Inductees

For some basketball coaches, they knew at an early age that they wanted to lead teams eventually. For many, it simply comes together by happenstance.

Which makes Dan Rolfes’ story so incredible.

There he was in college, trying to figure out what he wanted to do in life, when the fifth-grade little sister of his future wife returned home in tears. She was unhappy with her coach.

“She didn’t want to play anymore,” Rolfes said. “So I took over her team, added a couple of kids and competed and started playing year-round.”

Soon, Rolfes pursued coaching as a career, and what a run it’s been. In fact, his success leading the Incarnate Word Academy Basketball Program is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Rolfes with the Class of 2018.

Not even 50 years old, Rolfes already has guided girls basketball teams to 524 victories. That includes 42-11 record at Rosary High School before taking over at IWA, an all-girls Catholic school, in the fall of 2000.

Since then, his IWA teams have compiled 483-69 record and reached 13 Final Fours, winning eight state championships (2006, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018). The eight are a girls basketball record in the MSHSAA postseason tournament era that began in 1973.

Call it quite a story for a coach who found his calling while in college. A 1989 graduate of since-closed St. Thomas Aquinas-Mercy, where he was a three-sport athlete, Rolfes didn’t play basketball collegiately at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Yet it was through his wife – or, more accurately, through her little sister – that he learned what could be in coaching.

Eventually, he spent five seasons as a restricted earnings assistant coach for the women’s basketball team at St. Louis University, then led by Jill Pizzotti.

That job paid only $1,000 a month and no longer exists in NCAA Division I basketball.

“I just wanted the chance to learn and coach at the Division I level,” Rolfes said. “Not too many people would take that job. But I was able to also attend coach (Charlie) Spoonhour practices and learn a lot from those guys, too. It was a great learning experience for me.”

Pizzotti’s structure eventually paid off for Rolfes.

“Obviously, there are so many more details when your coaching at the college level and how you prepare for games,” Rolfes said. “That’s what led to the success we had in high school. When I got to Incarnate, the kids hadn’t watched film before. I learned that at the college level and felt that was something we could do.”

When he asked players on that 2000-2001 team of their goals, they assumed a .500 record was the best they could do.

Rolfes took the whole thing to another level. He learned a lot about strategies along the way, especially about ways to handle situations.

“As a young coach, I thought pretty much that my way was the only way. I’ve got to do whatever I think is best,” Rolfes said. “Now I am open more to listening to my assistants and valuing their input, and the players’ input, too. It’s not a dictatorship style.”

All of which helps explain why he has won so many honors already.

In 2017, he was a court coach with the USA U16 national team. He has been named a MaxPreps National Coach of the Year (2014), inducted into the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, named to a 2010 Final Four coach of the Nike High School All-American Game and was the Associated Press and MBCA Coach of the Year every year his teams won state.

In 2006 and 2019, he received the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Coach of the Year Award and has served as a Nike Skills Academy instructor.

He also has been named Coach of the Year by the National Federation of State High School Associations-Midwest Division (2010) and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (2010).

What a run it’s been – and still going – for Rolfes, who has long had the support of his wife, Lisa. They are parents to Jake, Grace and Kate.

“I feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to coach at Incarnate Word Academy,” Rolfes said. “I have tremendous support from the administration, student body, families and most importantly some fabulous young ladies.”