North Dakota Preps

i was wondering if there were any other three coaches at a class b school in the state that stacked up to brian flyberg, dan carr and dan imdieke at linton.

these three have been around forever, have basically had tremendous success and are definately the faces of solid programs year-in and year-out. i'm going to put my money on them as collectively the three best coaches in the state.

trinity has gordon, foss and grinsteiner who are pretty good in their respective sports every year...any other schools out there?

I think we will see quite a bit from Perry Piatz (7th season I think) and his Kindred team.

I also like the looks of Mike Kegley down in Richland.  He was the assistant coach last year, but it was him drawing up that last second plan at the state tournament and not the head coach, so to me this is really Mike's second season as the head coach. 

Those don't have quite the years of the coaches list above, but they have some promise and some strong basketball background.

The Sande brothers (both) and Fred Fridley.

RazorsEdge wrote:The Sande brothers (both) and Fred Fridley.

do you mean the sandy brothers from velva and harvey?

if so...uh...the point of this was to pick three coaches from one school. if not...uh...here goes my foot into my mouth...

I think Rod Oksendal, Fred Fridley, Randy Gordon, and Larry Sandy are probably the best and most successful coaches in the past 10 years. I don't remeber watching a state championship game in the past 10 years without one of those teams in it.

the point wasn't to point out one good coach...it was to point out which school had the top three collective coaches

Hows it working so far?

RazorsEdge wrote:Hows it working so far?

maybe it is a pointless question, maybe the three linton coaches are by far the best in the state.

I'm not sure if you can find 3 with the longetivity of those three at one school.  I've been able to come up with 2 coaches serving during the same time period, but not a 3rd quality coach.  You could probably do it with past Class A coaches.  How about Fargo South with Feeney, Hendrickson and Flaagen?  I know Feeney hasn't been around there for a while, but those are 3 of the better ones in the state. 

Trinity has three pretty good coach's winning three state championships last year and more in the past. Randy Gordon in football, Greg Grinstiner in basketball and Kovash in track.

ill take grinsteinner, foss, and kovash from trinity.

gordon is overrated in my book. i no from first hand experience. dont get me wrong, hes a good guy but hes not the one that makes that program what it is today. you know who does. two guys from above, grinny and kovash, and jerry holinka are what makes the big red train go.

The Linton trifecta is about as good as it gets in class B.  Watford City with Fridley, Dave Dougherty(wrestling, Track) and when Anderson was there coaching girls was pretty good.  In Class B, if a team can be at the top year in and year out, hats off, you have a good program.  It usually goes when a school has a good group of kids for a 2-3 year run and then its back to rebuilding.

Those are three great coaches that have had alot of success that is for sure! I would have to look at Watford City though that presently has Fred Fridley coaching football with 8 state titles, Dave Dougherty Coaching Wrestling who is always contending for a state title in wrestling, Tom Suelzle with nearly 500 wins and a state appearance seemingly every year...not to mention Berton Bates is his assistant right now for those of you that remember his run with Napoleon in the early 90's.  Like I said those Lintons coaches have had a ton of success but if I was to think of great coaching to compare it to you have to look out west to watford city.

How about Dave Handt? he has a pritty good record with boys and girls and in the 90's he had them to state a few times though not doing very much there.  I think a high of a 5th place finish.

what do you think about Ron Carlson and what he did in Sheyenne and now with Leeds-Minn.

Umm.....just for the record....Ron Carlson started at Minnewauken...and has basically followed that school and their co op's

He has been in Minnewaukan 30+ years, he has 3 or 4 state tourney appearances and has won the Ramsey County Tournament in DL more times than you can count. He's a great teacher of the game.

carolina blue wrote:ill take grinsteinner, foss, and kovash from trinity.

gordon is overrated in my book. i no from first hand experience. dont get me wrong, hes a good guy but hes not the one that makes that program what it is today. you know who does. two guys from above, grinny and kovash, and jerry holinka are what makes the big red train go.

I also know Gordon from firsthand experience and while some say he is overrated, I say he is a great coach. Why is he a great coach? Because he isn't an egomaniac and lets his assistants do their job. Look at all the great coaches in the history of North Dakota (let alone the rest of the country, college and the pros), all had one or two excellent assistants that could have head coached elsewhere.

Give me Grinsteinner, Gordon and Kovash anyday and I'm pretty happy with where my boys sports are at.

Would someone describe a good coach? These people that you are all describing have been at one place for a long time -- in other words they have built programs. They have paid their dues as rookie coaches and now can rely on the PROGRAM to take control. Instead of all the excuses from non-program schools that spread their weakness throughout this site --why don't they go and get behind your program and build it in stead of tearing down others. Congrats to all the coaches who have been named here as they are to be credited with building respect within their programs and demonstrating alot of class along the way.

The success of the Dickinson Trinity teams is amazing when you look at the last 10 - 15 years...

Basketball - The Titans just won their 7th straight region championship and 8th out of the last nine... They have two out of the last three state titles and even with dwindling enrollment Grinnsteiner continues to make due with what he has every year... He makes adjustments based on what he has. Could have won two or three other titles too, he had the teams to do it but thats why we play the games on the court and not on paper... The '99 team with Smith and Jaeger beats Leads 99 out of 100 times.

