RCW: From the office of ... Gene Wier

Gene Wier is a walking legend when it comes to high school football coaches, but you would never know it. Kansas football’s director of high school relations has a bare-walled, modest office in the Anderson Family Football Complex.
 
Piled in the back corner, on top of a half-sized refrigerator, are frames and plaques most coaches would proudly flaunt on a daily basis.
 
A circle of state championship rings, a hall of fame bust and several plaques of accomplishment collect dust on top of the fridge. Wier revealed he was reluctant to even bring them to his office, but they help establish his credibility and expertise of football – something he would never boast himself.
 
“By no means, in any form or another, do I think I was the best coach in the country,” Wier said. “Not even close.”
 
Wier’s modesty covers up what many people in the early 2000’s already knew – he was one of the premiere high school coaches in the nation. His Olathe North Eagles won six-of-seven Kansas state championships from 1996-2002 and claimed 96-of-102 games in that span.
 
As a result of the dominating success, Wier received a phone call one day from a California number he didn’t recognize.
 
“When they called me and told me I had won the Sporting News High School Coach of the Year I thought it was a joke,” Wier recalled. “I figured it was one of my friends calling and playing a joke on me.”
 
Over his 34 years of coaching in the high school ranks, Wier developed more than 45 Division I players, while Olathe North’s Darren Sproles was a 2015 Pro Bowler in the National Football League.
 
 “I think these awards are a nod to how well that program had functioned for a length of time,” Wier said. “I was just the lightning rod at the top of the program who they gave these things to.”