by Alexis Spier–Bryan Alfredson graduated from Morningside in 1992 and has been associated with the University for 34 years. He has coached and shaped many young women who have played basketball at Morningside.
After graduating high school, he didn’t have the best grades, so he joined the Marines. Because he joined the military, he was not required to take the SAT’s or ACT’s. Again, his grades were not where they needed to be, so on his first day attending Morningside, he was put on academic probation.
Alfredson faced adversity right from the start but if the Marines taught him anything it was discipline and hard work. He went on to graduate with honors, while at the same time providing for his wife and two kids at home.
“The lady that told me I was on academic probation was the one who handed me my academic honors at graduation,” said Alfredson. ‘”I said something to her about it, and she said, “Now you know why I did it.”‘
He graduated with a degree in Education and went on to coach high school boys and girls basketball and softball programs for 30 years in the Sioux City area. 26 of those years he was the head coach for the girls basketball and softball team and a teacher at Woodbury Central in Moville. His coaching style was inspired by Morningside’s own Jamie Sale, the head coach of the women’s basketball team.
In 2008, Alfredson’s daughter Brittany joined the Morningside women’s basketball team, and in 2012, Sale reached out to Alfredson with an offer.
“I had known Jamie way before my daughter came here, because I went and watched practices. So, I ran kind of his system back then. “I was just hanging out and he came and asked me a couple times if I would like to be his assistant, and I said, ‘Well I would have to ask my daughter first,’ because I had coached her for her entire life except for those three years in college. She had no problem with it, so that’s how I got here.”
Alfredson coached at Morningside from 2012-2016. In 2016, his previous high school team couldn’t find a coach, so he once again became the head coach at Woodbury Central. Then, he had to leave Morningside again, because his son became a head coach at Moville and he wanted his dad to be the assistant coach.
Now, Alfredson has four years until his ten-year-old grandson gets to Junior High, so he has a little bit of a break from watching sporting events where he can focus on coaching the Morningside Women’s team.
Unfortunately, Alfredson’s coaching pay was cut this year, but he stayed regardless of that.
“I’ve never coached for pay,” said Alfredson. “A funny story is when I was coaching softball, someone was giving me a hard time about how much I put into it and wanted to know how much I got paid. So I wrote down everything I did that pertained to softball and at the end of the year it came out to 83 cents an hour. It’s really not about money for me; it’s about being with the kids and teaching.”
Morningside has left a permanent mark on Alfredson, literally. He has a tattoo of the Mustang logo on his leg that is often confused as the logo for the Denver Broncos.
“My whole family’s gone here. Actually, go back. My grandmother came here and got a teaching degree. After I came here and fell in love with it, both my kids came here and they meet their spouses here. He has a grandson that goes to Morningside and plays baseball as well.”
Alfredson plans to continue coaching the women’s basketball team at Morningside no matter what the circumstances. He is a perfect example of Mside Pride as he has been apart of the community for 34 years and has influenced many young women athletes who have attended and graduated Morningside including his daughter.
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