PCM’s dynamic duo ready for life after coaching

When Fred Lorensen came to open gym on June 14, he didn’t know if he was going to coach the PCM boys’ basketball team another season.

But when he arrived and 25 players were there waiting for him, he took that as a sign.

“I was either going to have an open gym or tell them I was done,” Lorensen said. “I wanted to make sure I could tell them if I was done. One of my concerns was that some kids who I think highly of might not be there, but I walked into the gym and everyone was there. God might have been talking to me. That meant a lot to me that they were all there. But it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life.”

Lorensen said the contracts for next season were due on June 12. He called PCM Activities Director Jeremy Swink that day and told him he didn’t know if he could sign it.

Swink told him to sleep on it. Lorensen asked if he could wait until that open gym two days later.

“I took the kids to the library and I told them what I was going to do,” Lorensen said. “It was really hard. I just love those kids. I was pretty emotional. They all gave me a hug one by one.”

Lorensen will hang up his whistle after serving as PCM’s first and only head boys’ basketball coach.

His best friend and long-time assistant coach Joel Grier also decided he was ready to be done. There was a lot less debate for Grier though.

“I knew going into last season that that would be my final year,” Grier said. “If I went another year, I’d be 75 years old. And that’d be dumb. It was long enough.”

There will be a celebration of their careers at a retirement reception from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday at Gateway Recreation Golf Course in Monroe.

“They are both certainly icons and pillars of the community,” Mustang alum Grant Burns said. “They are not only great coaches but great people and role models.”

Both Lorensen and Grier came to Monroe in 1975. They coached on the same high school boys’ basketball staff for nearly 40 years.

They coached 10 state tournament teams, 14 conference championship squads and hoisted the Class 2A state championship trophy after the 2003-04 season.

The dynamic duo also had only three losing seasons at PCM.

“An underrated part of their success has been their involvement within the communities and their ability to build relationships,” said 1993 PCM graduate Ryan VanVeen, who played on the first two PCM teams. “Coach Lorensen was one of my Sunday school teachers. Coach Grier was my fifth-grade teacher.

“I loved my experience playing for them. They made me feel valued long before I truly brought any value to the program.”

VanVeen was not part of any of the state-tournament runs.

Lorensen and Grier guided the Monroe Wildcats to their only state tournament in 1986-87.

Four years later, Monroe consolidated with the Prairie City Plainsmen to form the PCM Mustangs.

They were good right away, too, qualifying for the state tournament for the first time in 1994-95.

They returned to state in 1996-97 and placed fourth despite starting the season 2-7. That was the program’s first season in the Raccoon River Conference and the roster featured Coach Grier’s son Bret and fellow standout Robbie Meyer.

“Their community impact goes far beyond the game of basketball,” Bret Grier said. “They are well respected by so many and have represented PCM with class not only on the basketball court but in the classroom as well.

“They were mentors to so many in so many different ways.”

PCM returned to the state tournament in 1998-99 and lost to Pella Christian in the quarterfinals. Those two programs faced off against each other in the postseason a lot during Lorensen’s time with the program.

The following season, the Mustangs finished under .500 for the first time in PCM history. That roster included Fred’s freshman son Todd.

It also was the precursor to the greatest four-year stretch in PCM boys’ basketball history.

“We had a great recruiting year and brought in a freshman by the name of Brandon Myers that following offseason,” Lorensen said with a smile. “We went to the state tournament four straight years. We could have won it the first three years and finally did in Myers’ final season.”

That championship team went undefeated in 2003-04. But every postseason game was tough and the championship game went to double overtime.

Grier admits to not knowing as many details as Lorensen during their time together. But he does remember one specific thing about the title team.

“After the first overtime period, Myers said ‘we didn’t come this far to lose,’” Coach Grier said. “I shut my mouth at that point. There was nothing else I could have said. We had some great kids.”

Myers wasn’t the only stud on that team. The point guard was sophomore Grant Burns.

“That team was when it all came together,” Burns said. “Fred’s run from 90ish to 2003 is almost unprecedented at a public school. If the ball bounces a different way, he has four or five state championships. Go look at the early 1990s and his records. If they didn’t play Pella Christian every year in substate, they would have made the state finals.”

