One final victory lap

One of the most successful and beloved coaches in Creston Community High School history was remembered by generations of Panthers today.

Funeral services were held at Holy Spirit Catholic Church for Richard “Dick” Skarda. He died April 9 at age 82.

While afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease in his later years, Skarda is remembered as the intense, yet compassionate coach of Panther track and field for more than two decades, as well as an assistant coach in high school and junior high football.

Skarda was a longtime physical education teacher in Creston and later also taught history classes. He also assisted Mike Gerleman in girls track for eight seasons after retiring as a teacher.

“I was not a fan of history, but coach Skarda made it fun,” said Chad Rieck a 1995 CCHS graduate. “It probably didn’t hurt that I was a Big Red (Nebraska) fan. If you were a Big Red fan, he was a fan of you.”

A native of Schuyler, Nebraska, Skarda attended Midland University in Fremont, Nebraska, where he was a football and baseball player. He once opposed Omaha native Bob Gibson in a baseball game, before Gibson became a Hall of Fame pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Coaching influence

Skarda began his teaching and coaching career in 1957 with stops in Elwood and Cambridge, Nebraska. Then, while pursuing his master’s degree, his Iowa career began as a teacher in Boone while serving as assistant coach for legendary Ames track coach H.W. “Hi” Covey.

At Ames, Covey coached 22 state championship teams in cross country, boys outdoor track and boys indoor track.

“Dick cut his teeth in track coaching working with Hi Covey,” said Curt Jeffryes, 1970 CCHS graduate and a former coaching colleague of Skarda’s in Creston. “He really learned a lot from that experience.”

Skarda combined that technical knowledge — with individual workouts recorded in his famed canvas-covered notebook he used every spring of his coaching career — with a passion for competition and a unique ability to motivate winning performances.

“I always thought I had three major influences as a coach,” Jeffryes said, “and I learned several things from each of them. (Former Creston coach) Jerome Hruska was the technician, my college football coach at the University of North Dakota had the organization and coach Skarda was the motivator. He was a fierce competitor and that rubs off on you.”

Creston tradition

In 1965 Dick and Sharon Skarda moved to Creston where he was hired as PE teacher and head track coach. He remained as head coach through the 1990 season. At that point Jeffryes took over, but under one condition — Skarda had to stay on and help with the 400-meter training.

That was his specialty, with a string of 11 straight state-qualifying mile relay teams from Creston. A plaque is presented each year at the Panther Relays to the winner of the 4x400 Richard Skarda Relay.

“He was good at coaching everything, but especially the 4x400,” said current Panther track coach Pat Schlapia, who ran distance races under Skarda in the mid-1970s. “He had such a passion for the sport. He was one of the reasons I wanted to coach track and cross country.”

Skarda was named Coach of the Year by the Iowa Track Coaches Association in 1978.

Doug Lang was the anchor runner on a 4x400 relay unit in 1977 that held the school record until 2014. Others on that relay were Doug Wilson, Mark Geis and Joe Smith.

That mark of 3:26.90 stood until the 2014 foursome of Bryce Briley, Maxx Walters, Brandon Phipps and Jay Wolfe ran 3:25.57 in the state prelims.

Mark Evans was a sophomore runner on the 1978 Hawkeye Eight Conference championship track squad that had more than 50 team members.

“We were loaded back then,” Evans said. “He knew how to get the best out of people and he knew how to properly train his runners. We were always prepared to succeed.”

Compassionate side

Many former Panther track athletes spoke of Skarda’s competitive intensity matched only by his compassion for them as people. Evans will never forget a moment on the track after he ran his portion of the 4x400, after he had already run two 800-meter carries in the medley and 4x800 relays.

“I ran the second leg on the 4x400,” Evans said. “When I got the baton we were tied for first with Red Oak. I remember being tired from the other two races, but I thought what the heck, it’s my senior year, let’s go for it. By the time we came around the final curve, I had the lead. Right after I handed off the baton I was leaning over, exhausted, and here comes coach Skarda sprinting across the field. He had tears in his eyes, he spun me around and hugged me and told me how proud he was of me for that effort. I’ll never forget that.”

