VanFleet hangs it up

June 10--It hit Cody VanFleet over the weekend.

VanFleet had resigned as Notre Dame High School's boys basketball coach on Friday, and he had time to think about how it had been a long time since he hadn't been a part of a basketball program.

"Since I was 9 years old, I had been part of a basketball team," he said Monday afternoon. "This feels really weird, knowing that I'm not a part of a team anymore."

VanFleet, who went 51-19 with back-to-back district titles in his three seasons as the Nikes' coach, turned in his resignation and met with his players on Friday.

"Like I do every season, I go back and look at the season and think about the future," he said. "I just kind of started to evaluate my role there and my job there. I felt like it was the right time to go.

"It's not any one incident. I just felt like I needed to step away."

VanFleet had spent time working on and with staffs at NCAA Division I schools Iowa, Western Illinois and Idaho State as well as at Southeastern Community College, but he called his high school coaching experience "the most rewarding for me."

"I really enjoyed coaching at the high school level," he said. "I enjoyed working with kids, I felt like I had a greater impact, and maybe that was because I was the head coach. It's just such a time-demanding job."

"I was surprised," Notre Dame principal Ron Glasgow said of the resignation. "Cody ran a program that was well-organized, well-thought out. And that preparation showed in how the team practiced, and how we played."

VanFleet said he appreciated the response he has received from former players and others.

"I got texts from guys who played for me, I heard a lot of nice comments," he said. "I really appreciated that."

Glasgow said he expected the job to be filled by the end of the month.

Notre Dame reached the Class 2A substate final the last two seasons. The Nikes played in back-to-back state tournaments under former coach Ryan Rump.

This recent run of success, Glasgow said, should lead to a strong pool of candidates.

"When Ryan Rump left three years ago, we had a lot of great candidates, and I would expect that again," he said. "I would expect that again. This is a good job, and we have a lot of good players coming back."

VanFleet, who works at Two Rivers Insurance, said the resignation would allow him to spend more time with his family. But he said that he isn't done coaching.

"This isn't a retirement," he said. "I still would like to coach again. But right now, I think this is best for me."

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