Opinion: Recipe for success Wesleyan’s best teams tend to follow same approach

Dakota Wesleyan’s greatest football season came in 1992, when coach Joe Kramer pieced together a team that not only breezed to a league title, but gained national recognition.

In 1992, his Tigers finished the regular season unbeaten. The next year, they were 7-3.

I hadn’t given much thought to those great teams until I read the other day that Wesleyan finished this football season 7-3 — the best finish for the Tigers since Kramer did it 15 years ago.

These days, Kramer is dean of students for the Avon School District. He also helps out as an assistant coach for the Avon football team, which won the state Class 9A championship last week in Vermillion.

Although Kramer stepped away from Wesleyan after the 1998 season, he still catches a few DWU games a year, talks shop with head coach Brad Pole every now and again and, at times, still feels the itch that helped him become what I always considered a darn good coach and mentor for the young men around him.

“It’s fun to watch,” he said of trips to Joe Quintal Field to see the Tigers. “Typically at the end of the game, I look at the team that lost and say ‘I don’t miss that.’ But then I see the other team in the other end zone. I do miss that.”

A former sports editor, I saw Kramer coach dozens of games. I always thought his greatest strength was grabbing a great core of local and regional players, sprinkling in a few standouts from who-knows-where and convincing them that they can compete with anyone.

He was an offense-minded coach, but that didn’t mean he relied upon intricacies or the latest gimmicks and fads. If he found something that worked, he ran it to death, usually with great success. He won five conference championships (there have only been 14 league titles at Wesleyan since the program began) and coached 10 players who either were actual All-Americans or earned honorable mention (there have only been 16 such players in school history).

His 1992 team was the best ever at Wesleyan. That team went 10-0 before falling in the first round of the national playoffs to a tough Minot (N.D.) State team.

His best teams always included a great nucleus of local and regional players. This year’s Tigers did it the same way, with more than 40 South Dakotans on the roster.

That makes it fun for the faithful. Wesleyan fans tend to be a fickle bunch — they not only want to win, but they prefer to do it with at least some homegrown talent having something to do with it. Those are difficult expectations to consistently fulfill.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” Kramer told me this week. “I always felt that for the core of your team, you like to have local guys. That brings in the uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. They also become awfully good alumni. But you certainly have to sprinkle your roster with kids who aren’t from the region. I tried to do that, and I think Brad (Pole) is doing a great job of that.”

Why has it taken so long to get another winning football team at Wesleyan?

First, Wesleyan joined the Great Plains Athletic Conference in 2000. Although the old SDIC had some nice teams year in and year out, the level of competition has jumped considerably in the GPAC. The University of Sioux Falls is consistently among the nation’s best teams and the NAIA schools in Nebraska traditionally draw players from the metro areas of Omaha and Lincoln. Since joining the league, Wesleyan hasn’t been able to piece together a winning season. That is, until 2008.

And second, turnover among the coaching staff certainly has hurt. Including 1998 — Kramer’s last year — Wesleyan had five head coaches in eight seasons.

Pole has been at Wesleyan four years, and “that certainly has added some stability,” Kramer said. “The kids are starting to see the success. It’ll be the fourth time that this coach has been to a school recruiting kids. The kids get familiar.”

Pole also stole a page from Kramer’s playbook, although he perhaps doesn’t realize it. Kramer consistently had a quarterback from the Mitchell area during his successful run. Jeff Fischer (Wagner), Craig Cheeseman (Fulton), Chris Determan (Burke), Chris Long (Wessington Springs) and Chad Urban (Kimball) all played quarterback during Kramer’s tenure.

No coach would intentionally insert a local player at such an important position as a rule, but when it happens, it doesn’t hurt future recruiting or fan interest.

Wesleyan’s excellent quarterback this year was Jon Doom, of Wagner. His favorite target was former Wagner High School teammate Bubba Slaba.

No matter where his players are from, Pole is to be commended. There’s just something nice about having a strong and competitive football team at the local college.

People are talking about the Tigers; it’s exciting.

“What a great year for them,” Kramer said. “I like they way they play. They played hard. … They didn’t make the playoffs, but they made great steps toward getting to the playoffs.”

Kramer has high praise for Pole and the direction of the program. As a coach with 70 wins and all those league titles, it’s quite a compliment for this year’s players, who probably didn’t notice the former coach looking on from the stands.

“You miss the relationships with the kids any time you leave something. I really enjoyed my time (as Wesleyan’s coach),” Kramer said. “Sometimes, you give it what you’ve got and then run out of gas. It’s fun to watch from a distance.

“I’m a better coach from a distance.”