Lorensen and Grier returned to the state tournament two more times after the state championship season.

Led by Scott Bruxvoort, and with Grant’s younger brother Hutch Burns, the Mustangs returned to Wells Fargo Arena in 2010-11 and 2011-12.

The 2010-11 squad finished 27-1 and placed third in 2A. The Mustangs went 24-3 the following season but lost Bruxvoort to an injury in the district championship game with PCM leading by a large margin.

PCM advanced to the state tournament without Bruxvoort after knocking off top-ranked West Marshall in the substate title game but lost in the state quarterfinals as Bruxvoort was only about 70 or 80 percent healthy.

“My best psychological coaching job was before that substate title game,” Lorensen said. “I was talking to Hutch and (Jordan) Van Roekel and the other guys before the game and basically told them sarcastically that they have never won a game with Bruxvoort before.

“The truth was, they won a lot of games without him as he was playing big-time AAU ball in the summers and the rest of the guys were playing without him. I was being sarcastic to just let them know they can do it. It was a close game, but we got it done. We lost in the quarterfinals by one point and you cannot convince me that we were not the best team in 2A that year.”

Between Monroe and PCM, Lorensen’s final head coaching record was 632-327 over 42.5 seasons. Lorensen and Grier went 535-214 in 32 seasons at PCM.

Both also will end their coaching careers with the third losing season in Mustangs’ history. The second losing season came in 2016-17.

“I’m not sure it’s the right time. I guess I will find that out,” Lorensen said about retiring from coaching. “There are parts I will miss but there are parts I won’t miss, too.

“Things got harder every year. I felt like I was slower and it took longer to plan practices. After a while, you just get tired of telling kids they are going to be JV or varsity. Telling kids they are or aren’t going to play.”

The biggest reason Lorensen stepped away now is so he can see the final seasons of his grandsons’ careers — one is going to be a junior at Ballard and the other is going to be a sophomore at ADM.

“I just felt like it was time,” Lorensen said. “I never wanted to do the farewell tour. I wanted to tell the kids before they found out from somewhere else, too.

“I didn’t know when I got there on that Wednesday that I was going to be done. It was important that most of the kids were there. Telling them was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. That was tough.”

Grier’s coaching resume goes beyond boys’ basketball. He was the girls’ basketball coach back in the six-on-six days for six seasons. He also coached softball and boys and girls track for several years and coached baseball, football and cross country, too.

He had the luxury of coaching his sons and Bradley and Bret both played in the state tournament as senior point guards.

“Fred and I had a shared belief that we could get something going and we did,” Coach Grier said. “We put a lot of effort into it.

“Coaching my sons was not too difficult. It was just part of the process.”

In the classroom, Grier was an elementary teacher. Lorensen taught junior high and high school math for a combined 31 years and served as the high school principal for four years before retiring on June 30, 2010, at the age of 57.

Tony Ford, who served as an assistant on Lorensen’s staff the past few seasons, will take over the program this winter.

He’ll be just the second head coach ever at PCM.

“They will be tough to replace, but I do think Tony Ford will do a good job,” Bret Grier said. “It will be new and different to walk into a boys’ basketball game this season and not see Fred or Joel on the sidelines. The days of finding coaches who will stick with one school for 40-plus years are almost over. It doesn’t happen too much anymore.”

Grant Burns knows replacing Lorensen and Grier will be difficult but also thinks their impact and imprint on the program makes it a bit easier.

“From youth all the way to high school, you have dozens of coaches teaching the game with what they learned from those two,” Grant Burns said. “Fred is best at his ability to let players play. So often you see over-coaching and handcuffing talent. He would let you learn from your mistakes and get better.”

VanVeen is one of those former Mustangs who is now coaching.

“This will be my 25th year in education and coaching,” VanVeen said. “I’d like to think I model my teaching and coaching style after my experience at PCM. I was so fortunate to have been led by these men. There’s an old saying in coaching … you never want to be the man to follow the man. Whoever takes over has some huge shoes to fill.”