Garden Plain High School has been blessed with quality teachers and staff. In the past couple of years, a new member was added to the Owl family. Coach Todd Rice has been teaching and coaching for the past 30 years. He is the head football coach at Garden Plain, and he teaches strength and conditioning, and physical education. His dedication to push kids to their max potential and find their confidence is unmatched. He likes Garden Plain High School because there are shared consistent standards. This year, Rice has been focusing on improving his strategies to motivate athletes. In the short time he has been at Garden Plain, he has had an impact on many people.
Rice grew up on a small farm outside of Bradshaw, Nebraska. “It was a small town of about 300 people,” said Rice. He stated that since he grew up as a farm kid, it was nice to grow up in a smaller community because everybody knew each other. Rice attended Bradshaw High School and stayed involved by playing football, basketball, and track. His favorite sport was football, and his early involvement led to his future passion of coaching. Rice continued his education at University of Nebraska, and he graduated with a degree in K-12 physical education and health, and he minored in history. From there, he started to pursue his passion of football. Rice shared, “I started coaching at North Platte and then I transferred to Clay Center to continue my career.”
After coaching for North Platte and Clay Center, he came to Garden Plain looking to improve the program. “It was exciting to start working at a new school, because of the new challenge it arose. I was excited to build the program and establish new relationships,” exclaimed Rice. Since he transferred to Garden Plain, his new day to day schedule consists of finding new ways to motivate kids, and push them to beat personal records. “I am always looking for new ways to motivate student athletes, because the hardest part about my job is motivation. I am adding a new record board in the weight room that will show the top five athletes personal records in each lift, and for each weight category.” stated Rice. He is hoping that it will motivate people to push themselves so that they can be on the record board.
As a high school football coach, he is always looking for new ways to improve the program. His goal for football is to win a state championship, and find new ways to challenge his players. Rice sees a lot of potential in his players and he is persistent to find new ways to better them. “My favorite part of the game is watching my team compete and work as hard as they possibly can,” says Rice. Under the Friday stadium lights, you can find the Garden Plain community gathered together supporting his team. He announced, “There are a lot of friendly people in the community, and their support for athletics is unsurpassed.” Along with the community support, Coach Rice is on his way to make a big impact in Garden Plain.
