FOND DU LAC – A familiar name in Fond du Lac is taking on a new role.
On Monday, April 20, it was announced that Drake Diener would be the next athletic director and boys basketball coach at Fond du Lac High School after spending the last eight years as the men’s basketball coach at Marian University.
“The most obvious thing for me that comes to mind is just the ability to have a large impact. I love my current job at Marian, I really enjoyed it, I wasn’t really looking to leave and a big part of what I liked to do here is the impact that I can have on the kids that I recruit and that I can coach,” Diener said. “Coaching high school basketball and then also leading the entire athletic department, it’s just a wider impact and a bigger impact on the school district that my kids are involved in and the community that I live in.”
The move comes with Fond du Lac athletic director Kevin Flegner retiring in the fall and former boys basketball coach Josh Dilling pursuing a professional basketball career.
“I knew for sure they’d probably reach out about the coaching situation. What I was not prepared for was them kind of picking my brain on whether I’d be interested in the athletic director’s position, which obviously I was immediately,” Diener said. “When that was a part of the equation and after I learned more about it, going through the interview process, it just became an opportunity that I didn’t really want to pass up.”
While at Marian University, Diener took on the role of assistant athletic director for external relations in August of 2025. He said that experience has helped prepare him for what’s next.
He’ll inherit a boys basketball team that went 7-17 and graduated three seniors.
“I’ve been around the gym and I’ve held camps where I’ve coached a lot of these kids, so I’m very familiar with I think, darn near everybody in the high school program right now,” Diener said. “A big part of the job now is to get our ducks in a row for the summertime, making sure that all of our youth camp stuff is organized, making sure that we got summer leagues and tournaments and things like that.”
There’s also a family connection to the job as his father Dick Diener, served as the boys basketball coach at Fond du Lac for 22 years and made six state tournament appearances.
“It’s a program I grew up watching. I’m honestly a little less thinking about the nostalgic part of it and more just thinking about the challenges we have ahead,” Diener said. “I think that we’re eventually going to win at a high level. There’s a lot of work to get there.
“We got to grind to get where we want to get and I think to a certain extent we have to have like an underdog mentality. That’s what we’ve done at Marian over my eight years here.”
The schedule moves fast and, in the meantime, Diener will work with and learn from Flegner as he prepares for summer basketball and the 2026-27 high school sports season.
“I’m obviously looking forward to working alongside Kevin for a little while and just kind of getting a lay of the land. I think that’ll be important for me. He’s a very experienced guy,” Diener said. “There’ll be some stuff that I’ve got to get done immediately here for basketball and then learn as I go for a little bit over the first month or so with Kevin.”
Contact or send game stats/info to Ben Schultz at BSchultz@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @benschultz52.
This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Drake Diener named athletic director, boys basketball coach at Fond du Lac
Reporting by Ben Schultz, Oshkosh Northwestern / Oshkosh Northwestern
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
