klapperich said. “I couldn’t continue to teach (at Rockford) during the day and then go (to Charles City) to coach at night.”

When Klapperich was called in for his interview, it was for two positions. Overall, the process took more than three hours as Klapperich interfaced with multiple school officials and panels, one of which included former Comets all-stater David Rottinghaus.

“It was an extensive interview, but I left with a very good feeling,” Klapperich said.

Separated less by distance and more by school-size classification, Rockford and Charles City never face each other during the basketball season.

“There may have been a rivalry some time ago, but now we never see each other,” Klapperich said. “For me, that’s a good thing. I would hate to come back here to coach against my former players.”

Klapperich may have never coached against the Comets, but that doesn’t mean he’s not familiar with them. On the wall in Klapperich’s classroom is a team photo of his Iowa Ambush 14U squad from 2013. Several returning letterwinners for what will be Klapperich’s first Comet campaign were prominent members of that Ambush team.

Klapperich started the Iowa Ambush youth basketball program four years ago. The immediate success and growth of the program in part helped Klapperich — a 2008 Osage graduate who played basketball for NIACC before continuing his educational studies at the University of Northern Iowa — land his first high school head coaching job at 22 years old.

“I know even now I’m very young for a high school head coach,” Klapperich said. “That’s why I give a lot of credit to all my assistants who helped bring me along.”

Though Klapperich may have had an upclose view of the talents and capabilities of several returning Comets who were part of his Iowa Ambush program, he’s coming into the job with a form of self-inflicted amnesia.

“The slate is going to be wiped clean,” Klapperich said. “If you’re a returning starter, that means nothing. Every position is open and is going to have to be earned.”

Though he hopes his players will work on their games during the upcoming summer and fall months, Klapperich is a stickler against kids specializing in one sport.

“There is something you can draw from playing any other sport than can help you on the basketball court,” he said. “Like if you run track and someone passes you. What are you going to do? ‘Oh, well, he just passed me’, or are you going to pick it up and take back the lead?

“You face situations like that in football … baseball … all sports. It’s competition. The more different types you face, the better prepared you will be in the future.”

Whether his Comets play two, three or even four sports other than basketball, come first practice Klapperich will expect this of them:

“They better be in shape,” he said. “If not, we’ll find out real early.”