Coaches Corner Show Moving To Monthly Episodes For Spring Months

The “Hy-Vee Fort Dodge Coaches Corner Show” hosted by Rob Jones is changing to a monthly format for the months of March, April and May. The show has been a weekly episodic program since it launched in August of 2019.  Rob Jones has served as host for the program since its inception and he said of the change in format ” With Fall and Winter sports seasons now complete moving to a monthly format really is the most feasible move. Unlike most of the places I have covered sports in the past, Iowa has high school baseball and softball in the Summer and not Spring. Therefore, this move seemed to be the most logical and will give me a chance to catch my breathe from the exciting and extremely busy fall and winter sports seasons.” The program plans to feature Spring sports such as track, golf and tennis in March, April and May. Jones plans to have coaches of those sports from around the local area featured on the program in those months. Jones said ” This show has went over extremely well, even better than I imagined. Several groups of people deserve the credit for that but the lifeblood of this show are the coaches. You can’t have a coaches interview show without the coaches. Being a former high school basketball coach, I understand the coaching fraternity and the demands coaches face. I relate to them and they relate to me. I feel like that translates into compelling and interesting programming. I can’t thank all the coaches from around the area enough for their willingness to work with me on this. The response from the coaching fraternity about this show has been overwhelmingly positive.” The dates on the upcoming episode of “Coaches Corner” are March 28th, April 25th and May 30th.  Hy-Vee Fort Dodge has served as the title sponsor and host venue for the show since day 1 and will continue to do so. Jones said of that relationship ” I could not ask for a better corporate partner than Hy-Vee Fort Dodge. When myself, our Operations Manager Darren Helton and our General Manager Jed Burns and others at our company, sat down and discussed launching this show I said right then to one of our sales staff let’s see if Hy-Vee wants to get involved? They were my 1st choice for this show I thought it made a lot of sense and thankfully they did too. Store Director Tim Flaherty, Mike and all the staff their at Hy-Vee Fort Dodge have been a blessing to work with and the Market Grill area is a top flight venue to host the show from. I couldn’t ask for better people, a better partnership or a better venue. When we went and met with Tim , he instantly was on board and saw the value and purpose in what this show does”. While the coaches are the “stars” of the program for Jones the show is about highlighting the local high school student athletes. ” Being a former high school coach, I always wanted to showcase the kids in my program. High school sports is the most pure form of sport there is and the high school athlete works incredibly hard. A majority of the time these kids play at least 2 sports if not 3 or 4, to do that and excel in the classroom and community is an accomplishment worthy of recognition”.

Jones says while the coaches and student athletes are the subject matter it’s the listeners that keep the show going. ” The response from the listeners has been overwhelmingly positive. People have taken to this show even more than we expected them too. The show has a loyal audience and they are what keeps me going. I will be honest most Saturday mornings when I do the show, I didn’t get home from my Friday night game until about 1 AM and I am back up in my office to prep for the show by 6:30 AM. That coupled with my demanding schedule through the week, I am running on fumes but when I get to Hy-Vee and see all the familiar faces there every Saturday and I see the coaches and the lights come on so to speak it energizes me”.”We have a number of people who are there every Saturday morning at Hy-Vee for the show and to have an incredible breakfast there and we have a dedicated large listening audience. Between the listeners, the student-athletes and the coaches they keep me going through those long hours and short turnarounds. I started in this business 14 years ago, doing sports talk shows because I was a listener and student of the industry years prior to that and that inspired me to pursue this as my career. I am a small town guy from South Carolina, coming from where I come from people don’t do this.  All I had then was a dream in my soul and vision in my mind. It was the listeners then that took me in because they related to me they knew I was a regular blue collar type guy with a dream. They made that happen then and the listeners here in Central Iowa and all over the country listening on our website they continue to make that possible. I owe this to them and I do what I do for them, I try and approach from their perspective and give them the programming I would want to hear as a listener.”

Since August the show has featured coaches from fall and winter sports from Fort Dodge, St. Edmond’s, Manson NW Webster, Southeast Valley, East Sac County, Greene County, Algona, Newell-Fonda, Clarion-Goldfield-Dows and more. “Coaches Corner” will return March 28th at 9AM with a brand new episode featuring Spring sports. The plan is for the show to return to a weekly format in June though July to feature baseball/softball.