Messenger photo by Britt Kudla: Iowa Central's Luke Moffitt coaches inside Hodges Fieldhouse earlier this season.

If our readers feel like they’re experiencing deja vu every year around this time, it stands to reason.

They say March comes in like a lion, so consider Luke Moffitt and Dick Jungers the true kings of the jungle. In case you missed it, Moffitt and Jungers led their respective teams to second-place finishes last weekend, carrying on the tradition of annually meeting their own nearly-impossible standards of excellence.

This hasn’t been going on for a few years, or even a full decade. It’s way more.

Under Moffitt’s direction, the Iowa Central wrestling program has now placed in the Top-3 nationally 13 times in his 20 seasons at the helm. Moffitt has seven national titles to his credit as head coach, four runner-up performances, six golds from national duals and 14 regional championships. Matt Sarbo and Darnai Heard were the 35th and 36th individual national champs of Moffitt’s tenure at this year’s NJCAA Tournament.

Moffitt often does his best work when he molds squads into true contenders after “down” seasons. The Tritons finished a relatively-disappointing seventh at nationals a year ago, and weren’t even ranked in the Top-10 nationally in November. Four months later, they were back at the very top yet again when it mattered most.

Messenger photo by Britt Kudla: Newell-Fonda girls coach Dick Jungers hugs his daughter, Kierra, at the state tournament in Des Moines.

Moffitt was a national titleist at Iowa Central himself after a decorated prep career in Estherville. He won a Big Ten championship at the University of Iowa, and was named the conference tournament’s most outstanding wrestler in 2002.

Moffitt decided to move back to the area after his Hawkeye career and reinvest in the program that helped mold him into both the competitor and man he became while living in Fort Dodge. Bigger opportunities have of course been on the table for Moffitt over the last 20 years, but in his eyes, better situations than his gig with the Tritons haven’t come along to pull his family away from the region he’s always called home.

Jungers’ career has followed a similar trajectory. The veteran basketball coach has built a modern-day dynasty at Newell-Fonda, where the Mustang girls have racked up nearly 500 wins on his watch, 15 state tournament trips and nine appearances in the finals — including a staggering six times in Class 1A since 2018. N-F has a cumulative record of 125-9 in the last five seasons, and the Mustangs have reached the semifinals 11 times in their last 11 tries.

Jungers, like Moffitt, grew up in northwest Iowa. The Sheldon native attended Buena Vista University, and after starting his career in the N-F district in 1998, became the school’s head girls basketball coach in 2002.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Jungers was officially named the new superintendent of the Newell-Fonda and Albert City-Truesdale school districts in late January. He will continue to serve as the pre-K through 8th grade principal and head girls basketball coach through the end of this July, when a transition plan will be announced.

Moffitt and Jungers both took over area programs with strong traditions when they were in their 20s, then raised the bar to almost unprecedented levels. Good coaches win with talent and timing; Hall of Famers find a way to turn elite achievements into a yearly standard.

It doesn’t happen very often, and in this day and age, leaders typically cash in to find greener pastures when they do.

After 20 years of following Moffitt at Iowa Central and Jungers at Newell-Fonda, we should consider ourselves lucky — and spoiled. They’ve both made long-term investments in our backyard without batting an eye.

The area is better because of it — and them.

Eric Pratt is Sports Editor at The Messenger. Contact him via email at sports@messengernews.net, or on Twitter @ByEricPratt