Northwestern Red Raiders head girls basketball coach Kristin Rotert joins the program to talk about growing up in Salem, SD, and playing basketball for McCook Central on varsity as an 8th grader. She would go on to play college ball at SDSU, and was on the first Jackrabbits women's team to win the Summit League tournament in the 2008-09 season.
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You were a starter for McCook Central in Salem as an eighth-grader. Now I know eventually you became to be six feet tall and played the wing and played every position but as an eighth-grader, how tall were you then?
I grew pretty early. I was about six feet tall, I think in seventh grade. Yeah. I was taller than... Towered over all of my classmates and I don't know if I grew again after that, but I was a little bit of an early bloomer there, I think.
But basketball played a big part of your life and still is, but what was it like as an eighth-grader? Did you know what you were trying to do?
I like to think that I did, but I'm sure that's not exactly how it really went. You're just trying to figure it out. I mean, I was so young at the time and I was playing basketball with sophomores, juniors, seniors in high school and just trying to fit in just trying to make a difference on the court. And I have a few memories from that season of life, but yeah, we were all just trying to figure it out and I'm sure it wasn't nearly as great as we thought it was.
Doug Durfee was your high school coach. What did he see in you even as early as an eighth-grader?
He came in the middle of my high school career, and he was pretty young as well. And I think my last year or two, we were pretty good. We went to the state tournament both of those years and he was a really good coach. He's a really great guy and he worked really well with our juniors and seniors to make that teamwork. I think that's something that as a head coach now I've actually thought back on and just thought about how important it's to hear the input and the value of your players. Part of it, I'm sure was just him being young and not really sure at times what he should do or what he should say, but he gave our players a voice and a platform, and it gave us a lot of ownership and accountability in our season. And that's something that I've held with me for a long time.
Was your family into sports a lot? Was it more than just basketball?
A little bit. Sports were never really pushed onto us and we grew up in a small farming community and my dad was a farmer. My mom was an elementary teacher so our lives were pretty basic and pretty simple and whatever we wanted to try, we could pretty much try, but we were never forced into anything. I think for me, I found basketball early because I grew so quickly and I grew so early and I was just so much taller and bigger than all the other kids in my class. So it gave me something to just be my niche and to fit in and something that I was good at. It's pretty easy to be good at basketball when you're about, I don't know, eight or 10 inches taller than all your classmates. So yeah, have a little bit of early success, which helps too.
But you've seen it too. There are some kids who get to be a certain height, they can't walk and chew gum at the same time. When were you able to develop some of the skills to become a pretty good basketball player and then eventually to be recruited?
I just love to play in my driveway all the time. I would go to some camps as a kid, but I didn't have private lessons. My parents weren't shipping me off every weekend to play in different events. It was just in the driveway on our farm, just getting buckets as much as I could, whether it was raining, it was snowing, it was windy. I just loved that part of the game. I like to watch basketball and TV a lot. I watch the NBA, I watch the WNBA and I would see what I could see on TV then I'd go out in the driveway and try and do those things. As simple as it sounds, that's really all it was for me.
You were probably making up shots to win the state basketball tournament before McCook Central Montrose in your driveway. And you know what, and it'd been 15 years or so before McCook Central even got to the girl's tournament. What was it like in 2006 when you made it to the Corn Palace?
It was when you're in the middle of it, you don't really know any different. It's just where you are and what you're doing but when you look back on it, it was a pretty significant moment in our community's history. And it's been a long time since we had been to state. There was a lot of people that believed in us and put their hope in us and were just rooting for us the whole way. I remember the first year that we went my junior year, the whole entire community shut down. I mean every business was closed. Every business had their windows painted with green and blue paint and go Cougars and all that stuff. And every single person was in the stands watching us play. Those are really cool, special memories to hold onto.
Well, you still have that record, Kristin. You still have the most three points made in a Class A Tournament when you made 14 in those three games. So what was it like taking those shots from beyond the arc?
Yeah, that was we didn't do as well as we wanted to in that tournament. But for me personally, my junior year of high school was a really fun season for me. There's just certain times in life as a basketball player where you just catch a rhythm and you have it for a while. In my junior year, I felt like I did. I thought I shot the ball really well and everything that I took just felt really good. And there's just seasons of life that as I'm older now and I've been a player for longer and I've been coaching, I look back on and you don't realize it while you're in it, but it's kind of just a special season of life to be in. My junior year was pretty good for me. So yeah, I definitely probably let quite a few of them fly trying to hit that many numbers for sure. But it was really fun.
