Bryce Hodge faced many challenges while wearing two coaching hats at Riverside the last two years. Now, he is down to one.
Riverside’s school board announced Tuesday that Hodge was leaving his head coaching position in the girls basketball program to concentrate solely on his duties as the school’s head football coach.
Rod Yoder, who is also Riverside’s athletic director, was hired to replace Hodge as the girls basketball head coach.
Hodge spent the last two seasons leading the girls basketball team. He will be entering his second season as the Pirates’ football coach in the fall.
He was approached after this basketball season by the school administration and the decision was made that it would be best for him to only coach football.
“I was disappointed because I had such great girls to work with,” said Hodge. “But I do understand it. I told the girls that I do feel some sense of relief because I spent so much time coaching both sports, and now I will have some more time to devote to my wife and daughter. I gave 100 percent to both sports the last two years, but I don’t know how long I could continue to do that.
“I feel grateful that I was able to coach two varsity sports. It’s not a common thing and I am thankful I had the opportunity to do it.”
Hodge feels good about the shape of the girls basketball program as he departs it.
“We had a lot of success and all of the credit needs to go to the girls we had in the program,” said Hodge. “Two years ago, we had our first winning season in nine years and this past season we won a tournament game for the first time in 10 years. I am extremely thankful to the girls for all the hard work and the dedication they had for the program.”
The Lady Pirates went 13-11 this season and finished second in the Northwest Central Conference after a third-place finish two years ago.
As the AD and a former longtime teacher at Riverside, Yoder knows the girls basketball program well.
“I have always had the passion to coach basketball,” he said. “I have coached it for 15 years at different levels. I coached at the junior high this season, and the timing is right to get back into it as a head coach.”
Yoder hopes to build off the success Hodge enjoyed in his two seasons with the Lady Pirates.
“Bryce has done a great job with the program,” said Yoder. “These girls have been well coached. We have a lot of great kids in the program and Bryce did a really good job coaching them.
“I want to continue to do a lot of what Bryce was doing and also try some different things offensively to take advantage of some of the young post players we have.”
Yoder said that Riverside superintendent Scott Mann will be his varsity assistant and his son Jason Yoder will serve as the junior varsity coach.