February 11th: Denver's Joe Frost
DENVER, Iowa — A 2012 graduate of Denver High School, Joe Frost returned to his alma mater six years ago to rebuild the girls basketball program. "I was 21 years old and accepted a job there. I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into but Denver basketball always gave me a ton. I had some great coaches that made me love this place, and the community always gave to me, so I thought it was a community I could see myself settling in for the long term."
At age 21, coach Frost was young for a first year head coach, but he's turned the program around in a hurry-from just four wins in his first season, the Cyclones are about to begin the postseason with 20 wins and just two losses. "Every single year we seem to get one more notch in our belt, whether it's skill or a new idea, it's just been a steady increase in defense, offense, leadership-a little bit every year. It's been a slow climb upwards and the girls have really taken well to what we're putting down."
One of Frost's seniors, Reese Johnson says, "Even just last year to this year he's gotten so much more patient with us. One of the things he wanted to work on was talk slower, because he talks quite fast. Especially in the moment he's gotten better at that-that helps us when we're drawing a play up at the end of a game."
Step one: talk slower... Step two: establish a festive team atmosphere, and there you've got the number two ranked team in class 2A. "My goal is for everyone to walk out of here and enjoy their high school career, whatever that may be-for one year, two years, three years, four years... whether you're a varsity player all four years or whether you've played JV. So we have a group of girls that love to be coached hard sometimes, and they're also goofballs as well."
Junior standout Grace Hennessy says, "It makes going to practice so much easier, knowing that it's going to be a good practice and we're going to get good stuff out of it and also have fun with the girls."
Frost concludes, "We like to have fun practices, I like to joke around and have a lot of fun there, but in between the lines I'd guess they'd say I'm pretty passionate and serious about this game here."
