The next head coach of the Fayette varsity girls basketball team will be former collegiate head coach and athletic director Brian Spielbauer. His coaching experience includes nine seasons as head coach of the William Penn University women’s basketball team in Oskaloosa, Iowa.

“I think it’ll be a lot of fun,” Spielbauer said about the opportunity. 

“I have two daughters that will be in high school in the next few years, so I know the girls in those grades pretty well. I’ve watched them and I’ve coached them some in the younger grades. I think that it could be a really good group.”

“I want to thank coach Valerie Foland for her work over the last couple years. I wish her and her family the best moving forward. I want to thank coach (Mike) James and the Fayette school board for giving me the opportunity.”

Valerie Foland steps down after guiding the Falcons to postseason wins in each of her two seasons as head coach, the first postseason victories for Fayette since 2006. The Falcons were 21-28 in two seasons under Foland, equaling the team’s win total from the previous four seasons.

Foland is putting coaching aside for the time being, devoting her attention to starting a family and focusing on her career.

“I look forward to seeing what this group can do after getting some experience and putting some work in over the summer,” Foland said after the season. “This group competed in all games with older, more experienced girls, so the possibilities are endless for what they can accomplish next year after gaining that experience.”

Spielbauer said that the current players are a good fit for the style he plans to play.

“I think something that we’ll want to concentrate on is improving skill level,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, you always want to get better at shooting, passing, dribbling. But other than that, we’d like to play pretty up-tempo and be pretty aggressive defensively. I think it’s fun to play that way and I think it will play into the kids we currently have in the program also.”

Spielbauer played his college basketball at William Penn, graduating in 1996 with a physical education major. As the women’s basketball head coach in Oskaloosa, he reached the 100-win mark during the 2010-11 season as the Lady Statesmen finished with the most wins (23) for the program since 1982.

Spielbauer finished with 117 career victories. He left coaching to become the athletic director at Presentation College, and later spent five years as athletic director at CMU.

The Falcons had a young team in 2019-20 with six freshmen and sophomores playing in at least 23 games along with one junior and one senior. The girls are currently working out on their own as the school shutdown has prevented team workouts for softball, basketball and track.

“I’m just excited to get started and, when all of this is done with, to see what we can do in the summer,” Spielbauer said.

“I think we’ve got a nice mix really. We’ve got some height, we’ve got some kids that can shoot, there’s some good speed out there. Just a nice balance, and I look over the next three or four years and there’s a good mix of talented kids.

That’s fun as a coach to have options with bigger kids and getting kids that can shoot. To play like I want to play, we need kids that can run and that’s what this group has.”

The 2020-21 season is currently scheduled to begin with the Glasgow tournament on November 30.