Dennis Nelson of Creston knew Skarda from the early 1960s when he taught and coached in Skarda’s hometown of Schuyler in Nebraska. In 1969, Nelson was hired as head boys basketball coach in Creston and one day he heard a familiar voice in the hallway of the school. It was Skarda. Nelson assisted Skarda in track for three years.

“He really deeply cared for the kids and the kids could feel it,” said Nelson, who organized the Elks Track and Field Meet for local youths for several years. “He loved coaching and he loved the Nebraska Cornhuskers. We went to a lot of Nebraska games together.”

Girls assistant

Skarda had a second life in track coaching in assisting girls track coach Mike Gerleman for nearly a decade before Gerleman retired after the 2010 season. Those two were known for needling each other incessantly, yet they had respect for each other and worked well during a successful era of girls track in Creston.

“That bow-legged Bohemian could coach sprinters, that’s for sure,” Gerleman said. “I was head coach for three varsity sports at the time (boys basketball, girls track and softball) and I felt we needed to boost up our middle distance performance, particularly the 400 meters. Nobody is better at coaching quartermilers than Dick Skarda.”

Creston was a regular in the top 10 at state for a stretch of five years, led by performances of hurdlers coached by Gerleman and relay teams influenced in their training by Skarda. He generated the same loyalty from the female athletes as he had during his boys track years, if not more.

“We had an unbelievable run and those girls loved him,” Gerleman said. “Taylor Geary ran the 400 anchor on a sprint medley relay that got second by a nose to Dubuque Wahlert at state. He improved everybody’s performance. I had a great time working with him those last eight years. I’m sure if somebody didn’t know us and heard us giving each other such a hard time, they’d think we didn’t like each other. It was anything but that. He will never be forgotten.”

Skarda never coached a state champion relay, but came close several times. The 1988 4x200 relay team of Dennis Shaw, Ty Schrock, Corey Eaton and Chris Eaton ran a close second to South Tama at the state meet. They narrowly missed the 1969 Skarda-coached foursome of Daryl Roberts, Rick Robinson, Ken Ketter and Rich Johannes that set the existing record of 1:32.2.

“You could tell he just cared,” said Chris Eaton, who now works at First National Bank in Creston. His son Connor runs middle distances for Mount Ayr’s outstanding track program under coach Brad Elliott. “In junior high I was pretty much done with football, but he talked me into continuing it. People just had a lot of respect for coach Skarda. Over the years, if people came back they usually stopped in to talk to coach Bergstrom or coach Skarda. You just knew they wanted you to succeed in whatever you were doing.”

Many of Skarda’s former athletes got into coaching and credit Skarda with influencing their careers. One of them is Paul Loos, state champion basketball coach and IHSAA Hall of Fame inductee for his success at Newell-Fonda. In recent years he has worked as an assistant coach at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake.

“He was firm in what he expected from you, but he had a knack of showing that he cared and respected you as a person,” Loos said. “If he didn’t agree with you, he’d say, ‘I don’t believe so Mr. (last name of student). I think we’re going to do it this way.’ That was his way of saying no. His way of respecting the feelings of his student or athlete. You worked hard not to disappoint him. He came to my dad’s funeral in 2004. That really meant a lot to me and my family.”

Today, many people returned the gesture in paying their respects to one of Creston’s coaching icons. Many former Panther athletes remember being coached by Skarda and Gary Wimmer in junior high football. They mourned the loss of coach Wimmer just last fall.

“It was like being coached by high school coaches, playing for those guys in middle school,” said Scott Driskell, now elementary principal in Creston. “They took it just as serious. It was all business. They just had that aura about them. They were all about getting after it, and expectations were high.”

One of Driskell’s teammates, Dennis Shaw, now on the Winterset coaching staff, also looks back fondly at the coach who first met him on the Creston athletic field when Shaw’s father was found dead in their home near the school on a May afternoon in 1989. Skarda stayed by his side that afternoon, rather than coach track practice that day.

“In all those years of coaching, the amount of young people coach Skarda touched is tremendous,” Shaw said. “He and coach Wimmer were like fathers to me.

“In the past year, Creston has suffered such loss,” Shaw added. “But, yet, because we knew these people, we have gained so much.”