Weigel officially promoted to lead Hodag boys’ soccer

When Nathan Bates stepped down after leading the Rhinelander High School boys’ soccer team to the WIAA Division 3 state semifinals last fall, his hope was that much of the coaching staff would remain intact as the team transitioned into 2023. 

That will indeed be the case. Rhinelander High School activities director Brain Paulson confirmed to the River News on Monday that John Weigel has been promoted to the head coaching role for the upcoming year. 

Weigel has served as an assistant under Bates for both the RHS boys’ and girls’ soccer teams. Bates took over the boys’ program from longtime coach Dan Millot in 2019 and stepped into lead the girls’ program in 2021 after Richard Kotula stepped down days prior to the opening game, citing health concerns. 

“We promoted John. The soccer program, Nate Bates and John have been coaching this club travel soccer team and the familiarity with the kids is right there, right now. We’re lucky enough to have John be able to step up and coach this team,” Paulson said.

The River News spoke to Weigel Monday night at the RHS girls’ soccer team’s banquet and he said he’s eager to build on the team’s recent success.

“It’s going to be fun. I’m excited,” he said. “We still have a good group. We lost 11 seniors, but we still have a good, core group of six coming back … with a bunch of young guys that, playing in some summer tournaments, have really shown they’ve grown up quite a bit from their freshman year.”

Bates will continue to serve as the head coach of the RHS girls’ soccer team. 

Though it was understood that 2022 was likely going to be Bates’ last season at the helm of the boys’ program, he officially announced his intentions last November at the team’s banquet. Bates was 32-20-17 in four years as coach. Rhinelander won the GNC title under Bates in the 2020 season and finished tied for second in the conference in 2022 before a Cinderella run to the state tournament. 

At the time, Bates said the remainder of the coaching staff would likely remain intact and strongly endorsed Weigel as his replacement.

“They’re as dedicated to the program and the kids,” he said. “They’re not in it for being the coach. They’re in it to improve the kids lives and help them with life lessons and be a friend to them on top of it.” 

Both Weigel and Paulson pointed to continuity as a key to the coaching transition. 

“Johnny will do a great job with these kids,” Paulson said. “The trust in them, the language they’ve been using for however many of the past years and to be able to get the communication from off the field on to the field will be something that this team will have an advantage of this year.” 

Weigel added, “We’re kind of just growing off of the things we’ve done in the past. I don’t see like any huge changes. It’s kind of just building on what we’ve already got built so far with Nate.” 

Additionally, Weigel mentioned that Jack Gundeck, who has lead the middle school program the last couple of seasons, will step up and serve as an assistant on the high school squad. Gundeck helped coach the Hodag Soccer Club’s U18 boys’ team during a couple of tournament last month. That team, which featured a number of players expected to play for RHS this fall, placed second in tournaments in Eau Claire and Stevens Point.

Despite losing a strong senior nucleus off last year’s state tournament team, Weigel said he was encouraged by what the U18 squad showed in last month’s events. 

“We’ve played some tough teams. We beat PCYS (Stevens Point). We fared well against Marshfield, tied Marshfield. We had a win against Rice Lake, so some tough competition already,” he said. “With losing all those seniors, some of the new kids filling those positions, it was actually a lot smoother than I anticipated right off the bat.” 

Fall practice for the Hodag boys’ soccer team will begin Aug. 14 and the team is slated to open competition for the 2023 season Aug. 22 at New London.

“It comes fast, especially rolling off the girls’ season. There’s not a lot of down time. A couple of weeks and we’ll be back into soccer again,” Weigel said.

Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].