Nate Loenser ready for the challenge as the Windy City Bulls' first head coach

by Sam Smith

Sometimes a basketball player can feel sorry for himself when he gets the news he’s going to be in Ft. Wayne, Erie, Pennsylvania or Hoffman Estates, Illinois instead of perhaps Chicago or Boston or Dallas. That he can forget the charter aircraft, luxury hotels, catered meals on the plane and at the arena and someone to carry your bag everywhere. Life in the NBA’s Developmental League is spartan and difficult even if it still is professional basketball.

And then there’s Nate Loenser, the new coach of the Bulls inaugural D-league team, the Windy City Bulls, the Bulls announced Thursday.

Loenser doesn’t have a left hand. He was born with no left arm below the elbow. Yet, he played four sports in high school, made the Iowa State baseball team as a senior walk-on, was an assistant with Iowa State, Southern Mississippi and the Bulls last season, and now gets his own team as the Bulls minor league extension playing out of Hoffman Estates and the Sears Centre.

“I was excited about expanding my role with the summer league team,” said Loenser, who accompanied Hoiberg from Iowa State. “I like doing video work (which he did last season). I love working for Fred and the Bulls. Essentially being a head coach now expands my role, but I still see myself working for Fred, working for the Bulls. It just gives me an opportunity to grow as a coach and help the organization in a greater capacity.”

Loenser, 37, wasn’t named Windy City coach because of his handicap, which, by the way, is a word he doesn’t use. He said he doesn’t much care for it because he never has considered himself handicapped or at a disadvantage compared with anyone else. But if you take one look at Loenser and the dexterity and enthusiasm he moves with, it’s difficult to accept you cannot do more.

Loenser was named Bulls’ D-league coach because he’s experienced as a coach, motivated, knows the Bulls’ and Hoiberg’s system, terminology and philosophy as a member of Hoiberg’s staff now for several years and is a dedicated basketball man.

But his personal story is difficult to ignore as well as the confidence he exudes and maintains regarding possibilities. The Bulls plan to use the D-league to enhance their roster with opportunities for players to improve and prepare even when not playing much and develop a teaching philosophy that corresponds with the team’s values and goals.

It also cannot hurt to have a living model of a man who batted away perceived obstacles like Bill Russell did shots, who hasn’t spent a day wondering why and wishing otherwise.

How are you then not going to try to reach for more?

“I get the question, ‘Why do you have one hand?’” Loenser said. “My quick response to young people is, ‘Why do you have two hands?’ It’s probably the perspective I take, so I encourage people to take that perspective. We all have good things about us, bad things, things that may be visual, secrets. I’m a big believer life has adversity and you make the most of who you are. You will live a more fulfilling life rather than focusing on what you don’t have.

“This is how I was born,” said Loenser, 37, who is married with a young child. “I have one and a half arms. These are the tools in my toolbox. I don’t like the word handicapped. I think we all have different tools in our toolbox: How tall we are, how fast we are, our work ethic. Most people have two hands and two feet, but not everybody. To me this is who I am. I have one hand and half an arm and use it as much as possible for the day to day needs and wants. My birth defect, or what you want to call it, is the way I was made or created.”

Coaching the D-league team is something of a dream come true for Loenser even if he has to give up the charter and the Four Seasons. As a kid whose view of the seasons was only which sport now to play, becoming a head coach of professional players, many of whom will be in the NBA, is a goal few could have imagined Perhaps not Nate, but others.

The D-league franchise also should provide an excellent outlet for the Bulls to improve training and readiness of players, especially with the team just an hour northwest of Chicago. There will be an open tryout Sept. 25 at Harper College in Palatine. Players also can be added with their approval from Bulls training camp and then an Oct. 30 draft. D-League practice begins Nov. 1 with the first game Nov. 11.

“The biggest thing is to develop the trust, which I feel will be natural given the relationship with Fred and the front office,” said Loenser. “Having the Windy City Bulls, I think, will be a huge asset for the Chicago Bulls. If there are guys who need to develop more (who are) out of the rotation, rehab injuries, whatever the situation may be, this gives our organization a place where they can trust to send a guy that is close. We can give him some game situations, have the same terminology and system, expand his role without distracting from the Bulls in the middle of the season.

