Rieck replaces Holsey as Witt-Birn football coach

Team coming off deep postseason run
By: 
Morgan Rode
Sports Editor

The Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School football team will have a new head coach this season after one of its best showings in school history.

Bernard Holsey was the head coach for the Chargers last season when the team finished just one win short of a state appearance. Jason Rieck, the team’s former offensive coordinator, was tabbed the team’s new coach for the upcoming season after Holsey resigned to take the defense line coaching spot with the Arkansas Attack of Major League Football (MLFB).

“He is a highly-committed coach,” said Witt-Birn athletic director Chris Nier of Rieck. “He has been an assistant football coach since 2017 under coach Holsey and was strongly recommended by Bernard at his time of resignation.

“Jason is also the head baseball coach and has taken it upon himself to lead our strength, speed and agility program in the summer,” Nier continued. “He is an active official in basketball, line judge in volleyball and often works the clock for JV and varsity basketball games. He basically will do anything needed in the athletic department.”

Along with his experience as an assistant for the Chargers, Rieck also coached in Stevens Point. He was an assistant varsity coach for Stevens Point Area Senior High, ran the football program for grades 7-9 and was the coach for a ninth grade team.

Rieck took over as Witt-Birn’s baseball coach this past spring and has coached the Legion team a couple of summers, including this year when the team qualified for state. He still plans to coach the baseball team in the spring but could possibly pass the Legion coaching duties off to someone else in the future if the right candidate were to emerge.

He’s excited to try and continue the football success that Holsey and the Chargers have recently achieved.

“The program is in a great place right now,” said Rieck. “We did lose some seniors but also had a lot of younger players get experience last year that will pay off this year. They saw what needs to be done and the work it takes to get that far in playoffs. Everyone is excited for this season, and I hope to continue the progress the program has made the last couple years.”

Even though the team will have some turnover after the loss of some impact seniors, Rieck doesn’t plan to make many drastic changes to how things are run; he’s anticipating a smooth transition to his role as head coach.

Rieck said that he wants his teams to be built on “teamwork, hard work, great effort, pride in our athletic program and school and themselves.”

Under Holsey, Witt-Birn made it to the postseason four times.

Witt-Birn had made the playoffs 17 times in its history before Holsey took over, but the current team was also struggling to win more than a game or two a year. It didn’t take Holsey long to turn the team into a playoff contender again, with last year serving as the highlight of his run as the head coach.

Holsey called the 2021 season “an extremely special thing to me,” as he was able to deliver on a promise he made when he took over to help the team return to consistent winning seasons.

He said that team was able to “truly take things one game at a time” and it became apparent to him after back-to-back losses to Amherst and Mosinee about a month into the season. The team bounced back by winning a defensive battle against Stratford and then hit its groove by winning the rest of its regular season games, followed by three playoff games.

Holsey added that the most recent team was willing to do whatever it took to come away with wins, while always being confident in the plans laid out for them and that they could beat anybody they faced.

Unfortunately for Holsey, there was a financial issue that halted the MLFB. Even though the coaching opportunity didn’t go exactly as he’d hoped, Holsey had no regrets.

Holsey, who played the defensive line professionally for four NFL teams, said he took the position to challenge himself. He knew he could coach high school athletes, and he wanted to see if he could also help out players with college or even some professional experience.

He said he didn’t have to change any aspects of the way he coached, and reports from the team’s training camp were that he was turning the position group into a tenacious one.

While his immediate future isn’t exactly known, Holsey is hoping to get back into coaching in some fashion.

sports@newmedia-wi.com