BILLINGS — Gillette, Wyoming, native and 2025 Rocky Mountain College graduate Tanner Lemm spent the past year with the Laurel Locomotives boys basketball team as their C Squad coach, working with freshmen and sophomores.

“It was a great experience. I had a great time,” Lemm told The Billings Gazette and 406 MT Sports about coaching the Locomotives C squad in a Friday interview. “I worked with some great people and had some good kids to work with.”

“I couldn’t have asked for a better group.”

Tanner Lemm

Tanner Lemm

Courtesy photo

So, it was only natural that Lemm would throw his hat in the ring to be the Locomotives boys basketball varsity head coach after Tony Trudnowski’s contract wasn’t renewed at a school board meeting in April.

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Lemm was officially hired as Laurel’s new boys basketball coach at a school board meeting on Tuesday.

“We had a good group of applicants and Tanner really stood out and it will be good for the Laurel Locomotives,” said Laurel activities director Andrew Torgerson.

The 22-year-old Lemm, who played both varsity and junior varsity basketball for the Battlin’ Bears and earned a degree in social studies at Rocky, will also be a middle school science teacher in Laurel.

While it will be his first time as a varsity head coach, Lemm is no stranger to athletics. Besides coaching last season with Laurel and playing basketball at RMC, Lemm participated in basketball, football, and tennis before graduating from Campbell County High School in Gillette in 2021.

“I’m looking forward to just impact kids,” said Lemm of coaching the Locomotives. “I feel like this group of kids that I have now, I worked with them a little bit last year as an assistant coach for the C squad and saw some very good things in them. I just want to get the best out of them on and off the court and just teaching them life lessons as we go on with basketball.”

Last season, Laurel finished 7-11 according to the results of games in the 406 MT Sports portal. Overall in five seasons under Trudnowski, Laurel had a record of 47-48 with three consecutive losing seasons after going 15-10 in the 2021-22 season and 10-3 in the 2020-21 campaign. The Locomotives advanced to the 2022 State A tournament, where they were 0-2. Laurel placed third at state in 2021.

Lemm is eager to begin working with the Locomotives and can’t wait for the 2025-26 winter sports season.

“I’m excited to work with them with hard work and dedication,” he said. “We’re going to be putting in some hard work, and sometimes we’ve got to work a little bit harder than other teams just because right now we don’t have a whole lot of size. But we’re excited to kind of change the narrative of Laurel basketball a little bit and get them back to their winning ways. And I’m just excited to go to work and putting in work. We’ve just got to keep getting better every day.”

Email Gazette Sports Editor John Letasky at john.letasky@406mtsports.com or follow him on X/Twitter at @GazSportsJohnL

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