Normally those six-foot wing players especially in girls' or women's basketball they're playing closer to the basket. They're not attempting a lot of those shots from the three-point arc, but not you. Not you, what made it for you as a six-foot wing player to have that skill, to be able to hit it from beyond the arc?
When I started playing high school basketball in eighth grade, we had quite a few forward and post-type players already on the team and our coach at the time, Eric Scoglund, who's now the head boy's coach at Spearfish High School. He was really one of the first people that pushed me to stretch my game more on the perimeter. He thought I had a good jump shot and I had good technique and good form. So he really pushed me to expand game and become more of a perimeter player. I tried to do that and thankfully it worked out well, but I think just being someone who grew so early and having so much height and already being 12, 13, 14 years old and being my full six-foot height, I think that helped me in the long run because my body wasn't changing a ton the next four or five years that I was in high school.
In 2007, McCook Central makes it to the state tournament again. In fact, a lot of those same teams that were there in '06 made it to Spearfish in '07. You're a senior, your last year in high school, what were your thoughts going into that tournament in Spearfish?
I think having been through it one time, you feel more confident and just settled in what the expectations are, what it's going to feel like to be there and your first time going in a really, really long time, there can just be some of that excitement of, well, we'll do okay. And if we win, we win. If we don't, we don't, but it'll be a fun experience. I think my senior year we had a group of upperclassmen. We were really motivated to win the whole thing and now we didn't unfortunately, but I think our mentality going into the whole entire experience was a lot different.
Well, you had to go against the defending champs in that first round Del Rapids and you lost by a point, how heartbreaking was that for you?
Yeah, we had, and I'm obviously very biased, but I feel like the years that I played in high school, there was just some phenomenal high school talent across the state of South Dakota. Just a ton of really good players, a ton of really good teams and we did lose them that year and I think they won the entire thing. So it wasn't an upset necessarily by any means. But yeah, there's just a lot of really good players that I look back on as during my playing days in high school. I just think, wow, those are some really phenomenal athletes, really high-level players and this is a really fun phase of life to grow up in.
You are right. There were a lot of great players and a lot of great teams in '07, but you were the Class A Player of the Year, that year in South Dakota.
Yeah. I kind of forgot about that one, to be honest with you. It's just kind of part of the whole entire experience. When you get in the middle of it you're just so caught up with your teammates and your family and your friends and your community, what it means for everybody and how fun it is, the group and those individual awards that are special. And they're something you can hold onto too, but you look back on it and the things I remember are a couple of the big wins, but just a lot of the moments I had with my teammates, a lot of the moments I had with my family when those seasons and those careers came to an end and a lot of those things are really special and I hold those pretty close to my heart.
Well, then you go on to South Dakota State, you play right away, and wow, what a freshman class the Jacks got in the '07 season with Jill Young and you and, oh my gosh, there was a great building block as freshmen. But when had you decided that you know what the Jackrabbits was the place you were going to go?
I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I actually growing up, I was a pretty big USD fan. I used to go to CSU's camps when I was a kid and I had obviously known of South Dakota State, but we just, our family had never been to camps there, been to games there. I remember my junior year of high school, I got a letter in the mail from Aaron Johnston. I came home from school and my dad was waiting for me to get home because this letter had come in the mail and he wanted me to open it and he wanted see what it says. It was pretty simple. It's just like, we've been watching you, we'd be excited to have you on campus, those sort of things. I honestly, at the time I had no idea what my ability level was.
I didn't know if I was division one, division, two, NAIA it was all just so new to me and the world was so different when it came to recruiting when you go back 10 or 15 years. So a lot of things have definitely changed since then. But I remember I took a visit to South Dakota State. I took a couple different visits to different schools, and I knew when I finished that visit that that's where I wanted to be. Just everything about it, fit who I was, was what I liked. I liked the coaching staff. I liked the team, just all those that you need to check a box to get your answer for were the right fit for me.
Whoa, look at that. 13, 14 years later. Are you sending out the stuff in the mail to recruit?
I am. Life has really come full circle here. It really has that I'm recruiting my own high school athletes as well. It's kind of wild.
The deer in the headlight look in college, how long did you have that at South Dakota State?
Oh man, I think you have it for a while. I think you just learn to cover it up pretty well. It was tough. It was really tough and that's just a credit to the tradition of success that they've had. I mean, if you want to win and you want to compete at a high level, it's going to be hard. As hard as it was, it was just so fantastic because of the group of people that I was with. I loved my teammates and I'm still so thankful to this day that I walked into a locker room that had a culture like that, that had people that genuinely cared about the freshman and the sophomores and included people. I think that's not as common as you might realize, but it's something that has definitely impacted my life over the course of the last 15 years.
