For George Wares and Central softball, 40 years of big-time success
'It's surreal how much time has passed,' says coach with the most victories in NCAA Division III history
A few things have changed since George Wares became Central College’s softball coach.
First, the distance from the pitcher’s mound moved from 40 feet to 43 feet. Then, the ball went from white with white laces to fluorescent yellow with red laces. Then, because of those changes, college softball went from being a pitcher-dominated sport to a hitter-dominated sport.
One thing, though, has not changed: The Dutch keep winning.
Wares is in his 40th season at Central, which is ranked No. 19 in NCAA Division III with a 26-7 record and sits atop the American Rivers Conference. In that time his teams have won four national championships (1988, 1991, 1993, 2003) and earned 31 NCAA tournament bids. While this is a state where coaches tend to stay a while, Kirk Ferentz’s 26 years with Iowa football and Bill Fennelly’s 29 years with Iowa State women’s basketball almost pale in comparison to Wares’ tenure.
He has more victories than any other coach in Division III, with a career record of 1,256-444-3. The Dutch have never had a losing season since he took over in 1985.
“It’s surreal how much time has passed,” Wares said. “I’ve been paid to have fun for quite a while.”
Beyond the victories, Wares, 70, has helped create a unique culture in Pella and beyond. Former players become loyal alums, some with daughters who have played for Wares, too. His wife, Alicia O’Brien, is associate head coach and the school’s associate athletic director. The stands are often full at the softball field that you’ve got to think will be named after Wares one day.
So intrigued by the mental aspect of the game, Wares hired a Central psychology professor as an assistant coach. And he came to the realization a long time ago that the grass would not be greener somewhere else, and turned down offers to coach at bigger schools.
“Every time I was ready to say yes I had too many reasons to say no,” said Wares, a 1976 Central graduate. “I thought, ‘If we’re going to do it, let’s do it here.’ I’ve always considered Central to be a big-time atmosphere in a small environment and that’s been a good fit for me.”
Central administration and now-legendary athletic director and football coach Ron Schipper didn’t have to go far to find Wares when the school needed a softball coach back in 1985. Wares was coach at nearby Pella High School, where he was also a school counselor and the boys’ basketball coach. For a whopping $750 he added Central softball to his coaching duties and was also a men’s basketball assistant coach.
He quickly turned around the program and a Division III power was born. It has endured in part because of consistency, said Kara (Stanley) Huisman, a 1997 all-American pitcher for the Dutch.
“Even though it’s different kids in the uniform, the goals and the expectations of the program have not changed over the years,” said Huisman, who does color commentary for home Central games broadcast on KRLS radio.
That consistency is at the heart of alumni loyalty, too, she said.
“Even if we haven’t played together, we still have the same shared experience,” said Huisman, who is now an elementary school principal in Glenwood and coaches softball at Treynor High School. “That stems from Coach being there so long, having core values and holding each team to those core values.”
Huisman knows about sharing that experience. Her daughter, Sydni, is a senior pitcher for the Dutch. Her youngest daughter, Jadyn, also will play at Central next season.
The Huismans aren’t the only mother-daughter combo that Wares has coached. Former Central catcher Kylie Olson is the daughter of Laura Bach Olson, the catcher on the 1991 and 1993 national championship teams.
“It’s fun, but it’s challenging because we try hard to make sure it’s their experience and not their mother’s experience,” Wares said. “If their mother was an all-American, we try hard to make them feel they don’t have to be the same, that they should be their own person.”
Wares also coached his own daughter, Kristin, who was a four-year starter and a member of the Dutch’s 2003 national championship team. He coached his other daughter, Suzanne, in high school.
“I thought it’s either going to be a mistake or it’s going to be a no-brainer,” he said of coaching his daughter. “[Kristin] started every game the year we won the national title, and it’s hard to top something like that.”
Huisman thinks being a parent, much less coaching his own daughters, has informed a lot of Wares’ approach in later years.
“His daughters were young when I was there and I think any time you raise two daughters you look at things a little differently,” Huisman said. “So I think he looks at the players a little differently than he did then. I wouldn’t say he’s softer but his perspective has changed and I think that comes from being a dad.”
Time has helped Wares deal with the mental aspects of the game, trusting himself, trusting his players, understanding that sometimes things just happen and you move on.
“It’s that you can do everything right and still have failure,” he said. “That you can have a bad at-bat or bad pitching performance, or a bad game and you just deal with it. That sounds like coach’s talk, but it really is real.”
One doubleheader this year illustrated the roller coaster a coach and a team can ride. On April 6 against conference favorite Coe, the Dutch quickly fell behind 6-0 and Wares was worried about the game being cut short by the mercy rule. Then the team rallied with four runs in the bottom of the seventh and won 10-9 in eight innings.
“In football you have a week to celebrate that, in basketball it’s maybe three or four days and we’ve got 20 minutes,” Wares said of the doubleheader that Central then swept with a 5-4 victory in the second game. “Just being able to handle that has become easier.”
It’s been a unique season for the Dutch. Because of the extra Covid year athletes have been granted, he has five fifth-year seniors. All but one starter returned from a team that made it to an NCAA regional last year and lost to Bethel, which had the national pitcher of the year.
Expectations are high, but that’s how it’s always been at Central and for Wares. He doesn’t see any reason bring it to an end any time soon.
“There’s no way I would have thought that 40 years later I’d still be doing this, and even more, that’d I’d still be enjoying it,” he said. “I consider myself lucky every day of my life.”
Jane Burns is a former sports and features writer for the Des Moines Register, as well as other publications and websites. She’s a past winner of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s Mel Greenberg Award for her coverage of women’s basketball. Over the course of her career she’s covered pretty much everything, which is why her as-yet-to-be-written memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.”
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And while it might seem hard to believe, George is a better man than he is a coach. He's an inspiration in all facets of life.