When asked about what it meant for him to win his 400th game last week, New Ulm Cathedral baseball coach Bob Weier said that someone told him that it means “that you are a good coach, but you are old.”

“But obviously you do not do something like this without a lot of help,” Weier said. “And it starts with my wife Betty and the support, cooperation and the willingness to share this with me and let me enjoy this. Plus I have had a lot of good assistant coaches and not least of all, we have been blessed with a lot of good athletes.”

Now in his 26th season as head coach, Weier knows that he is in a profession that has seen head coaches step down in lesser years for various reasons.

“In maybe the last 15 years, you have seen coaches who probably after 10 or 12 years have pretty much had enough for whatever reason,” Weier said. “I do not know what it really is. But I have enjoyed my time as head coach. There have been times when it was not the most fun in the world. But I have enjoyed most of it and that is basically because of the kids and how they respond to coaching. They are coachable, cooperative and respond. That makes it all the more enjoyable.”

If there was one person who influenced Weier as a coach it was former Cathedral coach Stan Wilfahrt, who Weier played under.

“One of the things that he taught me was that repetition was the only answer to everything,” Weier said. “Not only taking ground balls, fly balls but repetition. We did not take a whole lot of batting practice but when we did it was repetition.”

Weier said that the other aspect of the game that Wilfahrt displayed to him was that you have to love the game.

“You have to be passionate for the game,” Weier said.

“That is something that I try and convey by my actions. I try and be energetic at practice – I try and be informative. I was told one time that you are not really a coach, but you are an instructor. You are a teacher, and I have always kept that in the back of my mind. You have to teach the game, and the kids that listen and want to learn are the kids who will succeed.

“And he (Wilfahrt) had energy and love for the game and competition.”

Weier said that he does not know how much longer he will coach.

“I go year to year.”

But whenever that happens, you can be assured that the next head coach would be wise to model his style after Weier’s.