Coach Ackerman enters his 25th year of coaching, his 13th  as the Head Coach of the Spartans.  He has coached at all levels from junior high to college. Prior to coming to Grundy Center he served as the varsity assistant basketball coach at Wartburg College for five years with three of those teams winning the Iowa Conference title and qualifying for three NCAA III national tournaments.

Success has followed Coach Ackerman at the high school level as well.  While the head coach at Dumont High School for three years, the basketball team achieved its first winning season in twenty years, and set a school scoring record in the process.  At Grundy Center, the Spartans have qualified for two state tournaments, finishing 4^th in 2003 and losing an overtime thriller to eventually state champion Danville in 2002.  The Spartans were conference champions in 2003, and have finished as conference runner-up four times.  He achieved his 200th career victory as a high school head coach during the 2006-2007 season.

Coach Ackerman also serves as the school’s Athletic Director and is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Iowa High School Athletic Director’s Association.  He is also a member of the Iowa Basketball Coaches Association, and was President of the IBCA from 2000-2001, and is a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

A 1979 graduate of Ackley-Geneva, he was a starting guard on the basketball team which finished 4^th at the ’79 state basketball tournament.  He also played baseball in high school, and played one year of baseball in college.  He is a 1983 graduate of Northwestern College in Orange City graduating with a B.A. in Social Science.  He obtained a M.A. in Educational Administration in 2003 from The University of Iowa.

Joe Nelson joins the Spartan coaching staff as a first year assistant coach.  Coach Nelson graduated from Briar Cliff College, where he was a three year starter and two-time all conference selection for the Chargers, leading the team in scoring and rebounding during his junior and senior season.  Coach Nelson, a native of New Mexico, also brings his exerience of playing in the NBA developmental league and semi-pro baskeball after his graduation from Briar Cliff.  Coach Nelson will be starting graduate studies at the University of Northern Iowa in December.

Also joining the staff this year as coordinators of the Spartans' strength and conditioning program, will be Brock Leggins, Will Rawlings, and Andrew Eberline.  Coach Leggins and Rawlings will work strictly with the team's development in the fitness room, working with the varsity team and freshman-sophomore teams, twice a week.   Leggins and Rawlings join the Spartans as part of their graduate studies in strength and conditioning at the Univeristy of Northern Iowa.  Coach Eberline is a former Spartan, and as a senior was a starting forward on the 2002 state tournament team.  Coach Eberline will be working with the Polar Heart Rate Monitor aspect of the team's conditioning and on-floor coaching.  A graduate of Wartburg College, Coach Eberline also serves as the assistant high school baseball coach in addition to his duties as a Polar.Scholar.

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