From Northeast Goose Lake to Cedar Rapids Prairie ... to boys’ state basketball tournament

CEDAR RAPIDS — If you didn’t know, Doug Wagemester was a baller.

Not that the phrase was part of the sports lexicon back in the mid-1980s. That was the era Wagemester played in and starred for Northeast High School in Goose Lake.

Wagemester was a double-double guy waiting to happen, a fierce competitor and someone a younger Northeast student named Jeremy Rickertsen looked up to. Rickertsen was a freshman when Wagemester was a senior.

“He was a great player,” Rickertsen said. “Before him, there was a guy named Tim Cavanagh, who I remember going to watch. He was probably three or four years older than Doug, was an all-state player (in 1983). That’s what kind of got me hooked on basketball. I wanted to be like those guys. I wanted to be the next star, the next Doug Wagemester.”

Rickertsen ended up making a mark of his own at Northeast, helping the school to the Class 1A state tournament his senior year in 1990. The Rebels lost to eventual champion Montezuma in a first-round game, but he hit five 3-pointers in the second half of what turned out to be a tight, four-point loss.

We fast forward three decades now to see these Northeast grads and close friends on the sideline together at Cedar Rapids Prairie. Rickertsen is in his sixth season as head coach of the Hawks, Wagemester his first as an assistant.

Prairie has qualified for the state tournament for the first time since 1998. The Hawks (17-6) play fellow Mississippi Valley Conference member Cedar Falls (20-2) in a Class 4A quarterfinal Wednesday afternoon at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines.

It all comes back to Goose Lake, man.

“It’s been better than I thought it would be,” Rickertsen said. “I say that just because Doug and I are different in a lot of ways. But we have very similar passions and interests, I guess. I didn’t know how that was going to mesh together. We told the team the very first night that there were going to be some awkward moments where he steps on my toes or I step on his toes. And there have been.

“But the kids roll with the punches, they’ve been awesome with it. Wags and I talk it out, and, at the end of the day, it has been good for these kids, which is the whole goal, the whole reason he and I talked about making this work.”

This coaching partnership was a while in the making. Wagemester was Kirkwood Community College’s ultra-successful men’s basketball coach for 15 years, stepping down in 2013 to take over athletics director duties at the school.

His oldest son, Hank, played for Rickertsen at Prairie, so there always has been a familiarity with the Hawks program. Not to mention Rickertsen and Wagemester’s overall friendship, one established when Wagemester returned to the area after spending time as an assistant college coach in California, Colorado, Kansas and at Grand View University in Des Moines.

The two have children who are similar ages and an obvious love of basketball. Rickertsen is a teacher in the Prairie district.

After multiple discussions about exactly how things would work, Wagemester came aboard. His son, Jack, is a starting guard for Prairie.

“It’s been a learning experience,” Wagemester said. “Already rewarding, hope to be a little more rewarding. You know, I’ve been out of it for a while … so I felt like a little bit of a fish out of water. But Rick and I go way, way, way back, and there was a comfort level there that we had with each other.

“He did a great job of talking to the kids, and said ‘Listen, we’re kind of co-coaching this thing. Wags is going to be heavily involved, and it’s going to be awkward at times.’ And I’ll be damned if it wasn’t awkward at times. Just like ‘Are you going to say something, or should I? I don’t want to be the bad guy all the time.’ It was just two head coaches, one former head coach, doing it a couple of different ways. We’re still a work in progress, I think. But, yeah, it’s been great.”

As mentioned, their personalities on the court are very different. Rickertsen is a mild-mannered sort, Wagemester not quite so much.

Anyone who watched Wagemester coach any of his 500-some games at Kirkwood can tell you that.

“He is one of the nicest people you will ever meet,” Wagemester said. “He doesn’t necessarily embrace confrontation. I don’t mind it. I don’t mind breaking some eggs to make the omelet.”

This is a mix that works, though.

“Coach Rick and my dad are good friends, have been friends for a long time,” Jack Wagemester said. “I don’t know, they kind of have the good-guy, bad-guy thing. My dad’s the bad guy. But they work well together.”

“They’ve been great friends for a while, and that helps,” said Prairie center Gabe Burkle. “I feel like they build off each other very well. Coach Wags brings a different type of intensity that we haven’t been used to. They build off each other, work together really well to kind of give (each of) their opinions, and then meet in the middle.”

Burkle and fellow seniors Jake Walter and Elijah Ward are three-year starters for Prairie, so this state tournament means the world to them. Ward broke his hand in a game in late January, had surgery and was believed to be done for the season, though he has returned here in the postseason.

His absence allowed Prairie to develop some depth. A seven seed, the Hawks split two regular-season games with second-seeded Cedar Falls.

“It’s very exciting for us,” said Burkle, who has signed to play football at Iowa State. “Obviously us three guys have been in the program a little bit longer than everyone else, and it just goes to show you to trust in the process. It works … We’re not done, yet. The job’s not finished, yet. That’s what is really exciting about it. We still have more to do.”

Rickertsen agrees with that sentiment.

“I’m happy for these seniors,” he said. “They’ve played a lot of basketball, but they’re multi-sport guys. Two or three of them were on the homecoming court … I remember (running the scoreboard at) that football game, and in their bios, their goals were to win a football state championship and a state basketball championship. That gave me goosebumps … They didn’t quite get there in football, but now we’re in position to help them meet their second goal.”

“They’re really good kids, they’re winners,” Doug Wagemester said. “We’ve got kind of a football mindset, which it doesn’t take a genius to figure out. But we’ve really gotten into guarding people and being physical and sharing the ball. And when we do that, it’s good.”

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com