Waupaca hires new football coach
By Greg Seubert
Submitted Photo
Waupaca High School didn’t have to look far to find its new football coach.
Bennett Hansen, a 2007 WHS graduate who played on the Comets’ first state championship team in 2006, will replace Tom Noltner, who stepped down last year after four seasons.
Hansen’s coaching resumé includes seven seasons as an assistant coach at Amherst High School and two years as an assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. His stint in Amherst, from 2011-17, included WIAA Division 5 state championships in 2012, 2015, 2016 and 2017.
“I grew up in Waupaca and played football in Waupaca,” Hansen said. “That’s where my love of the game really sprouted from: Waupaca football. I never really left the region since I left Waupaca in 2007. Coaching in Amherst with some former Waupaca coaches, it was always something that was in the back of my mind as a fan. How’s Waupaca doing?”
Amherst connection
Former Amherst athletic director Joe Sbertoli, now Waupaca’s activities director, hired Hansen.
“I think it made getting the job easier because I worked for Joe as a coach at Amherst,” Hansen said. “He had a little bit more of an understanding of who I was. Regardless of who the AD was, I was going to go for this job the next time in opened. I have a good relationship with Joe and I’m excited to work for him again.”
Hansen’s first order of business is finding assistant coaches.
“The first thing I’m going to do is try and build a staff and get some committed coaches in that want to help out in the weight room and are willing to learn the game,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me how much they really know, but are they willing to learn and are they passionate about it?
“Passion is huge, but you have to know how to channel that passion,” he said. “You can be really adamant about football and everything you’ve been taught, but it’s an evolving game and you’re constantly seeing changes. You have to be passionate about learning the game and always evolving.
“I plan to have a couple former Amherst staff on this Waupaca staff,” he added. “I have an open door with it and that’s how it was at Amherst, Whoever wants to chip in can and that’s how you build something great. You get a lot of guys invested.”
Hansen would like to bring longtime assistant coach Jay Krcmar into the mix.
“He was a coach of mine and he’s been around the program for so long,” he said. “He and I have a great relationship and I’d love to bring him back.”
Playing in Waupaca
Hansen played football in Waupaca under John Koronkiewicz, who coached the Comets for 32 seasons before stepping down in 2015.
Koronkiewicz coached the Comets to a 7-3 win over Greendale in the 2006 Division 3 state championship game.
Hansen caught three passes for 14 yards in the game.
“You felt like he believed in you,” he said. “Everybody had so much respect for him that when you felt like you had his confidence, you believed it was for a reason. It almost made you feel invincible. There’s no questioning his knowledge of the game and his love of the game. You felt like he cared about you, so you wanted to go that extra step further for the guy because he was always behind you.”
Hansen was an assistant in Amherst under Mark Lusic, who was also one of Koronkiewicz’s assistants in Waupaca.
“I’m really excited for the challenge,” Hansen said. “It’s going to be different than anything I’ve ever done. Thankfully, I have a lot of great resources working for Mark Lusic in Amherst and being coached under Koronk and maintaining contact with him for a long time. Any questions that come up, I’m a phone call away from guys that have done it and done it well.”
Lusic and his staff turned the Falcons into one of the state’s top small-school programs.
“It was really a player-driven team,” Hansen said. “Once you’re given the blueprint of this is how you can achieve this ultimate goal and you had the guys within the team pushing that goal, it kind of took legs of its own. Even after we lost Tyler Biadasz and Garrett Groshek to the Badgers, we won two state titles without those guys. I think it’s a major credit to the weight room program that Mark and Doug Spadoni are running over there.”
Hansen left Amherst after the 2017 season to join the Pointers, where he coached outside linebackers.
“Amherst is a great program, but after seven years and with how young Mark and Doug and the rest of the staff are, I kind of hit the ceiling there,” he said. ”I was excited for another challenge.”
WHS graduate Barry Derickson recommended Hansen for the UW-Stevens Point job after the Pointers hired Derickson as defensive line coach.
“College football was awesome,” Hansen said. “Coaching a couple of my former Amherst guys, I loved seeing the next step and the evolution of young student-athletes and being able to be almost a year-round coach. I realized life is short and my wife really encouraged me to pursue coaching. I’ve been going to school for coaching online while being a stay-at-home dad and coaching in the fall.”
Full circle
Hansen, his wife Shawna, and their three children will move from Plover to Waupaca this spring.
“This will be my 10th season coaching football and I don’t think I’ve been as excited about this since maybe my first year in Amherst, not really knowing what to expect,” he said. “It kind of feels like that again.”
Hansen will take over a Waupaca program that made the WIAA playoffs each year from 1991 until 2016, Noltner’s first season.
“All you have to do is go over .500,” he said. “The ultimate goal of every program is to be a winning team. Once you get into the playoffs, you give yourself a chance. Winneconne got into the playoffs about six years ago at about .500 and ended up winning state.”
Hansen expects to see a competitive team this year that is coming off of a 2-7 season in 2019 that included a 2-6 mark in the Bay Conference.
“It’s going to take awhile for the program to take hold and get the weight room going and I understand that,” he said. “You have to believe right away that you can compete. You don’t really worry about the score. You do the best job that your guys can do and once you get the guys doing that, the score will eventually take care of itself.”
Hansen is looking forward to being on the sidelines for 2020 season, which will kick off in late August.
“It’s really exciting for me,” he said. “I understand the history of the program. I grew up playing at Haberkorn Field. The community is invested and they’re hungry for a winner. I know what the community can become once you get winning again. The support you can generate, it’ll be incredible.”