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NEW ULM — Rick Jeddeloh, who was the head girls basketball coach at Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial for the past two seasons, is the new head girls basketball coach at New Ulm High School.

Jeddeloh replaces Mitch Lewis, who resigned after last season.

Jeddeloh said that the switch from LCWM to New Ulm took a strange route.

“My daughter went to school [at LCWM] and the girls coach that they had there had a son who was a junior and he wanted to watch his son play,” Jeddeloh said. “So they came to me and asked me if I would ever consider coaching for a couple of years. He also had an eighth-grade daughter and he asked if he could come back and coach her now and I said yes.”

Jeddeloh said that when he left the LCWM girls team, he told himself that there were only three places he would coach at again.

“One was in Waseca where I grew up, in St. Peter because that is where I work, and New Ulm because I knew that New Ulm had great basketball,” he said.

Jeddeloh has an impressive resume as a coach. He led the Waseca Bluejays to two state tournament trips in the boys state basketball tournament and also was an assistant at both Minnesota State University and Bethany Lutheran men’s basketball teams.

Jeddeloh wanted to keep coaching as his daughter had finished high school, but he still wanted to watch her play.

“She was going to play college basketball at St. Mary’s and I wondered how was that going to work schedule-wise because I do not want to miss her games because I have been coaching her since she was in kindergarten,” he said. “I knew that January and February would be fine because they play every Wednesday and Saturday. So when I interviewed in New Ulm, I told them is that I wanted to get to my daughter’s games. So if we have to arrange the schedule a game to two here and there, are you willing to do that? And they said that they can make it work.”

Jeddeloh said that he made contact with some of the New Ulm players when he coached AAU basketball.

“I coached Morgan Hulke and Maddie Backer and Betsy Joyce,” he said. “So I knew the kids and New Ulm pretty well. And Brooklyn Lewis is in all of the things that I did with AAU and I knew Mitch really well, so that was one of the things that attracted me to the open coaching job.”

Jeddeloh said that he is aware of the lack of numbers coming into this year for girls basketball this season at New Ulm High School with just 12 players back for the varsity and B-squad and no C-squad last year.

“That is not just in New Ulm,” he said. “Last year I was part of a task force group with the Minnesota State High School League concerning girls basketball numbers across the state,” Jeddeloh said. “Low numbers are everywhere — and one of the reasons is the season is really long. But the length of the season is not going to change just because of Title IX. They are not going to shorten the girls season and keep the guys season longer.

“But one thing we did the the last couple of years was to shorten practices — the longest we ever practiced was an hour and a half. And the girls loved the fact that they were home by 5. And we took a week off at Christmas where they got a total break from basketball — we did nothing with basketball for a week. And that was the best I’ve seen a team play and be connected in February because they were not burned out from basketball. Kids get burned out of things really quickly.”

Jeddeloh said that getting the numbers back up in New Ulm really starts in the elementary group.

“We just had our first meeting with the players coming to our team in the next couple of years and I told all of them that they are our best recruiters,” he said. “All of those younger kids look up to you. One of the things that I have done in the past is that on Saturday mornings we have the gym open for any kid to come for an hour and they do skills and drills with the varsity players.

“Those younger kids watch them Friday and then spend time with them the next morning and we will do that.”

Jeddeloh said that he wants his team to be the type of team that fits them best.

“I do like to run up and down and you play more kids,” he said. “The first year with a new coach is a challenge until after Christmas because they are getting used to your style. But they have to enjoy it and embrace it and work hard in doing it, and if you do that, the wins and losses take care of themselves.”

Jeddeloh said that he wants to leave New Ulm — whenever that is — in a great shape.

“They have a lot of numbers and kids who enjoy playing basketball. It will take three, four, five years to do that but that is OK. The building part of that is the fun part.”