Math teacher and Head Baseball Coach Brett Hoyer of Cedar Rapids, Iowas, was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2024. Photo credit: The Cedar Rapids Gazette

We are hot in the middle of baseball season, so how about shining a spotlight on an exceptional baseball coach today? One such coach is Brett Hoyer, a teacher and coach at John F. Kennedy High School located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Brett’s tenure as Head Baseball Coach at spans a total of 34 seasons. He has spent 31 of them at Kennedy. In addition, he has served the school as the Offensive Coordinator for the varsity football team. And he also teaches a variety of mathematics courses at the school.

The talented coach led his baseball team, whose mascot is the Cougars, to 14 state tournaments, and to the Class 4A State Championships four times over the past three decades. There his teams captured the first-place honors twice, in 2015 and in 2024.

Brett says his work with high school students, both in the classroom and on the field, is very rewarding. “I know some people dread their jobs, and I’m not one of those people,” he said in an 2014 interview. “I really enjoy working with young people, both in the mathematics classroom and certainly coaching. It makes it awfully easy to get out of bed in the morning and come to work,” he continued. His love for the job has been rewarded. For his work as a coach, Brett was inducted into the Iowa High School Baseball Association Coaches’ Hall of Fame in 2014.

After his graduation from Regina High School, Brett earned his Bachelor’s degree in Education at Wartburg College, a private liberal arts college located in Waverly, Iowa. He was in his junior year there when he made his decision to become a math teacher and athletic coach. He earned his Master’s degree at University of Iowa located in Iowa City. He retired in 2024 after a total of 36 years in the profession.

To learn more about Brett Hoyer, watch could watch this podcast interview of him posted on YouTube.