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Welcome to another edition of In Play. I am Craig Mattick. Today's guest was a high school football coach for 45 years, 311 wins. That's the winningest high school football coach here in South Dakota, five different schools. He's in the Dakota State Athletic Hall of Fame. He's a Hall of Famer in the South Dakota Football Coaches Association. And he's Kim Nelson today on In Play. Kim, welcome to In Play.
Kim Nelson: Thank you, Craig. It's been a while since we talked, but it's always good to hear your voice and be part of this show. It's pretty cool.
Craig Mattick: I appreciate that, Kim. Back in the mid-70s, you played nine man football there at Lake Benton, Minnesota, Lake Benton in southwest Minnesota, and your dad was the coach. What was that like playing for your dad at Lake Benton?
Kim Nelson: Well, yeah, if anybody else has gone through that, it's for the most part a good thing. Sometimes if you have a bad practice, it comes home with you and you talk about it at supper and sometimes beyond. But I really enjoyed my time playing for my dad and we had some good teams and he really showed me a lot of things about coaching. Most of them good. And some of the things that he did that I disagreed with, I took that with me too.
But dad was a very successful coach. He was a Hall of Famer in Minnesota. And I think he won over 200 games or something like that and a couple state championships. So, he was the guy that when I was very young coaching, if I had a bad game or a bad weekend, had some things going on that I wasn't sure about, I could always call him and he always had an opinion and sometimes I even listened to him. So, he was a really good resource for me.
And besides being a good coach, he was a great dad and was always coaching something. He coached football, basketball, baseball, track. He thought he could maybe teach me how to golf, but that didn't go real well.
Craig Mattick: Were you the quarterback?
Kim Nelson: I was the quarterback. Yeah, in high school. We were a small team and ran the ball to death. But we had a good team. We won a state title. My senior year was a couple of thousand-yard rushers, and I was just kind handing the ball off and trying to keep us in there.
Craig Mattick: What? No spread offense for you as the quarterback?
Kim Nelson: I know. I can't believe it. This is the thing that I didn't take from my father. I didn't want to run the ball. I wanted to see the ball in the air once in a while, and he couldn't understand that. But we had a lot of arguments about that. But everybody's got to find their own way, and I really had a good time in high school and my dad was a big part of that.
Craig Mattick: Well, you played football of course, in a small school. You do everything. You played basketball. You played baseball. You probably worked in the kitchen too.
Kim Nelson: Well, nobody wanted that to happen.
Craig Mattick: But you were doing all sorts of things. You were very busy in high school.
Kim Nelson: Very busy, very busy. In a small town where you play nine-man football and you don't cut anybody from the basketball team, you got to keep everybody because you're lucky to have enough to scrimmage. And everybody in my class and the classes around me, all the boys played multiple sports and we got to be really close because you're playing basketball or wrestling in the wintertime, I'm sorry, football in the fall, obviously. Then track, baseball.
I even was on the golf team for a while because they needed a sixth guy. It wasn't because of my score, it was because I was available. But all my classmates and teammates did the same thing. And so, we spent a lot of time together. And in those days, there was no off-season program really. Everybody just played, moved on to the next sport.
And so, I didn't do any weightlifting at all. And even just a little bit when I went to college and we didn't have the speed workouts that we have now, and we just went off for track. And I don't know, I was a quarterback, so I threw the ball and I was a pitcher in baseball and then in track I threw the shot in the discus. And so, my arm got a good workout during the year.
But it's funny because we encourage kids to be in multiple sports even today, but we seem to be going away from that a little bit more and kids specialize. And I just feel like they miss out on a lot of things, a lot of really good things by playing just one sport and practicing just one sport. And you learn so much by playing other games because the rules are different. And just the way you play and the way you act and the way you interact is different in every sport.
And in football, sometimes if things are going bad, you can take it out on your opponent a little bit legally, of course. But in basketball, you don't do that. You don't run up to somebody and hit them as hard as you can. And baseball, you don't throw the ball at their head when you're mad you shouldn't and those kind of things.
So, every sport teaches you different things about competing and about being a good teammate and getting along with people. And so, there's so many things that are positive about being involved in more than one sport. So, I hope I've always encouraged that in athletes and I watch, I don't just watch football on TV, I watch all the sports on TV, so I appreciate that about being from a small town and being in a small school. And I think hopefully, it makes people more well-rounded in other areas too.
Craig Mattick: You chose the Dakota State College in Madison right after high school. Why Dakota State?
Kim Nelson: Joel Swisher. He was the football coach. And I was all ready to sign and go to Southwest State and play. And Swisher came to my school and we talked for 15 minutes and I thought, "Geez, I got to play for that guy." And he influenced me more than anybody to realize that a coach can make a big difference in a player's life.
