Sometimes people take time for granted. How fast a year goes by is amazing, how fast your high school years go by will astonish you. But the time between entering and leaving a community can feel like a lifetime.

At the end of this year students and teachers alike will say goodbye to Coach Drew Duff. He will be leaving to assist on the family farm. Coach Duff and his family are taking over his wife’s family farm because his father-in-law is about to retire, and as  Duff said, “We’ll begin that venture.”

Duff said the time was right because the acreage where Mindy, his wife, grew up was put on sale.  Duff also stated on the issue of farming, “If we’re going to do it, [we need to] come up and learn from [Mindy’s father] while he’s still able to do it”

Duff talked about wanting to move before his oldest son Collin got older. It’s going to be a hard move for his son since he recently started first grade, Duff explained. It was a hard decision for him to leave, he enjoyed the five years he has been here.

Coach Duff stated, “It’s been fun coaching football, wrestling and working with all the student athletes and the relationships with the students.” When talking about whether or not he would be able to return and coach, he said it is a possibility, although he also wants time to spend with his family and he would not be able to get away during harvest season. He hopes he will eventually be able to return to coaching of wrestling.

Coach Duff will be moving to Algona, which is similar to Atlantic. It is about a three-hour drive into northern Iowa, and it’s population is close to Atlantic in size. Algona will be taking in the high schools from neighboring small towns soon and it will become one very large school. While for now Coach Duff is still a Trojan, soon he will be a Bulldog.

Duff talked about the highlights of his career in Atlantic. “Coaching with my brother (Tim Duff) has to be one of the biggest highlights.” When the pair led the football team to the playoffs together in 2012 was one of the bigger ones. He enjoyed working with both Coach Nick Ross and Coach  Eric Waldstein very much. For wrestling making it to state duals was a great memory, trying to get there was a “fun ride” too. For Coach Duff those were “the biggest highlights”

The final question for Coach Duff: Do you have anything to say to your players? “It’s always about the journey, not the destination. Not about where you end up, but about how you get there. There are always good opportunities that come from working hard and trying to do the right thing.”