Tommy Nienhaus is happy to be the new men's soccer coach at William Woods. He is happy to be coaching at all.
In November, Nienhaus contracted COVID-19 and had to spend 39 days in an intensive care unit. He lost 45 pounds and experienced muscle atrophy after laying in a hospital bed for so long. He had to eventually undergo speech along with physical therapy after being put on a ventilator when his condition worsened.
There is a big chunk of time Nienhaus said he doesn't remember as the last he recalls is losing his appetite and watching his team at the University of Jamestown in North Dakota play on a computer since he couldn't be there in-person. He then remembers waking up in December laying in the ICU not knowing his location.
He was told he came close to death.
"I've never liked losing, but losing a game suddenly doesn't have the same weight that it did," Nienhaus said.
He is Jamestown's all-time wins leader and had coached many all-conference and all-academic players that made up some NAIA nationally ranked teams. However, Nienhaus said he would have to undergo a new challenge to return to the sidelines.
Before he was released from the hospital after Christmas, Nienhaus said he underwent rehab for about a week and would need outpatient rehab so he could return to his former active state and weight. Surprisingly, he said the most daunting part of his recovery was speech therapy as his voice was weak when released and not ready to yell over long distances which he had done so many times before.
"Speech therapy was more of a challenge than the physical therapy," he said. "As a coach, someone who talks and yells and all that stuff, you kind of take your voice for granted."
To this day, Nienhaus said his vocal range isn't what it was before but acknowledges he "got by alright" if that all he has to complain about now. He is back exercising at his previous level and his appetite is fully restored along with his weight.
Before his battle with COVID, Nienhaus had no pre-existing conditions and was rarely sick. He and his team were following masking and other protocols and even isolated players when they had to in October.
Despite all of this, his wife and some of his players contracted COVID, so he isn't sure even now where he got it from. Something he does know is how lucky he is to be alive as many people his age didn't make it. His rough experience also made it clear what was important as evidenced by the brimming support he and his family had from his community in North Dakota and from friends and family miles away.
Members of the community made meals for his family and offered to help in whatever way they could. Nienhaus' family in Indiana even were eager to assist however they could despite being so far way.
Nienhaus said he still has a big pile of well-wishes cards from people in his community, and while he was being interviewed for this story, he said he was playing with a stress ball he received as a gift from one of his youth soccer players. The ball helped him regain the strength in his hands while he was rehabbing, he said.
His wife, who is a nurse, visited him in the hospital after the initial quarantine period had passed.
Nienhaus said he was eventually able to return to the Jamestown sidelines in the spring, missing only three out of 18 games, but his graduate assistant with little experience did a great job leading the team in the fall when Nienhaus was out of commission.
"It really forces you to narrow in on the things that are most important," he said. "Relationships are at the heart of what you do."
Through this whole ordeal, Nienhaus said he has had so much gratitude for everyone that was there for him and his family. It was a difficult decision to leave Jamestown because of all the meaningful relationships he had up there, Nienhaus said, but he felt it was time for he and his family to search for opportunities elsewhere.
The academic schedule in North Dakota allowed for less time to spend with extended family far away, Nienhaus said, with Thanksgiving break being only two days and spring break three days. He said he wanted his family to have more days off for holidays. Also, his wife could seek jobs in other medical units, his son could get more involved in soccer living in Missouri and Nienhaus was familiar with this area as he also has family in St. Louis.
Winning a national title is a goal a team should have, but Nienhaus said making sure everything is right with family and the other loved ones should take precedence.
Now, he said, the hardest thing in Nienhaus' life is selling his house so he and his family can move to Missouri. While he is up north, he is still making new connections with his William Woods players through a messaging app.
Nienhaus said he already likes his new group and believes he is inheriting a good culture that has a high regard for academics. He noticed this initial group at William Woods is younger than his initial one at Jamestown, and they, along with him, are eager to start "scaffolding our style," as Nienhaus phrases it.
With a new team comes new personalities as well as new strengths and weaknesses, Nienhaus said. Communication and togetherness shouldn't be weaknesses for this group and neither should be Nienhaus' love for coaching.
"I may not have made it," Nienhaus said. "It's one of those things, when I finally came to, I never really had any sort of doubts or had those crises where you question what are you doing with your life. I came out with a renewed sense of purpose that coaching is what I was meant to do."