And I came home. I mean, I actually saw my dad in school later that day after talking to him and he says, "What'd you think?" And I said, "Well, he doesn't have a lot of scholarship money, but I want to play for that guy." And he goes, "Well, okay." Because my dad went to Dakota State, my uncle went to Dakota State, my youngest son actually went there for a couple of years. So, we have a little bit of a legacy there, not really big deal.
And I didn't know much about the team or the school at that time or anything. I just knew that that's the guy I want to play for. And he was a big influence on me. There was no way I wanted to be a coach after watching my dad go through a lot of stuff and put up with some criticism, and I just thought, "Yeah, it's just not worth it, all that work."
And then I met Swisher and I don't know, he made the game fun, but he also got my interest up as far as learning about the game. I mean, football is such a complex game and you need so many things to go right for football to be successful in football. You can't just have one good player or two good players or even three. Sometimes in basketball, you can maybe get away with two or three really good players and have a good season. But football, you need everybody, every level, every offense, defense, every kicking game. And every play, 11 guys have to do something right for it to be successful.
So, I just really liked that part of football and Swisher brought that out in me. It made me want to learn more about coaching and football, and I made that decision to coach football in college from him.
Craig Mattick: Well, and he let you play basketball and baseball as well. That's a rarity.
Kim Nelson: Yeah. He even put up with summer softball and baseball too. I mean, I called him one time from the state softball tournament on a Sunday night, and we started practice the next morning. And our team got into the championship Sunday night and I told him I wasn't going to be able to make it back in time for practice the next day. It'd be late, I'd be late. And he growled a little bit and he said, "Get it out of your system and get here as soon as you can."
But he let me do it. He let other guys do it too. And we moved our spring football to the evening so that all of our guys that wanted to play baseball and run track to practice after school. He wanted to help us do as much as we could. And I learned a lot from that guy.
Craig Mattick: Well, I know you had success at Dakota State in football and in baseball, but I want to know what kind of a basketball player you were? Were you a point guard or forward?
Kim Nelson: Yeah. I was a point guard and I started a couple of games. I had one good game in a holiday tournament here on.
Craig Mattick: One good game.
Kim Nelson: I know. The rest of the time, I came off the bench and we were 500 probably in basketball pretty much every year at Dakota State. But I loved the game and sure, I wish I would've played more. But you know what, Craig? What it really helped me to do was get a perspective of what it's like to be a substitute player. I played all the time in football. I played all the time in baseball, but I was really humbled in basketball that I wasn't good enough to play all the time.
And I thought I was, like everybody does. But I never complained about it. I just went to practice every day and tried to do whatever the coach told me to do or the best I could and tried to be a good teammate. And it really made me realize that there's another side to these things. The guys that aren't playing need some attention, too. And I didn't always do that the right way, but I tried to and I always tried to make players on my team feel like they could at least contribute in some way. And I learned that from sitting on the bench in college basketball.
Craig Mattick: What was your major at Dakota State?
Kim Nelson: I didn't have one for the first three years. I was just general studies, and then I decided that I wanted to be a coach after my third year, second year, I guess. And I decided if I want to coach, I guess I better teach so I can get a full-time job.
And so, I majored in social studies and physical education. I had a double major. And it was a common thing in those days. I mean, I took a lot of classes. I went to summer school a couple times and actually went to school for five years to get everything done. But I loved coaching and I didn't love teaching, but I liked it enough to do it.
There were some things about teaching that just were not for me, but once I got into some physical education, maybe that was a little bit more my thing, but every job I ever got, I was hired to be a social studies teacher first. So, I was really glad my dad gave me that advice too. He said, "Make sure you can teach more than one type of class because you're going to need that when you want to get a job." And he was absolutely right.
So, I taught history and government and civics and psychology and sociology and health and PE, but I had that ability in the majors that I took in college. So, I recommend that to anybody that's interested in coaching. Make yourself as marketable as you can.
Craig Mattick: So, you graduate from Dakota State 1979, and you get a head football coaching job, which is pretty amazing when you're just getting out of college and you go to Milbank. Was it the right place at the right time for you?
Kim Nelson: Well, it turned out to be. My wife is a Sioux Falls girl, and she wanted to stay around Sioux Falls, and I did too. But like you said, my first year out of college, they're not lining up to hire me right out of college. So, I had to take what I could find. And I interviewed, not to say Milbank wasn't a great job. It was. And I interviewed to be an assistant coach in football and basketball and coached junior high social studies.