“It’s hard to get some of your developmental guys meaningful reps as the season progresses with all the games and travel,” Loenser noted. “What the Windy City Bulls allows is guys to play against other professionals, gives them the chance to expand their roles. In the grind of an NBA season there isn’t a lot of practice time; the guys who aren’t in the rotation, to keep them fresh they need to keep getting game minutes. I’m excited guys who’ll come to us will get the same terminology; we’ll run essentially the same system. If there is someone in the D-league and they are a fit for us as an organization, we can also see more players.”

It will be a precious balancing act for Loenser, working with the Bulls in training camp while also preparing for the D-league season and his first as a professional head coach. Though balancing has never been a big issue for Loenser, from his baseball bat when he hit .596 as a high school senior to his life playing sports and practicing cello for the school orchestra.

“This is who I am,” Nate reiterates. He’s been asked many times, obviously, about his missing limb. Kids often, though with many stares. “I don’t really know why my eyes are blue; I know they are and they can’t change it,” he says.

Actually, he doesn’t even really know why he doesn’t have a left arm and hand below the elbow. He said he always believed it had to do with the umbilical cord wrapping around his arm and cutting off circulation. Not until he was seeing a doctor regarding visit for a broken prosthetic did that doctor theorize it likely was a fairly common circumstance—for those situations—when blood doesn’t circulate properly to that area of the arm in the womb. His parents, he said, never really worked to narrow a cause. Everyone just moved on and didn’t consider it a hindrance.

Loenser was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the youngest of four kids to a county farm extension director and teacher.

“I will give my parents a ton of credit,” Loenser says. “I know I’m different. If you see me visually you know I’m different. But they never treated me differently. They were always positive, supportive; they didn’t put limitations on me or discourage me. They had an even keel; they taught me to see it as a positive. I had good teachers who allowed me to talk to my peers day one of class and get some of the questions: ‘What’s different about our classmate?’ And after that I was a regular kid.”

He was a sports addict, doing all the usual stuff, collecting cards, watching ESPN, attending Iowa State games, but also lettering in high school in baseball, basketball, football and golf.

“My parents went to Iowa State, had season tickets to football and basketball,” said Loenser. “They encouraged me to be well rounded. I was in band, orchestra, 4-H. But usually doing something in sports. I wore prosthetics. I went to Shriners (Hospital for Children) every six months to Minneapolis for a doctor appointment. I wore the prosthetic until junior high.

I found as I got older I did not want to be dependent on the prosthetic. I used to bat right handed with the prosthetic. So then I switched to left without prosthetic.

I was a good baseball player as far as instincts and knowing the game, was pretty quick, could hit to third and beat out throws. As I got older and everyone got better arms, I knew needed to make a switch.”

Playing baseball without his prosthetic and switching sides, he said he batted .081 as a sophomore. Practice, practice, practice. Then .289 as a junior and .596 as a senior. He took inspiration from watching 10-year major leaguer Jim Abbott, who was born without a right hand.

He arranged to be a student manager for basketball entering Iowa State, but still had the competition bug after that impressive senior season. He tried out for baseball each year at Iowa State but failed to make the team. He finally did as a senior, got an at bat in a game, walked and scored a run and made the traveling squad.

“I was very proud to put on that Iowa State jersey,” said Loenser. “I was looking forward to a return (as an eligible fifth year senior), but they cut out the program.”

He went to Southern Mississippi with former Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy for six years and then back to his high school as a teacher and basketball coach and then a chance to join Hoiberg at Iowa State. He’d met him in pickup games when Fred would come back to Iowa as a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Loenser was Bulls video coordinator last season, preparing game films, doing scouting reports and playbooks. So he knows well how Hoiberg thinks and wants to coach. He’ll bring that to the D-league as well as his own book of triumph.

“At the end of the day, my arm, or my difference, has made me who I am,” Loenser says. “That’s driven my work ethic, to care, to want to give. If it comes up and can somehow relate to one or more of our players in some shape or form, I think that’s great. The relationships you make with players you never know how you are touching a kid. They may feel they have it rough and in reality maybe they don’t have it rough; they may have it rougher than you even know. If it comes up and something from my experiences can help a player or the team, sure I’m open to helping them that way. It’s just part of the overall puzzle.”