You know, as a freshman, you were the Summit League Sixth Woman of the Year Award. When did you feel accepted as a member of the team?
Right away. Right away and that just goes to credit how great the team was and how wonderful those people were. I mean, it was competitive. I mean, I think at one point my freshman year took a starting spot from a junior and that was terrifying in all different ways, but everybody wanted to win so badly and wanted everyone to do well as a team that those things never became a bigger problem than they needed to. There were games where I played really well and there were games where other people played really well and I didn't, and you just love those people and you support them through that. I think being able to do that long-term year after year and keep that as a big part of your culture is a big part of why they've done so well up at SDSU and it's something that I hope to instill in my program as well.
Well, you saw a lot of success at SDSU. In fact, post-season play, the whole state was following SDSU in the post-season because you went to the NCAA Tournament, probably the most famous year. Would've been what, 2008, actually the 2008-9 when you went 32 and three. Only one loss in the conference and you beat TCU in that first game in the tournament then had to take on Baylor. You should have won that game too. But what was that season like in 2008-09?
I think on the outside, looking in, people probably felt like it was there was pressure and there was expectation and for us, we just had absolutely no clue. We were just living in the moment. We were just playing every game that we had and we didn't know what it was like to go into the NCAA tournament and win games or try and get to a Sweet 16 or get to an Elite Eight. We had never crossed that ground before. So we were really just kind of living moment by moment and I remember when we did lose at the end of that year, a lot of us felt like we'll just come back next year. As if it will be that simple, we can just work that hard and do it again, not knowing just how hard it really is to get your program to a Sweet 16 status or knock on the door of an Elite Eight and just how many things have to fall into place for that to happen.
That really was a special season, because that was a very special group of people, people that I'm still really connected with today, but that group was probably one of the deeper teams that we've ever had in the postseason. We could play gosh, eight, nine, 10, 11 kids on any given night. That group was also pretty healthy. We didn't have any crazy bad injuries, which a lot of times changes the course of a season too. So a lot of things had to go right that year and they did and we wish we could have went a little bit farther into the postseason, but we definitely had some really good memories that year.
Well, Jill Young was one of your teammates, of course, Jill Young, all-time leading scorer in South Dakota high school history, what it was like... You two, between you two, you threw up more three-point shots and made more three-point shots than anybody else. What was it like having you two on that team?
Jill was so fun to play with. She's one of my best friends to this day and we were really close in college as well, but on the court, she's just somebody that if I had to choose any teammate that I would want, she'd be the first one I would pick. Very selfless, excuse me, great teammate always thinks of other people. Fantastic shooter just does all the things that you would want in a really good teammate and it's no coincidence that we had as much success as we did while she was there as well because she was a big part of that.
At one point though, Kristin, you had to say, you know what, this coaching thing of basketball that interests me. When did that first start coming into the back of your mind?
Well, when I graduated in 2011, I thought I was probably done with basketball for quite a while. I just was ready to try something different. I had gotten a degree at South Dakota State and I wanted to pursue that and just do some different things. I walked away from basketball and I thought it was done. Then it didn't take very long before people were reaching out to me saying, "Can you give my daughter a workout? Can you coach my kids' team? Can you help with this?" And I really didn't have a great interest in coaching, but I said yes to those things anyways. Once I got involved with it, I realized how fun it was and it was fun because the kids were so fun because you could invest and pour into young women and see them grow and see them thrive and just see them light up with your words of encouragement and all those things.
So I kind of just played in the coaching world for quite a while. A couple years ago, I really felt called to go back into college coaching and get back into the NCAA and that ended up leading to an open door at South Dakota State for the director of operations position, which is really kind of a wild story in itself. But I can't believe that's where I ended up. So I was there for three years and then this summer took the head coaching job at Northwestern and it's just all been kind of a wild ride, but I really enjoyed it and it's not at all where I thought I would see myself probably 10 years ago, but it's better than anything I thought I would see myself doing.
What does the director of operations do for a college basketball team?
I'm not even sure I can do that answer justice. Let's see here. Every single thing that exists. You handle a lot of the logistical things behind the scenes. You handle the travel, the gear, the food, everything that somebody would need, you're probably responsible for. You help in and out with the basketball things. You do some scouting, you do some practice scouts. You're a little limited in what you can do on the court, in a practice, and on the court in a game. But other than that, everything is kind of fair game. I like to think I got quite the experience at South Dakota State and got to be in charge of a lot of things, got to have my hands in a lot of things. And in so many ways that experience has shaped me more to be a head coach than anything else that I could have done just because it was so diverse and it was so different every single day.