And so, I interviewed with the junior high principal and a week later, they called me back and said, "Hey, our head football coach just resigned to go to the seminary and become a pastor." And they said, "Would you be interested in the head job?" Like a fool, said, "Yeah." So, they had to interview me one more time. And I met the athletic director at a track meet in Brookings, and we sat up in the bleachers and I did my football interview. And I think Swisher and our athletic director, they went to college together and they knew other pretty well, and Swish gave me a good recommendation. And again, I relied on him to give me a job.
Craig Mattick: All the preparation that it takes to start a program from getting your coaches to what you're going to run with offense and defense and practices. What was that summer like prior to starting football at Milbank that first year?
Kim Nelson: Well, Craig, yeah, I didn't know what I didn't know, so I didn't know what I was getting into. And I'll give you a quick example. In the summer, I went to Bob [inaudible 00:15:23], who was the new football coach at Dakota State, and I said, "Bob," he was just coming from Prairie High School. And I said, "Bob, I got this job. I don't know how to coach defense. Can you tell me what kind of defense I can run?"
And so, in a half an hour, about an hour probably, we talked and he showed me his defense that he ran at Prairie. But he left out one thing, he left out pass coverage. And I realized after our second game, I did too. Because the first game of my career, we lost seven to six, and we really stopped the run really well. Unfortunately, the other team didn't want to throw the ball, so it was not a problem.
The next game was against our archrival, Ortonville, and the first four plays of the game were passes and they scored in four plays because we didn't have anybody covering the flat. And I realized, that's my job. I need to have somebody covering the flat. And I didn't know how to do that. So, we lost that game 28 to 14 and called my dad that night and said, "Hey-"
Craig Mattick: I need help.
Kim Nelson: "... thought I was ready." And so, the first year was just a great lesson for me to realize what I don't know. And I think every coach probably experiences that when they come out of college, but I'm telling you, it was an eye-opener for me, and we went two and seven.
Craig Mattick: You had success though the next seven years when you were there, you had winning seasons.
Kim Nelson: Well, I learned what I didn't know and at least some of it. And we had a really good junior class my first year, and they came out the second year and we won the conference and never looked back. We had some really good years at Milbank.
Craig Mattick: 1983 especially, 1983 year in the 11 state championship game. It's Belle Fourche and Milbank down in the dome. Belle Fourche won the game though, 20 to 13. What do you remember from that game?
Kim Nelson: I remember I couldn't find a good game film on Belle Fourche. Those were the days where we were just starting to film our games and we were just starting to exchange film, and it was all VHS tape at the time. And Milbank is about as far away from Belle Fourche as you can get in South Dakota. So, I'd oftentimes get in my car and go meet some other coach on Sunday night and exchange a film for the next week. We'd make copies for each other. And well, we weren't going to drive to Prairie to exchange a film, so I had a really hard time. And so, we didn't get a real good scouting report, and I blame myself for that.
But we played them really tough. They were a really good football team. We were too. I felt bad because our defense just wasn't ready for what they were doing. And we had to make some adjustments during the game and we just weren't as prepared as we should have been.
And another lesson for me, make sure you got somebody in West River that you can get filmed from. But it was a really fun season. We had some great, great players. Jason Sawyer was a youngster yet, but I had a Darin Bergquist quarterback. We had a really good football team, and Jeff Fisher was our whiteout, and he broke the record. I think it's finally been broken just recently for receptions and yardage in a game.
Craig Mattick: Fisher was the big-time receiver, and then Kalen DeBoer showed up. And I think he broke his records there at Milbank for a while.
Kim Nelson: Yeah. He probably did because Kalen, I think he was in third grade when I was in Milbank, so I couldn't take advantage of him.
Craig Mattick: So, it's 1987, I think it was right around 1987, you moved to Rapid City, be the head football coach. What intrigued you about the move across the state?
Kim Nelson: Well, my wife always wanted to live in a bigger town. We were in Milbank for eight years, and I promised her when we went there that it would only be for a year or two. So, she was patient and her sister lived in Rapid City at the time, and we thought bigger town, bigger school would be really fun to do. And her sister lived there. So, I got the job from Howard Naasz was the athletic director, one of my favorite people of all time. Harvey Naasz's brother. I don't know if you know Harvey from winter.
Craig Mattick: Yes, sir.
Kim Nelson: And Keith Coates is our principal, and Howard was the AD, and I couldn't have worked for better people. I was lucky my whole career to have great administrators, great bosses that were patient with me and gave me opportunities that I think I wouldn't have had other places.
But Rapid City it was a tough job. They were coming off a couple of years where they had some tough times, and we only won one game first two years. And I'll never forget after the season. Second year, Howard calls me into his office and he says, "Who do we need to fire?"
