New Lely Coach Brings Ohio, Texas Pigskin Pedigree

Lely High School has hired a new football coach, and it’s right in the nick of time with spring practice just weeks away. But Dan Nieboer, 48, an energetic coach with a strong coaching background in the high school football hotbeds of Ohio and Texas, is ready to tackle the challenge head on.

"I hesitate to say this because I don't believe in being behind the eight ball,” Nieboer said, "but we definitely don't have any time to waste. I've already started manning the phone, making contact with current coaches and potential coaches to bring on. The plan is for me to get down there as soon as I can, possibly the third week of April, either right before or right at the start of spring practice. We're going to get to work and get to building relationships and identifying talents and filling in gaps, if there are any. And get to having fun.”

Nieboer replaces Ben Hammer, who led Lely to back-to-back district championships and regional quarterfinals in three years as Trojans head coach (See Three and Out?, Coastal Breeze News December 23, 2025). Ironically, Hammer’s success is one of the things that attracted Nieboer to the job. He responded to a classified ad he saw on the Florida High School Athletic Association’s website.

“I saw that Lely was coming off back-to-back district championships,” Nieboer said. “Then I jump on MaxPreps and see that they were 8-4. I learned about the Coconut Bowl (rivalry with Naples) and all these different things. Then I started to research Naples, Florida. I'm like, ‘this sounds like an amazing job in paradise.”

Lely principal Jennifer Bledsoe brought in Pete Seitz, a recently retired athletic director at Golden Gate High School, to fill the gap left after former Lely athletic director Madison Squeglia was let go at the same time as Hammer. Seitz was part of some of Lely’s greatest football successes during a 20-year career at the school, including the school's only state championship game appearance in 1987, when they hosted the state title game at Trojan Stadium, a 35-7 loss to Live Oak Suwannee.

"Pete and I had a great conversation,” Nieboer said. “He said he was a coach there and has a lot of love for Lely. He said they were looking to bring a solid man in here to pour into these young men and really teach them a lot about life outside of or beyond football. And that really resonates with me.”

Nieboer said Seitz showed him around campus when he flew in from Texas for an in-person interview with Seitz, Bledsoe, and assistant principal Amy Lovett.

“I went last weekend during my spring break,” Nieboer said. "Coach Seitz showed me around and I knew that it was a place where I could see myself for a long time. When you walk in the building you see great looking kids, respectful smiles, and they're interacting well with each other, the teachers, and administrators. Then you see really good-looking athletes. You can tell that kid's an athlete, you can tell that kid can run and jump and do all the things that athletes do really well. I thought, you know, these are the ingredients that it takes to be able to build a lasting program.”

Nieboer realizes that he may not be operating with the same roster that helped Lely attain their recent success.

“Certainly, there have been a couple key kids that have left,” Nieboer acknowledges. “And we wish them well. We want the best for them, but we would definitely welcome them back if they felt like the word on the street was that ‘Hey, there's something special that's starting here and we're going to have a chance to be really, really good.”

Historically, one of the challenges for Lely has been keeping talented players in their district from being lured away by competing schools. One way Nieboer plans to do that is by developing a strong relationship with C.J. Noel, president of the highly successful South Naples Trojans, the school’s feeder system. Noel was an outstanding running back for the Trojans.

“He's a Lely grad,” Nieboer said. "Pete let me know that he has a great relationship with C.J. and that he has a very great influence over the kids. The South Naples Trojans will be a regular visit for me for sure.”

Nieboer is excited about building his team.

"The first step is to start as fast as we can,” he said, "building relationships with the kids that are there and creating an environment for them that is competitive, but also compassionate, so they feel that they're valued and being pushed to their potential. We want to build a compelling product so that the kids want to come and stay at Lely High School.”

Though the Lely job will be Nieboer’s first head coaching job, he feels he’s ready after coaching at the highest levels of high school football in Ohio and Texas.

"I've not been a head coach,” Nieboer said. "I've been a defensive coordinator at three different schools. I've been a head coach in terms of how I approach my development of my players. And I've been the head coach to my position group as (former Florida and Ohio State coach) Urban Meyer would say. And I've been a head coach to my defense. It's just been a matter of expanding it out to being the head coach of an entire program.”

Nieboer said becoming a head coach has been a career-long goal that started when he was on the coaching staff of Ohio high school power Hilliard Davidson, a Columbus suburban school.

“Head coach Brian White (who won two state titles at Hilliard) introduced me as someone that he saw as being a head coach one day,” Nieboer said. "So he watered the seed that was planted by my high school coach Dick Diminuco back in Albion High School.”

Diminuco, who coached in New York for 34 years, was named Coach of the Decade for the 1980s, and was recently honored by having an athletic complex named in his honor.

"I've envisioned myself in this role for 20-plus years now,” Nieboer said.

Nieboer’s first season coaching at Hilliard was a doozy.

“We promptly went 10-0,” Nieboer said, "and we went to the third round of the playoffs. I'm like, man, this high school football thing is a piece of cake."

In Texas, Nieboer’s current athletic director has direct ties to the famous book and TV series about Odessa Permian High School, Friday Night Lights.

“My athletic director, Randy Mayes, was the head football coach at Permian for six years,” Nieboer said. "He was on staff when they wrote the book.”

Mayes led Permian to a 45-25-1 record. In 1995, he led Permian to the 5A state championship game, where they lost 31-28 to Converse Judson.

Nieboer coached at Plano, the largest school in the state of Texas, with 6,100 students, competing against many of the top teams in Texas.

“We played several of the teams that were featured in Friday Night Lights, including Dallas Carter, my first year down here. Some of the biggest human beings I've ever seen in my life. I had an opportunity to learn from lots of different guys, from different coaching styles and different coaching trees.”

One of the highlights of Nieboer's career came in 2024 when he was on the coaching staff of a state title team at his current school, Liberty Christian, in Argyle, Texas.

“We won a state championship in Texas's largest private school classification,” Nieboer said.

It was his head coach at Liberty Christian, Jason Witten, who urged Nieboer to pursue a head coaching job. Witten was an 11-time Pro Bowl tight end with the Dallas Cowboys and considered one of the greatest tight ends of all time.

“My experience the last two years working with Coach Witten really pumped some life back into my coaching career,” Nieboer said. "He gave me a renewed love for the game, a renewed love for pouring into young men. He would say to me, ‘You're going to be a head coach real soon.' So when he took off to be the tight ends coach at the University of Oklahoma, I said, ‘No better time than now for me to start looking.' I’ve learned from lots of great coaches that showed me how to win with people and how to lead coaching staffs and how to get the most out of kids in a good way. It's been a great road for me."