West Branch football coach Butch Pedersen dies

WEST BRANCH — Butch Pedersen was so much more than a football coach.

He was a husband, father and grandfather. He was a father figure and a friend.

He was the ultimate teacher.

“Butch is more than a guy who’s going to teach you the ins and outs and the Xs and Os,” said Jason Miller, who served as a quasi-media coordinator for the West Branch football program. “He always said if he was just a coach, he failed.”

Pedersen died early Monday at the age of 73 after a battle with myelodysplastic syndrome, a form of blood cancer.

Wins and losses were important, of course, but being “the best version of yourself” is what Pedersen taught each and every athlete and student he guided.

“You don’t have the success that he has ... without just having an incredible set of standards,” said Marv Cook, who played for Pedersen at West Branch and later became an All-American at Iowa and an All-Pro in the NFL. “He set a bar, he set a standard of how to do it ... you can’t fake that.”

For Miller, Pedersen was his third- and fourth-grade teacher who convinced him to move back to West Branch after living in Illinois.

“He’s the guy I could go to when I couldn’t get hold of my parents,” Miller said. “He was a father figure. He was my friend.”

John Hierseman, who quarterbacked West Branch’s first state championship team in 1989 and now serves as offensive coordinator, said Pedersen always was focused on family. And not just blood relatives, players and coaches.

“He just wanted to involve everybody in the community,” Hierseman said.

Pedersen coached multiple sports at West Branch and also served as athletics director for a time, but football is what he will be remembered for. He had a 338-84 record in 40 seasons, winning state titles in 1989, 1991 and 1992.

His last team went undefeated during the regular season and finished 11-1, losing in the state semifinals in November. He was diagnosed with cancer in October, but still coached when he could while going through treatment.

He was on the field for the state semifinals, with his son Lance, the head coach at Mount Vernon, by his side.

“He took fair and made it good,” Cook said. “He took good and made it great. He took great and made it excellent.”

Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz, in a statement, said Pedersen was “what high school football in Iowa is all about.

“Butch was dedicated to his players and to this community. He made a lifelong impression on so many athletes and students at West Branch and beyond. Off the football field, he was a highly-respected pillar of the West Branch community.

“On behalf of the program, I want to send our condolences to the Pedersen family, his current and former players, and everyone in the community who knew and loved him."

Jeff Bowie, a sophomore defensive lineman on the Iowa football team from West Branch, tweeted his thanks to Pedersen.

“Thank you for making me a better person, teaching me about family and what it means to be a part of something bigger than yourself. The reason I am where I am today. Gonna miss you but I know you will still be one of my biggest supporters. Rest easy Butchie.”

West Branch is a football community and, Hierseman said, “that’s all Butch.

“He made it into what it is.”

Cook said Pedersen’s reach goes well beyond West Branch. Well beyond Eastern Iowa or the even the state. Every athlete Pedersen coached, every student he taught has taken a piece of Pedersen and spread it throughout their families and their communities.

“He wanted everyone to have a higher standard ... they are better because of Coach Pedersen,” said Cook, who coached West Branch rival Iowa City Regina to seven state titles between 2007 and ’21. “At the end of the day, that’s what good teachers do.”

Pedersen’s legacy goes far beyond the numbers, but those numbers are impressive all the same. In addition to his 338 wins, his teams made 29 playoff appearances, which ranks fifth in the state. The Bears made the state semifinals 10 times and won 62 straight regular-season games from 1990-96.

He coached West Branch to 23 Eastern Iowa Hawkeye Conference or district titles and was the 2017 National Coach of the Year by the National High School Football Coaches Association. He was inducted into the Iowa High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1994.

Miller and Hierseman said you never wanted to disappoint Pedersen.

“You didn’t want to let Butch down,” Miller said.

The West Branch Community Schools announced it will hold a memorial at a later date. In lieu of a physical memorial, Pedersen’s family has asked for donations to a medical expense fund and/or a memorial scholarship.

“As a community, we are grieving the loss of Coach Pedersen and all he meant to our school district and athletics program,” Marty Jimmerson, Superintendent of the West Branch Community School District, said in a news release. “Over his 40 years as head football coach, Butch had an incredible impact on thousands of student-athletes.

“He had a reputation for never putting himself first, holding his players to high standards and taking great pride in representing the West Branch community on the football field.

“He will be dearly missed.”

(The Gazette’s K.J. Pilcher and Jeff Johnson contributed to this report)

Comments: jr.ogden@thegazette.com