Craig Mattick: Oh, no. Oh, no.
Kim Nelson: I almost said, "Well, maybe me." And he said, "No, we got to change our coaching staff. We had to make some changes and do something different." I said, "Well, I have couple ideas." And so, we did that. We made some changes, hired some young coaches, and the biggest thing was not the coaching staff probably, but we had two good young classes coming up in our school that were going to be juniors and seniors that third year. And we had a good year. We went six and five and beat some teams we hadn't beaten for a while. And then most of those kids were back the next year.
And then we went nine and 0. And we were the number one seed in the state. We ended up, we won our first playoff game, the first playoff win in school history if I remember right. And then we had to play O'Gorman. And O'Gorman had McConnell and I don't know, I think they had four or five division one athletes on their team, and they were also undefeated.
But they had to come to Rapid City to play, and we had 12 inches of snow the night before the game, yeah. And we were running an option offense then. And the weather was just not good for us, and I was just stubborn enough to want to have the game in Rapid City. We thought about trying to move it to the dome, and I really thought it was important that we played it at home.
And then the day before, our best player got caught chewing tobacco in school and got kicked out, kicked off for the game. So, we play O'Gorman without our leading tackler, leading rusher, and they beat us 28 to nothing and the end of a dream season for us. I mean, we beat some team Gillette Wyoming was a team that we beat that we had never beaten before. And it was just a fun, really fun season. Adam Vinatieri was our quarterback. He was a really good athlete, obviously, and we just put things together at the right time.
And I don't know, I mean, if we had played O'Gorman in the dome, I don't know if it would've been any different. They were really good, but I thought we could have played him better than 28 to nothing.
Then we stayed a couple more years and had three winning seasons after that, or two more winning seasons after that with Sean Dupree was our quarterback, and he was the Gatorade Player of the Year, his senior year, and we had a lot of fun in throwing the ball around with him. So, really had a lot. I loved my time at Rapid City. We were ready to stay there forever. My wife and I both thought, if anything opens up in Sioux Falls, that might be the only place we would ever want to move to.
Craig Mattick: Well, 1993 or so.
Kim Nelson: '93, sure enough.
Craig Mattick: Yeah. Sioux Falls, Washington where so much great football history at Sioux Falls, Washington. So, how did that interview go?
Kim Nelson: That was awesome. Dean Mann, Barry Bob Hoff, Jan Nicolay were the only three in the interview with me. And Jan was awesome. I just loved working for her. Knew my father a little bit. And I didn't know Dean Mann yet, but they were very professional and they were very scary to sit in a room with three people like that with the careers that they'd already had. And well-known like they were. And here I am sitting at Washington High School interviewing for a job.
And nobody was more proud than my father when I got that job because he played in Brookings in high school and playing against Washington in those days, they were the only school in Sioux Falls when he was in high school, and Washington was a big powerhouse. And for me to get that job, he was really excited about that. Obviously so was I. It was a great school, great job, great kids, and stayed there for 12 years. It was really, really fun.
Craig Mattick: It'd been about 20 years coaching. How did your coaching style change from Milbank to Rapid City to Sioux Falls, Washington?
Kim Nelson: Well, I always think about this. When I first started out, I was a lot of young coaches, I think I had a big ego and I thought it was all about me winning games as a coach. And I kept really close statistics and saved all those things for a while.
And then I got to Rapid City and we went one and eight the first year, and we went 0 and nine the second year. And at the end of the second year, we were playing our last game. We knew we weren't going to make the playoffs. And we lost a close game. We lost three or four really close games that year, but we lost them all.
And I had three seniors come up after the game in the locker room and say, "Coach, we really wish we could play another game. I know we didn't win any games, but we had really a lot of fun playing and we loved playing football, and we just want to say thanks for giving us that." And that made me realize that it's not about winning. It's not about my record. It's not about what I do as a coach on the field. It's what I do as a coach with these players and giving these players an opportunity to do what they want to do and what they love to do.
And I think it made me a better coach. I still wanted to win when I coached, but I think I learned there that it's all about the players, it's all about the kids, and it's about them having a good experience. And that means that they want to feel like they have a chance to win some games, obviously. So, I worked really hard to win games, but it wasn't the end of the world when we lost the game. I learned a lot more from losing than I ever did from winning. And I think our players did the same.
And so, I was lucky the first year I got to Washington, I inherited a great class because the year before was when Roosevelt opened and all the seniors that year went to Roosevelt and poor Glenn Sullivan had to coach with three seniors on the team at Sioux Falls, Washington. And I'll never forget talking to Glenn. He was so nice to me and such a good person and such a great man. And he really made it easy for me to transition in and take over that program.