What did Coach Johnston mean to you up at South Dakota State? Great leader to follow?
Yeah. Everything I know about basketball and about coaching I've learned from somebody else and a majority of it has been from him and I have so much love and respect for him as a head coach and just as a mentor. He doesn't probably know it, but more often than not, we're watching what he does. I'm watching what he says. I'll watch some of his postgame press conferences just to hear some of his thoughts and he has, he's shaped my life in a lot of ways. He's shaped me as a head coach in more ways than I even realized until I probably got down here and took over my own program. There's a lot of things that I've caught myself saying, "Oh, that's coming from AJ for sure." But he's been fantastic, yeah, he really has and I just have so much gratefulness towards him and just for the opportunities that I've had, not only to play at South Dakota State, but also to work under him, I think he's a really great coach to play for, but he's an even better person to work for.
When you look at Northwestern, they're in Orange City, Iowa. It is a dominant women's program in the NAIA they've got a number of national championships. They've had a number of great players there. What was it? What did Northwestern see in you to say, come on down we want you to be our leader?
It wasn't something that was on my radar. I mean, I definitely did want to become a head coach at some point. I thought that process would be a little bit longer and maybe take me a couple different places before I found the right fit. But when I came down here and interviewed, it was a very, very quick process because I could tell right away that this is where I should be. Northwestern is a fantastic community. There's a ton of support here for the college and for athletics, but it's very much a faith-centered community too and that's a big part of my life and a big part of who I am and to have an opportunity to lead the young women in this program and the young women on this campus.
And do that in more ways than just coaching basketball is something that's really important to me as well. So a little surprised I was that it happened as quickly as it did and that it was something that I was so excited about right away. But I also think there's affirmation in those things too. When you know you know, and when I chose to accept this job and everything that kind of played out after that in the next couple weeks and months just kept showing me that this is exactly where I should be.
Who were the first people that you called and say, I got the job?
Called my parents. They were pretty excited and then I have a couple really close friends that I've been friends with for gosh, 20 to 25 years by now, people that have really stood by me through a lot of things in my life and people who have encouraged me and prayed for me and just really had my back through all the things that life can throw at you. So it was fun to share that moment with some of my really close friends and family and know that they've supported me for such a long time and they believe in me. When I told them that this is what I was choosing to do, they were nothing but excited because they knew how good of a fit it would be for me.
How soon was it though you had to say, wait a minute, I got to get the coaching staff to help me out? How did that process go?
When I interviewed for the position, they had told me they were adding a full-time assistant for the first time, which was a significant piece to having a staff at our level and there's a few people I thought of right away. Macy [Miller] was the first one. After I had accepted the job, I called her to let her know that I had taken the job and I think she thought I was just calling to tell her goodbye and that I wasn't going to be at SDSU anymore. Then I'd asked her if she'd be interested in coming with me and I honestly had no clue if she'd want to or not. I mean, Macy bleeds blue and yellow, just like I do. So it's hard for either one of us to leave South Dakota State. But she was really excited. Really excited about the opportunity and she decided pretty quickly as well because she felt like it'd be a really good fit for her.
The two of us worked together at South Dakota State for a year and then I coached Macy's senior year. We went to the Sweet 16. So we got to know each other quite a bit that year as well and we get along really well. We work really easy together and it means so much to me to have somebody on my staff who's spent so much time around me and knows what kind of coach I am and what I'm thinking and what I want to say. I know if I send Macy somewhere else in the gym, she's going to say and think the same things that I probably am and that can be really helpful too. I just think it's good to have another positive and supportive female role model for our kids. I think that's really important.
You've got a full plate, Kristin because now you got to recruit and you're getting recruits coming to Northwestern. Did the recruiting process surprise you a little bit now that you are doing your own recruiting?
I was a little bit involved with it at South Dakota State as far as kids coming on campus and those sort of things and it's just changed so much since I was a student-athlete or since I was 16, 17, 18 years old and the world is different. Social media is different so there's all these different ways to connect and engage with kids but I think at the end of the day what works for us and what we think people probably want is just the relationship and a connection and to know that there's somebody on the other side that believes in them and that has confidence in them and that wants them in their program. So that's really what we try and convey to kids that we're recruiting that feel like they could fit here and that we would love to have them in our program, that they have a great experience here, and that we would be a champion for them as long as they're here.
So what kind of a coach are you?
