Two former Hawkeye athletes get an introduction to the coaching world.

By Adam Hensley
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Transitioning from athlete to coach might be something many athletes strive for, but it doesn’t come easily.

Kevin Lewis and Jon Michael Brandt, however, are among those who have done it. Lewis enters his first year of coaching, while Brandt begins his second. Both were standout athletes for Iowa, and the school didn’t have to look far for help on the coaching staff.

Why should coaches look long trying to find coaching help when the coaches could be right in front of them?

“[Kevin] was a highly sought after recruit, one of the better runners out of Iowa historically,” head coach Layne Anderson said. “He had a tremendous senior season.”

Lewis capped off his record-setting high-school career by winning the 2011 Iowa Gatorade Male Track Athlete of the Year.

Fast forward to 2014, Lewis’ senior season. He finished as an All-Big Ten selection, an all-region honoree, and was Iowa’s 2014-15 Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient. He was Iowa’s top finisher in every race in which he competed.

“I’m mostly a student-coach,” Lewis said, also noting that he can continue training with the team. “It is also nice to be able to help out with guiding the current athletes, especially since we have so many freshmen.”

Lewis started the season coming off an injury. Because of the circumstances, he started off his coaching career by running with the women’s team during workouts, making sure the Hawkeyes completed them up to Anderson’s standards.

Now, he works out with the male runners, trying to help them with their mindset during the workouts.

“I try to make sure the athletes do not go mindlessly through workouts but understand what each one is trying to accomplish and do all the things they need to do to improve,” Lewis said.

Brandt, a four-year letterwinner for Iowa, was Iowa’s top finisher in half of the races he competed in his junior season.

“A self-made guy,” Anderson said. “He came in with modest credentials but developed into a pretty good runner.”

Brandt and former track director Larry Wieczorek formed a great relationship, which eventually led him down the coaching path.

“Some athletes had a really great coach — Wiz was that guy for me,” Brandt said. “I did not think about [coaching] as a career option, though, until I was injured. Then I thought this could be a full-time career.”

As with going into any new job, Brandt remained unsure last season in his coaching début. However, the team eased those thoughts.

“We have a great group of men and women I can call friends,” Brandt said. “They made it easy to transition.”

Brandt describes his relationship with the runners as relaxed.

“It’s like a normal coach-athlete relationship,” he said. “Annd we respect each other’s boundaries.”

Anderson believes Brandt and Lewis are reliable. He also noted that in the process of choosing Brandt, the staff looked at other candidates as well.

“I was most comfortable with him,” Anderson said. “We were getting a guy who would do what we needed him to do.”

With volunteer coaches, Anderson said, some want larger roles, such as crafting the workouts. However, this role actually entails networking and learning things that go into coaching, such as recruiting.

For Brandt, that means using his experience to hand out advice to younger athletes.

“Enjoy the process,” he said. “You only get to go through it four years. It can be frustrating, but [they] need to enjoy where they are at.”

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