And we won the conference the first year. I mean, we had some really, really good players. And I have to give Glenn a lot of credit for that because they didn't win a lot of games that previous year, but they were really well coached and really good players, and I just happened to fall in at the right time and reap the benefits.
Craig Mattick: I think that was the old Sioux Interstate conference at the time.
Kim Nelson: Yes. And that was really fun. Playing in Sioux City, I can tell you a lot of stories about playing in Sioux City, but it was a very unique situation. We just drive 80, 90 miles down the road and play half of our conference games against those guys. Steve Kueter was just starting out, and he and I were teammates in college for a while, and my kindness was coaching some really characters in Sioux Falls area at the time.
Now, Brandon didn't play Sioux Falls or Sioux City, but there was some Coach Ball Summit here, had some great games against those guys and it was really a fun conference. But the only negative thing about it, and I jumped on this bandwagon too, is that we're playing teams four games out of the year that we don't see in South Dakota, and then we come to South Dakota and we have to play the ESD and we don't play them all year long, and we don't know how to beat the ESD.
It took Sioux Falls a long time to get somebody in the state championship game. And I thought it was partly because we just don't play Yankton, we don't play Watertown, we don't play Mitchell and those teams at all or much during the season. So, we're playing in Sioux City.
So, I agreed with the change to get out of the Sioux Interstate Conference and have our own league and try to play some of the ESD schools. And I don't know, I mean, if it was the right thing to do. I know a lot of people still wish we played the Sioux Interstate Conference. It was really pretty cool.
Craig Mattick: It was 2002, Washington makes it to the title game, and that second trip for the Warriors was only the second time in 22 years that the Sioux Falls Public School was in the state football championship. So, it was a long time.
Kim Nelson: Oh, a long-time commentary.
Craig Mattick: And in '02, you're with the Warriors saying you're taking on Yankton in the championship, 35-14 was the final. What was special about that Washington team?
Kim Nelson: Well, John Bull, Jordan Nordquist, Ryan Shuler, Chip Nail, we had some really good offensive linemen. Larry Norman, I think two or three of those guys played college football from our offensive line. Nordquist played at Augie. Shuler never got healthy enough to play college, but he committed to Oklahoma, then he changed his mind and went to Nebraska. Coaching changed there. He went to, I think it was Idaho State for spring practice and ended up back at USF, but he never played. He had a knee injury that he could never figure out.
But those guys, we just had great players. My son played on that team. And we got beat by Yankton in the regular season, and then we thought we got better during the end of the year. We won a really close game with Brandon Valley. And we really thought we had a good shot at Yankton in the championship game.
And the very first drive gives you an indication of how things went for us. Yankton drove down to about the 10-yard line and it's fourth down, and they're going to line up for a field goal, and if anybody knows Arlin Likness, he fakes kicks more than anybody else in South Dakota. And we knew on our sideline he's going to fake this kick. So, we're hollering to our team, "They're going to fake it, they're going to fake it, play defense." And Arlin calls time out. And then we thought, "Well, maybe he's not going to fake it." But I thought, well, we need to play him for the fake.
All right. So, my defensive coach goes out to the huddle during the time-out and he comes back and I say, "Are we all ready?" He goes, "Oh, no, I didn't make a defensive call." I go, "What?" He says, "Well, I talked to him about the fake." And I said, "We got to be ready for anything." But I didn't give him a call on defense and we're trying to call time out just about the time they snap the ball and fake the kick and throw a touchdown pass.
So, that's the way things went for us. We moved the ball a little bit. And we gave up a touchdown in the last 10 seconds of the first half, I think it was, I don't remember for sure, It might've been 14 to seven at halftime. But then they score right on the last play of the first half. We bid on a double move. We're in pre-vent defense, the defense that prevents you from winning. And we gave up a score right at the end of the half. So, we're down 21-7. And it was much different than being 14-7.
And we got another, my son caught a touchdown pass in the game to get it closer, but they just ran the clock out on us. They were very good. I mean, I'm not going to take anything away from Yankton. They were really big and physical and they were probably the best team in the state, but I just felt like we did not play our best football in the championship game. And that's what I regret the most, I guess.
But it was fun. I mean, I was excited and we had a great team and a great season, and because of that, I think we were able to stay near the top of the AA football scene for a few years. And I just have a lot of great memories about the guys I coached. And I see them all the time since I've been living in Sioux Falls and I run into them at weird places, but they always remember their football season. It's always fun to talk about that and reminisce about that.
