Nate Fales

IRON RIVER — West Iron County athletics director Mike Berutti says Nate Fales has coaching in his blood.

Upon hearing that statement, Fales laughed.

“Basically,” he said. “I keep coming back.”

The 45-year-old Fales was hired by the West Iron County School District on June 2 to coach the Wykon boys basketball squad. It is a return of sorts for Fales, who led the West Iron boys varsity team from 2007-10, coached middle school girls basketball for six seasons and was the Wykon boys junior varsity coach last season.

Fales, a special education teacher with the Dickinson-Iron Intermediate School District, took intermittent years off as he and his wife Jodi (a special education teacher at West Iron) started a family which now includes daughters Lauren (8 years old), Tessa (6 years old) and son James (3 years old).

But when the varsity position opened shortly after the season was completed, Fales decided to step forward again. He inherits a difficult situation this time.

The West Iron boys varsity team bottomed out in 2021-22, finishing with a 1-18 record.

Not only did the Wykons lose, but they lost big. West Iron was outscored, on average, by 40.5 points per game.

“I know two things,” said Fales, who personally witnessed the last season’s struggles as JV coach and varsity assistant. “If you can’t guard the basketball and you can’t rebound, you just can’t be in a game.

“We were scoring 17-20 points a game because we were giving up transition baskets and we were always taking the ball out of the basket. It’s hard to go against a set defense every possession. So when (this year’s team gets) back in here, it’s going to be all about guarding the ball and rebounding.”

And effort. Fales learned the importance of competitive fight while playing guard at Cadillac High School in the mid-1990s.

“I was a scrapper, and I just think we’ve got to scrap on defense,” he added. “But our kids can run, so I want to play aggressive (half-court) defense and I want to get some transition offense.”

Berutti said Fales’ emphasis on defense, rebounding, fundamentals, organization and program-building all played a significant part in his hire.

“You know we had a tough year,” said Berutti, who is also the varsity football coach and high school principal at West Iron High School. “But the future looks much better. Nate has a plan — what they’re going to do offensively, defensively. He knows fundamentals are important, and if you don’t take care of the fundamentals in basketball you’re never going to have a good team.

“It was the right move. I’m very (comfortable) with him.”

Fales said his rebuilding challenge will have to be basic and forceful, starting with the simple responsibility of all players showing up for practice. That basic task was not always adhered to last season, Fales said.

The current term in sports for such measures is “culture change.”

“I’ve done culture change before,” Fales said. “It’s going to be turbulent and some people are going to have some hurt feelings for a few weeks. I’m going to set the tone in the (preseason) meeting. You’ve got to be here. And we just need organized basketball practices. We’re going to be organized and we’re going to have drills that we do down in the program that we feel are essential and have consistency with that.”

Again, just the words Berutti wants to hear. He said he and the hiring committee also want the varsity coach to be involved and seen throughout the various levels of the program.

Berutti added he wants the varsity program to return to a level of competitiveness, at least.

In other words, back to normal. Through its history, the West Iron County boys basketball program has been sound, at times excellent, and has had some of the more talented players in the region and the peninsula as a whole.

At its height, the Wykons boys basketball program produced state runner-ups in the 1984-85 season and the 1991-92 season.

West Iron was the small school in the Great Northern Conference during the program’s heyday, but was not a team to be overlooked. Even with drastic enrollment declines, the Wykons have put competitive, at times very strong, teams into the fray with few bumps in the road until last season.

“We had kids that were just not involved in playing basketball,” Berutti said of last year’s team. “Right now, we’ve got a group that’s going to be in 10th grade. They’re gym rats. They like playing sports. They run track, they play tennis, they play football, they do everything.

“We’ve got some seniors that have some athletic ability and can run the floor. Now they just have to fit into a system, something that they have not had to do for ‘x’ amount of years.”

One major benefit Fales has going for him is his knowledge of the players, having already coached many of them. While some of last year’s freshmen class were called up to the varsity because of numbers issues, those players also worked under Fales with the JV team.

Fales said that maybe in a different situation he would have stayed at the JV level because of his love of teaching the basics of the game. But he also felt a calling to help right the ship from the top.

“As things progressed here, I saw that I was the best person to take the job, even though I really loved JV,” Fales said hesitantly. “I didn’t want to leave the kids in a lurch. So I know the culture problems and I know the individuals, so that’s a huge help.”

While no one within the program is ready to place a timetable on the rebuilding project, both Fales and Berutti know that to bring back many of the fans who have been such a vital part of the West Iron basketball program’s history, playing with effort and playing competitively are musts.

“On the side of the conference we’re on, we’re the second smallest school,” Berutti said. “But I want to see us be competitive. I want to see us put people in the gym. I want some excitement. It’s a long winter in the U.P. if you don’t have something to go cheer for, whether it’s boys basketball or girls basketball. We want to see people in the gym, we want to see kids participating and having fun. The community really needs it.”

Fales offered his assessment of the players he has at this point.

“We’ve got some kids that are into basketball, but the numbers are low,” he said. “We’ve got some quality kids, we just have to find more of them.”

While upbeat about the future of the program, Fales is under no illusions about the state of the program going into the 2022-23 campaign.

“We’ve got a long ways to go. We’ve got some athletic and smart kids, but the ball skills (shooting and dribbling) are not where they need to be. The kids just haven’t played much basketball. So it’s one of those deals where you evolve our the season, like we did with the JV team last year.

“By the second half of the season, you want to put a product out there that people in the stands want to see and be proud of. I don’t know how it’s going to shape up (this year), but we’re going to put a team on the court that the community is going to come and watch play. Effort and attitude are non-negotiables for our crowd, and we’re going to have that this year.”