‘Dream job’ beckons Printy Brandt

MARION - She drew a breath, pursed her lips, and ...

Nothing.

'The first time I blew my whistle, nothing came out,” Jaime Printy Brandt said. 'Nobody even heard it.”

A former all-stater at Linn-Mar and an honorable-mention All-American at the University of Iowa, the 24-year-old Brandt is back home as the Lions' new head girls' basketball coach.

She's teaching. She's learning.

'It's a risk that I feel will have a high reward,” Linn-Mar assistant athletics director Tonya Moe said upon announcing Printy's hiring in May.

'She has all the tools to be successful.”

She has resources aplenty. Longtime assistant Mike Suther stayed on staff after Michael Brandt (no relation to Jaime) stepped down after last season. Jaime's father, Jeff Printy, hopped on board as an assistant.

And she's regularly in the ear of her former college coach, Lisa Bluder.

As she walked through a new offensive set at practice Wednesday, Brandt - wearing a gray Linn-Mar sweatshirt and black Iowa sweatpants - made an announcement:

'All right, this play is called Nike. And we're stealing it from the Hawks.”

As Jaime Printy (she married Danny Brandt in August, and the couple lives in Iowa City) she compiled 1,391 points in high school, then 1,841 at Iowa, third most in school history.

She joined the medical field upon graduation in 2013, but that wasn't her calling.

This is.

'She will be a great coach because she understands the game, knows how to teach skills and is an excellent role model,” Bluder said.

'Those girls are fortunate to have one of their own return to lead them. She has great values and will work hard. She is passionate about the game and about those kids.”

Many of the Lions grew up knowing Brandt as No. 24, shooter, scorer.

'She was the Linn-Mar girl that went to Iowa,” said senior Niki Sharma. 'Growing up, you wanted to be like her, follow that kind of path.”

Last year, as an assistant, Brandt felt eyes on her from the players.

'I know there was a lot of, ‘Oh gosh, we have a former Iowa player on our staff,'” she said. 'Now they know me well enough, it's not a big deal.”

Brandt has figured out her whistle. But she's not a yeller. Instead, she's constantly clapping, slapping hands with players and encouraging.

'Sure, I get frustrated. I don't like to yell,” she said. 'Some coaches like to, but it's not my style.”

What frustrates her?

'Lack of effort. Not taking care of the things you can control,” she said. 'I'm not going to get on them for missing shots, if they're going hard.”

The Lions go hard, and they don't balk about it.

'I really enjoy the up-tempo practices,” said senior Olivia Montague. 'We use every minute we have. We're not wasting a single minute.”

Details matter. If the Lions are on the baseline for sprints, for example, Brandt corrects them. Foot goes behind the line, not on it.

'She's intense about details,” Sharma said.

Brandt could have continued her basketball career after graduating from Iowa. But she had torn an ACL twice, and her knees had been through enough.

'Sometimes I miss playing a lot,” she said. 'Sometimes I'll go up and down with these kids if they need an extra player. But I don't want to mess up my knee doing something stupid.”

Brandt's head-coaching debut is Tuesday at Waterloo East. She didn't immediately apply for this gig.

'I came into the race kind of late, but I'm glad I did,” she said. 'No way I could turn down my alma mater. It's my dream job.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8857; jeff.linder@thegazette.com