Craig Mattick: While you were at Washington, there was a time during one of the summers there, you're approached by a young man who is just getting out of college. He's looking to get his feet wet, coaching high school football. Of course, his name was former Milbank and USF football star Kalen DeBoer. We know the success Kalen has had. Of course, he's now the head football coach at Alabama. But what do you remember about that time when Kalen came up looking for a job up there at Washington?
Kim Nelson: Yeah. Well, it's weird. I was looking for a coach. It was Friday and we started our two-day practices the following Monday, and I needed a sophomore football coach, and I'd been calling around and I realized that Kurtiss Riggs was available, and he was the quarterback at USF, and I just had met Kurtiss a little bit.
So, I got his phone number probably I think from Bob Young and I called Kurtiss Friday, maybe it was Thursday, but he took the job, but we only had a part-time teaching position for him, not a full-time. So, he took the job as our sophomore coach and a part-time teaching job. And then overnight, he gets a call from Roosevelt and they have a full-time teaching job for him and a coaching position. So, he calls me at noon on Friday and says, "Coach, I'm really sorry, but I need to take this full-time job." And I said, "Yeah, you're right. You do."
Craig Mattick: Understandable.
Kim Nelson: Yeah. So, I said, do you know anybody else that's looking for a coaching job? And he goes, "Well, my roommate's right here." And I said, not knowing any better, I said, "Well, who's that?" And he goes, "It's Kalen DeBoer." I said, "Well, does Kalen want to coach some sophomore football?" And he says, "Yeah, I think he would." So, I said, "Well put him on."
So, I'm talking to Kalen on the phone. I said, "Kalen, we start Monday. Can you start Monday?" He says, "Yeah. I'm not doing anything, just playing baseball." So, Kalen starts on Monday and he's coaching our sophomores, and I think he coached for two years with us. And he was obviously, I mean after the first year, the sophomore and freshman coaches came up to me and said, "Hey, you got to move this guy up to the varsity. He's such a good coach."
Craig Mattick: You could tell.
Kim Nelson: Yeah. You need him coaching up with you guys. And so, we did that. And he coached our receivers the next year and coached my oldest son, Ross, and then actually recruited my youngest son, Joey, to go to USF for his first year. And I still have a picture of Joey with Kalen his freshman year in the preseason when they had their picture day, whatever it was.
But Kalen has been remarkable. He and I have been able to stay friends ever since in every job that he's ever taken. I met with him once at the National Convention in Nashville, and I got to meet his agent. And kind of funny, he introduced me to his agent as this is guy who gave me my first coaching job. And his agent said, "Well, maybe it's your turn to return the favor." And he laughed about that. But yeah, that's a little beyond where I'm going to go, but it was fun to joke about it.
I stay in touch with him. I text him after every big win and even big loss. I texted him this last weekend and said, "Hang in there. You know you got a good team and they're going to learn a lot from this, blah, blah, blah." And he always answered back the next day. He's just a really down to earth guy and obviously, a great football coach. And my next goal is to get to an Alabama game and spend some time if I can with him. So, that's on my bucket list.
Craig Mattick: Over the past couple of years after you're at Roosevelt at the time, and you got a couple of former assistant coaches who are now head football coaches in Sioux Falls. You got Vince Benedetto who's at Jefferson. You got Jared Fredenburg who's at Lincoln. Maybe not at the moment, but when Roosevelt would play them and you see them coaching across the field, but now maybe you're much more proud of those two guys of what they have done and they were with you on the sideline. What was it like seeing those guys across the other side of the field?
Kim Nelson: It's fun because I'm really happy for them. Jared Smith and coach at Sioux Falls, Christian, he was our line coach. There's several guys. James Stubkjaer at Sioux Falls, Lutheran now he's the principal there, but he's also coaching football. There's a lot of guys that coach with me that are coaching now or have coached at some time.
And that's one of the things that I'm most proud of, I guess, is that, not that I taught them how to coach, but I gave them a chance to coach. I think what I hope that I do as head coach is to make sure that my assistant coaches have a responsibility and they're not just agreeing with me all the time and doing whatever I want to do. We had a lot of good arguments at Roosevelt when the coaching staff was together because they're all good coaches and they all have their own way.
And I'm really proud of those guys and where they've come and the success that they've had. And we're still good friends. And you coach with a guy and you do those, football is a very intense game and a very emotional game. And when you're winning close games and losing close games together and your favorite player gets an injury, or one of your best players goes down and you have to figure out a way to stay competitive or whatever, or your best player has a great game, you enjoy those things together.
