Former Wolverine teams highlighted at Creston hoops event

Former Nodaway Valley state champion coach Darrell Burmeister was one of the headline speakers at a Creston event Saturday celebrating historical basketball achievements.

The idea for the event at Anson’s Bar and Grill began when Creston sports booster Jack Davis donated the center circle from the gym known as the “Panther Pit” in the former high school to Anson’s for a display of local basketball history. Local historian John Walters compiled a list of all-state players from Creston and 45 area schools, and several photos of those former stars are on the walls at Anson’s as part of the display.

Several speakers with Creston basketball ties were part of the program, but Walters also asked Burmeister to spend a few minutes addressing the incredible run of Nodaway Valley success during his tenure as the Wolverines’ head coach.

Walters said as he began researching all-staters from Creston during the Panther Pit era, and expanded the list to more recent honorees along with those from area high schools, the deep basketball traditions of places like Diagonal and Nodaway Valley stood out. Burmeister was a five-time state cross country champion coach for Nodaway Valley and had a run of basketball teams in the mid-2000s that placed second, first and third in the state tournament.

Burmeister won 99 games as Bridgewater-Fontanelle coach before directing 504 victories at Nodaway Valley. His teams had Pride of Iowa Conference winning streaks of 71 and 58 games.

During Saturday’s program, Burmeister spoke of the 2004 team that played one of the greatest substate games he ever saw in an overtime loss at Southwestern Community College to Prairie City-Monroe, which included Iowa Hawkeye football recruit Brandon Myers, who went on to play in the NFL.

The following year the Wolverines beat Clarinda in the substate and lost in the state finals to Unity Christian, 62-54, in the final year of high school basketball at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Burmeister, who now coaches distance runners at Waukee High School, has a vivid memory of that bus ride home and what happened late that night after arriving in Greenfield.

“Without asking, those boys went into the gym, got the basketballs out, and played basketball until 2 a.m. when I finally said, ‘boys,’ it’s time to go home.’ The next year, this happened,” he said, pointing to the 2006 state championship photo near the speaker’s podium at Anson’s.

The following year Nodaway Valley lost in the state semifinals to Western Christian before routing Tri-Center by 29 points in the third-place game. That group of seniors went 103-5 in their careers, with only two regular-season losses, both to Bondurant-Farrar.

“When we lost to Bondurant-Farrar in the regular season in 2006, one of our guys told me, ‘B, we’re not going to lose again.’ We went on to beat Bondurant-Farrar in the semifinals and came from behind to beat Fort Dodge St. Edmond on St. Patrick’s Day,” Burmeister said. “That was the first year of Wells Fargo Arena and it was a sea of green for St. Edmond and purple for Nodaway Valley.”

Burmeister told the audience at Anson’s about a moment earlier in the day of that championship game. During the shootaround session at Grand View University, Lance McFarland made a half-court shot as the session was wrapping up.

“I told Lance, we won’t need that shot today,” Burmeister said, smiling. “Well, in that game we fell behind 20-12. We started to play better in the second half, and at the end of the third quarter Lance McFarland made a three-quarters court shot at the buzzer. As it turned out, we DID need that shot!’

Nodaway Valley used the momentum of that shot to go on and defeat St. Edmond, 46-39.

“I was very grateful for the players we had,” Burmeister said. “They were very hard workers. Thanks for doing this today and asking me to be a part of it. We had a youth basketball camp for 25 years and I always appreciated the Creston kids who came up to that and made it better.”