That's a good question. I don't know if anyone's asked me that one yet. I heard somebody say this early, early on, when I got this job, they talked about being a player's coach and how, when you take over a program or you start a season it's probably 90% of the coach leading your program. Every single detail the coach has to explain, they have to teach, they have to construct. I definitely feel like that is where we were when the season started and now as we're close to midway through our season, you can see things starting to change a little bit and our players are becoming much more accountable and taking on much more ownership in our program and they're answering each other's questions, they're correcting each other, they're holding each other accountable.
So we're slowly morphing our way into what I would call a player-led program and I want all the kids on our team to feel valued and to feel like they're a part of what we're doing and that their voices matter. So we work really hard to open lines of communication as much as possible, hear the feedback that our kids have, but also give them feedback at the same time. So I like to think we're doing in a way that kids enjoy and that we enjoy as coaches as well. But I think we're pretty close to moving in the direct of a really strong player-led program overtime here.
The Great Plains Athletic Conference it's a great conference. The University of Sioux Falls was in that league for many years. I did radio the women's basketball games for 11 years and so I've been to Orange City. I've seen the rivalries. Dort still is the number one rivalry isn't it with Northwestern?
It is. Yeah. We've had one matchup with Dort so far and, yeah, I've obviously been on some other sides of rivalries too. And it is right up there with some of the best ones I've been part of.
So what do you think Doug Durfee is saying about you now, your high school basketball coach?
I just feel like you blink and time flies and all of a sudden five years, 10 years, 15 years have passed. I actually had an opportunity to catch up with him recently. We just signed a player from McCook Central from my old high school who's going to come play for us at Northwestern. So I got to go back into halls of the school and talk to some teachers and talk to him and it's kind of crazy that this is where life has brought both of us, but we both are really, grateful for the opportunities that we've had and the people that we've met. When you're in the basketball world, it is so small and it's so connected, but it's also just so fun. They're just fantastic people in coaching, in playing, in all levels of the game.
And what are your mom and dad thinking? What do they think about you now seeing their little girl as an eighth-grader, starting at McCook Central and now leading a program in the NAIA?
Yeah. I think they it's taken them a while, but they're finally getting used to wearing some red to some of the games. That's been big change for sure. We had a lot of black and we've even had some blue at games, so we're working on it, but I think they're pretty excited. Yeah. They obviously just champion their kids and want to support us and want us to do our best. So I'm just really thankful that they're in my corner and there are people that have helped push me forward in this entire process.
Where do you think you'll be in 10 to 15 years?
I've learned to stop guessing because every time I make a plan, something else happens and you end up someplace better than you thought anyways. So we're just trying to get through the next tough game on our schedule because it seems like every single one is a challenge for us.
Well, back in the seventies, mid-seventies, when they sanctioned in the first high school girls basketball tournaments, I thought back then that, how many girls' playing high school basketball in South Dakota will eventually go on and be a coach? You know what? We don't see a lot. We don't see a lot of women in high school basketball coaches. We certainly see some in the college ranks, but why do you suppose we aren't seeing more? Maybe we'll see more down the road, but where do you see that right now?
Yeah. I never thought of that a ton before I got back into coaching probably four years ago. Yeah, I know those numbers very well myself and it's definitely interesting. For me, I coach for a lot of different reasons, but yeah, one of them is absolutely to be a strong female role model for our student-athletes and to be someone that they can look up to that inspires them and motivates them, and helps them through anything that they might need. I think whether that's a male or a female, that's just such a big responsibility for coaches and something that I don't take lightly at all. I hope that over the course of my lifetime, if I can inspire and move somebody to do what I do for a living and that fits them, then yeah, that'd be fantastic. But I hope we have more coaches on the sidelines in the future, but I know it is kind of tough.
Last one for you, Kristin. Yeah. I know you dealt with this when you were at SDSU, you would do post-game interviews. What was it like learning to talk with the media and interviews not only to promote the program in Northwestern now but during your high school and college days?
I'm really, really thankful that I played for someone like AJ and just spent time around him and his program because he does such a fantastic job with that. He's a phenomenal speaker. He always seems to have the right words to say in some of those situations and for me, I learned really quickly just listen before you speak. He usually has just a lot of wisdom to share and he is very articulate. So I've tried to, in a lot of ways, just mirror off of what he says and learn things from his press conferences and his interviews and his meetings. Then just pray that I do have some wisdom at the end of the day and that I don't say anything too foolish, but I think the more you do it, the more you get comfortable, but you also just have to be you really, really confident with who you are. I mean, I believe in what I do for a living and the way that I do it, and why I do it. I think those things are just as important as some of the things you might say.