And that's the greatest thing about coaching along with working with young kids, but it's the people that you meet and the people that you go through those emotional times with and those hard times and those good times with, I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Actually, some of my former coaches win a big game, I'll text them and they'll do the same for me. It's fun to coach against each other. I don't like to get beat by them, but I'd rather get beat by them than somebody else. But it's just been a really fun thing that I didn't expect. You never know what your life's going to be like when you're younger. And I've been really lucky to have worked with some great, as I mentioned before, great administrators, but also some unbelievably good coaches and great people.
And I don't think you'd get that in every profession, but in coaching and teaching, it's a different world. And if you do it for a long time, you meet a lot of awesome people. And I just hope that I can copy some of the things they've done and be the kind of person that they were to me.
Craig Mattick: You were at Washington for 12 years. You finished out your career at Roosevelt for about 13, but prior to Roosevelt, Edina called, you know what? Twin Cities is a big-time football school. What were those four years like at Edina before you decided to come back to Sioux Falls and go to Roosevelt?
Kim Nelson: Well, in some ways, it was the best job I ever had. We had more money available to spend on our program. We had a bigger budget to start with. When I got there, the school had just finished a $93 million renovation. Four years later when I leave, they just agreed to another $120 million upgrade and I was leaving. I shouldn't have left.
But it's a big school. They have 37 sports, all the winter sports, skiing and swimming and diving, ski jump and hockey. I mean, hockey is huge in Edina. But I will tell you that I learned more about coaching football in those four years than I think I did in maybe all my years combined up to that point. Because we played a good team every week.
I mean, we didn't have blowouts. The competition was just so even at that level and in that league and at that conference, and we played in the Classic Lake Conference, and we always had to try to get past Eden Prairie in the playoffs. We played Minnetonka every year. We played Hopkins every year. I mean, it just made you coach harder and work harder.
I was able to take my coaching staff around the country and visit with other coaches. We went to Florida when Urban Meyer, the year after he won his national championship there, took our whole staff to Florida and spent four days watching their spring practice. And Edina, the booster club paid for the whole thing. I had 23 coaches.
Craig Mattick: Oh, man.
Kim Nelson: Yeah. We had two freshman teams, two sophomore teams, one JV, and then Eden Prairie one year had four junior varsity teams. So, we were playing games all over the place.
Craig Mattick: And you didn't have to travel across Minnesota to get tape on the team you were playing the next week?
Kim Nelson: No, no. Our biggest trip, we went to Wisconsin and played, oh, what's the place that takes line in [inaudible 00:43:21]. I can never think of the name of the school town. But anyway, that was an hour and a half. And we were going to take school buses and the parents said, "No way. We're not riding school buses all that way." They charted two courtyards for us to go an hour and a half. So, I didn't tell them about driving to Rapid City and back in one day.
But you know, Craig, I just really loved the school and the competition and the coaching part of it, but my wife didn't really like it that much, and her father passed away while we were there. And it was just the right thing for us to try to get back to Sioux Falls and get home and get closer to family.
And the Edina people were so nice, so good about it. I could have stayed there forever if it was just coaching, but your family's a little more important than your career, and it was the right thing for us to move back to Sioux Falls. And I'm really glad I did. I was very lucky that the Roosevelt job came open at that time, and I feel very lucky to have gotten that job.
I mean, it's the only job I ever took where they had a winning season before we got there, but they were seven and four I think the year before. And I think that's when I was the first year there. But we were loaded with talent and it was a great experience for me. I kept almost the entire coaching staff from Brent DeBoer years because I knew they were good coaches and I knew that they were hard to coach against and not hard to play against. And I knew they'd be organized and be dedicated, and they were all of that. And Craig Clayberg was an assistant coach for me one year there.
Craig Mattick: He went to Tea Area.
Kim Nelson: Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's been a great run for me. I have no regrets, no complaints about anything. It was pretty special. Roosevelt, I've had some great coaches, great players here, great administrators. All the administrators at Roosevelt that I've had recently have been former coaches. And so, they're always really supportive and they understand what we are going through and what we need and been really, really supportive of me and all of our programs. So, I've been really lucky, Craig, to have had the experiences that I've had.
Craig Mattick: Four times though. You took Roosevelt at the state championship game, you got a title in 2011 beating Sioux Falls, Washington 31 to 17. You'd been to the Dome a couple of times prior to that and didn't get it, but you got the state title. What was it like on the sideline when you got that title in 2011?
Kim Nelson: Yeah. It's pretty hard to describe anybody that's had one. Some of the guys that have had multiple championships maybe don't feel the same way, but I'm sure they cherish every one of them. And I cherish every one of my teams. And the ones that were able to get us to the finals, I just feel like I wish I could have done one more thing to help win the game for us.
