AUBURNDALE, Wis. (WSAW) – Auburndale basketball head coach Chad Weinfurter has earned the honor of NewsChannel 7 Boys Basketball Coach of the Year. Weinfurter accepted the award in front of his team on Thursday morning.
“It means a lot because you’re voted on by your peers and I have a lot of respect for the coaches in our area and all the hard work they do,” said Weinfurter. “I think we have some really good basketball programs and a lot of coaches that work really hard so to be the person that gets selected for this, it’s a great honor.”
The coaches of North Central Wisconsin vote on the award annually, with Weinfurter earning the award this year. This is the fourth time Weinfurter has been named NewsChannel 7 Basketball Coach of the Year.
“It’s a credit to all the players I’ve coached, the staff I’ve got, my assistant coaches,” said Weinfurter. “Probably somebody who’s a little unsung behind the scenes, my wife, all the support that we get, all that puts together to make a great program,”
Auburndale’s been a pillar of consistency, dating back to former Auburndale head coach Tim Anderson, someone Weinfurter coached with. Getting to continue that level of excellence is something Weinfurter takes great pride in.
“I played for him (Anderson), I coached with him,” said Anderson. “To be able to continue this, this is now my 17th year as head coach, we do a really good job of running our youth program and I think that our kids take a lot of pride in it, especially this year’s group was pride to wear that ‘Auburndale’ across their chest and continue those winning ways.
This year’s Auburndale group defied some of their own expectations. Weinfurter said even preseason it was a bit unknown what to expect in terms of wins and losses. However, the Eagles went on to go 24-4 on the season, making it all the way to the sectional finals.
“Our kids were extremely coachable,” said Weinfurter. “It was one of our best ‘practice teams’ that they put to use what we did in practice and brought it to a game. A lot of credit goes to those kids.”
Weinfurter is happy to accept the award, but says it truly is a reflection on the rest of the program.
“As I said to you before, the more wins you have, the more individual accolades you get,” said Weinfurter, “and I guess that includes the coaches too.”
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