Keene State released the announcement that Bob Weiner, the women’s volleyball coach would retire at the end of the year on Feb. 6.
Weiner was head coach for 19 years at KSC, in another month it will be his 20th year anniversary. Before coming to Keene he coached at Franklin Pierce, Macalester, Montana State Northern, Iona, Assumption and Pine Manor as well as club programs. According to the Keene State Athletics website his whole career record is 617-497.
At Keene State Weiner said he eventually wanted to figure out how many women he ended up coaching.
“Figure 19 years of rosters with 15 to 17 people, and there’s overlap. It has to be a couple hundred and that’s really cool,” he said.
Weiner reflected on the differences between coaching DⅢ versus DⅠ. “I didn’t want to coach DⅢ again, it was not my idea, but it turns out it’s better,” he said. “People play here because they love the game, it’s not because we’re paying them, and with that in mind, we can’t get rid of them.”
Kelsey Harper, a senior and captain on the volleyball team reflected on who he was as a coach.
“I thought that he was really able to see not only my potential but the potential of all the other players on my team,” she said. “He’s really involved in us both as athletes and as people.”
Harper said one of her favorite memories of Weiner was on her recruiting trip. “He brought me all around campus and then we went and sat and watched film for two hours, and it was before I was on the team,” Harper said. “That was something that really solidified for me that I wanted to go here; I wanted him to be my coach.”
Weiner said originally he did not want to go back to Keene, “When I was leaving Franklin Pierce to go to Minnesota, I lived in Keene. I remember driving up over Route 9 with my trailer of stuff and looking in the rearview mirror and just going ‘adios mother*******, I’m never going to be back in this town again,’ proving indeed that you can’t say stuff like that,” Weiner said.
Despite this, Weiner moved back and coached DⅢ now saying, “It both feels like 20 years and it feels like a week. It’s been a terrific experience.”
For the future of the program, Weiner says he hopes KSC Athletics brings in someone who will really care for the program.
“If someone were to see it, understand it, and make some changes we could win right away. It’s here, we could do it,” he said.
Molly Lu McKellar can be contacted
At mmckellar@kscequinox.com