We had a really close one with Washington one year where I went for two at the end of the game and really felt like I let us down. I just didn't make a good play Colin and should have won the game, but we didn't. I had a couple other times, where Lincoln beat the pants off one year, but the next year we got down and had a chance to tie the game or get close to tying the game at the end and just didn't make the play at the end of the game to get back in it.
So, I have no complaints about that. I'm happy with what's transpired at Roosevelt. Been there four times and only won one. But I thought our teams were good enough to win. Each time we had a couple of seasons where we had teams that were good enough to win.
And so, I always look back and think, "What could I have done differently, what should I have done differently?" And I can always think of some things that you should have done, but at the time, you make your best decisions with the information you have and you move forward and you move on and you live with the results.
So, I'm really proud of the Roosevelt program that we had, and I'm really thankful for the players that played for us and the coaches that coached for us. And just one thing I want to mention too is that my wife, Shelly, has been with me throughout the whole thing, and we've been married 46 years and this is my 46th year of coaching. And she's been right there the whole time. And it wouldn't have been the same without her. And she's been a great supporter of mine and love her very much.
And I know it's weird for her not be on the sideline after the game anymore because I'm not the head coach. But I've been lucky, Craig, and I really have a lot of great memories and I hope I can keep coaching forever.
Craig Mattick: Well, you beat me to the punch because my next question is, I got a couple of questions left, is I have broadcast on the radio over the past 20 years, a bunch of football games at Howard Wood Field in Sioux Falls. And one thing I remember was after a Sioux Falls-Roosevelt game, after the players and the coaches shook hands at midfield, there was your wife, Shelly, right there near midfield there to support you with a big hug and a kiss, whether you had just won the game or you lost a tough one. Aren't football wives the best?
Kim Nelson: It's unreal, Craig. I mean, the first year or two, I think she was wondering, "What did I get myself into?" I know she was, and she was a trooper and she believed in what we were doing and she became a big part of it, and she's always been a big part of it.
One side note, she's always been really good at sewing and she's repaired jerseys in almost every school that I've been at. That's where our jerseys go when they get ripped. And yeah, she did it this year for our team too, because they ordered new uniforms and they couldn't get them in time. So, we patched up the old ones and she did a bunch of sewing and sewed on some different numbers. I mean, that's dedication when you're willing to do those things too.
And I know every coach's wife has done something in their lives to help their cause, and they're all very supportive and it's a special person that can put up with the time away. And when I was younger a coach, I wasn't very good at communicating and I didn't have a cellphone in those days.
So, I would come home late from practice and she would wonder where the heck I've been. And we'd have a little mini argument about that and I would always learn something about communicating. And the better I got at that, the better we got. And so, I appreciate you bringing that up. And I'm lucky in a lot of ways, Craig, and that's certainly one of them.
Craig Mattick: You did retire from high school coaching a couple of years ago. You had a stint as an assistant at the University of Sioux Falls a year ago, but what are you doing today?
Kim Nelson: Well, I'm the head freshman coach at Roosevelt. I was lucky to get back into that. And who knows, I love coaching football and I'm glad I'm at Roosevelt because I don't know if would want to coach at any other school in town, but I still want to coach and I'll stay at Roosevelt as long as it's a good thing and I can help out and who knows what's going to happen down the road.
I retired from teaching. I never intended to retire from coaching. And I always thought I'd probably coach somewhere and maybe my last coaching job will be coaching fourth graders in junior football. I don't know.
Craig Mattick: Sure. You could do that. I think you could do that.
Kim Nelson: Yeah. That'd be more fun than all of them. But it's been a great time and I'm really glad I made the choices that I made and things have worked out for me. I mean, I would love to have won a state championship every time I went to the dome, but it wasn't meant to be. And I'm glad we got one anyway. But it's just been such a good experience for me to learn how to treat people and learn how to be a leader and get people what they want. I guess I've always felt that's my definition of a leader is that somebody that helps other people get what they want.
And I hope that I was able to be a positive person in some people's lives, and I hope that I can continue to do that in some small way. And I appreciate you and all the guys that have put up with me as a coach in the past. And sometimes I'm crabby and sometimes I don't give you much, but I always appreciate how professional you are and all the guys in the media do a great job and it's not an easy job. But I really enjoyed that part of my job all the way through.
Craig Mattick: In Play with Craig Mattick is made possible by Horton in Britton, where smiling at work happens all the time. Apply now at hortonww.com. If you like what you're hearing, please give us a five-star review wherever you get your podcast. It helps us gain new listeners. This has been In Play with me, Craig Mattick. This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
