Mt. Pleasant, 2024 IATC Hall of Coach
After spending many of his formative years in Washington, Iowa, the Hutchcroft family moved to West Branch when Dave was a high school sophomore. His dad was the Superintendent, and Dave played football, leading the 1966 Bears to an undefeated season and a #1 state ranking and basketball where he set the season scoring record.
After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1971, Hutch started out on his Hall of Fame journey at English Valleys. He was the girls head coach for both basketball and track and field, where they won 2 state titles in the Sprint Medley relay. He also started the cross country program guiding Joe Strohmann to an individual state title in ’74. Upon leaving English Valleys in 1978, the next stop was Jefferson, where he was head coach for softball and girls basketball while an assistant girls track and field coach.
Coach Hutchcroft became hooked on the hurdle events, after watching fellow Hall of Famer, Debbie Esser train while a student teacher at Jefferson when he was there.
Hutch and family, arrived in Mt. Pleasant in the Fall of 1983, where he was the head girls basketball coach, junior high girls track and field coach and an Algebra and Geometry teacher. I’m not saying Mt. Pleasant kids didn’t automatically become better math students, but Hutch’s presence was immediately felt with the Panther girls track and field and basketball programs.
In the 1992 season, Mt. Pleasant girls track and field scored their first ever state meet points, with a 5th place finish in the 1500.
In 1993, after 10 years of coaching Middle School girls track and field, Hutch became the high school girls head coach and the rest as they say is history. In the 22 years with Hutch at the helm, Mt. Pleasant girls track and field had 228 events qualify for state, 48 individuals and 40 relays win medals while 17 individuals and 6 relays took home gold. As a team, they won 3 state titles, were runner-up twice and finished in the top five on five other occasions. In addition, 106 Panther events qualified to the Drake Relays, with 37 top 8 finishes and 2 gold medals.
It seemed as though Mt. Pleasant had multiple state and Drake qualifiers and place winners in the hurdle events every year during his tenure with the Panthers.
Hutch was twice a national Track and Field Coach of the Year finalist and was inducted into the Iowa Girls Coaching Association Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004, after amassing 482 career wins.
Dave garnered 2 State and 6 Regional IATC Coach of the year honors and after 44 years, retired from coaching track and field in 2015. But if you drive by the Mapleleaf Athletic Complex in the spring, you just might find Coach at Mt. Pleasant Middle School track practice, introducing young Panther girls to the hurdles.
Dave and Linda, his wife of 52 years, have 2 children, Kelle and Ryan and 5 grandchildren.