Football - what a run Randy Gordon has had the last 10 - 15 years... I don't think they have lost more then 2 games in a season since about 1992 but for a handful of times... any coach that has that kind of success is doing something right in my book... I mean what is it like 6 out of the last 8 State title games they've played in or something like that?

Track - This is where all the success of the other Trinity programs starts. People don't give track the respect it deserves when it comes to building a quality sports program. Look at any team this spring that has some good Sophmore and Junior tracksters (Trinity certainly will) and you will see a High School that is going to have success on the court or on the gridiron. This is more then evident with Trinity and 2 State Titles in the last 5 years isn't too bad either... they are always in the top 5 and most of the time in the top 3 at State...

Thats a question I would like to pose... Is track important at your respective school? And if so how much of a difference do you think it makes to your other programs?

i agree with you but i would have to say randy gordon has be up there for #1 coach because look at trinitys football programs over the years.

[user=639]boysbballfan[/user] wrote:

I think Rod Oksendal, Fred Fridley, Randy Gordon, and Larry Sandy are probably the best and most successful coaches in the past 10 years. I don't remeber watching a state championship game in the past 10 years without one of those teams in it.

ask any coach at DT and they will tell you that track is a huge reason they have had the success they have been having in teh past ten years.

[user=2802]NorthDakota11[/user] wrote:

The success of the Dickinson Trinity teams is amazing when you look at the last 10 - 15 years...

Basketball - The Titans just won their 7th straight region championship and 8th out of the last nine... They have two out of the last three state titles and even with dwindling enrollment Grinnsteiner continues to make due with what he has every year... He makes adjustments based on what he has. Could have won two or three other titles too, he had the teams to do it but thats why we play the games on the court and not on paper... The '99 team with Smith and Jaeger beats Leads 99 out of 100 times.

Football - what a run Randy Gordon has had the last 10 - 15 years... I don't think they have lost more then 2 games in a season since about 1992 but for a handful of times... any coach that has that kind of success is doing something right in my book... I mean what is it like 6 out of the last 8 State title games they've played in or something like that?

Track - This is where all the success of the other Trinity programs starts. People don't give track the respect it deserves when it comes to building a quality sports program. Look at any team this spring that has some good Sophmore and Junior tracksters (Trinity certainly will) and you will see a High School that is going to have success on the court or on the gridiron. This is more then evident with Trinity and 2 State Titles in the last 5 years isn't too bad either... they are always in the top 5 and most of the time in the top 3 at State...

Thats a question I would like to pose... Is track important at your respective school? And if so how much of a difference do you think it makes to your other programs?

I will go time traveling to answer this one about the best three coaches in the state. in the 1983-84 school year Velva won state in Football (3 class system) under Randy Gleave, Wrestling under Mike Norland, and Baseball under Gene Buen. I know this was the one year that they put all of them together in one season but they were always competitive in all of those sports each year and every year.

NorthDakota11 wrote:The success of the Dickinson Trinity teams is amazing when you look at the last 10 - 15 years...

Track - This is where all the success of the other Trinity programs starts. People don't give track the respect it deserves when it comes to building a quality sports program. Look at any team this spring that has some good Sophmore and Junior tracksters (Trinity certainly will) and you will see a High School that is going to have success on the court or on the gridiron. This is more then evident with Trinity and 2 State Titles in the last 5 years isn't too bad either... they are always in the top 5 and most of the time in the top 3 at State...

Thats a question I would like to pose... Is track important at your respective school? And if so how much of a difference do you think it makes to your other programs?

Dickinson has done well in all sports because they have athletes and numbers vs their competition,

They are good at track because the have athletes.

Velva is a baseball town you could say Velva is good at football and wrestling because of their baseball program. No way, it's because they have athletes and numbers.

If you are good in football you have speed at the skilled positions, if you are good in track you need athletes to place in a lot of events.

Some people make the track connection to football because their best athletes are good at both.

Take a look at Enderlin in their glory days they were a playoff contender in football every year and were in the state tourney in baseball every year with the same kids. Those same kids would have been good if they had a track program instead of baseball.

It's more about the total commitment, ability and desire of the athletes along with the coach that makes a school successful, not track and field.

I think if anything track gets more credit than it deserves

 

 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Over.

As far as I am concerned excellence is tradition at some schools. If you want to tie some sports to other and show success I think wrestling is a big component to making great football programs. Look at every state champion this year in football. Each is also known for their excellent wrestling programs. Schools like Dickinson Trinity throw a wrench into that theory because they don't have wrestling there but they have success with football because they use the boys from Dickinson State that don't make the blue hawks roster. I know that good wrestling programs make good football programs because wrestling and football feed on the same charcteristics. Strength, agility, and agression. I'm not saying that a basketball player can't be good at football because he doesn't wrestle I just think that the two go hand in hand. I wonder as well how many people will finish reading this post before going off about Trinity using college players on their football team which was meant as a joke because everyone knows that Trinity doesn't use college flunkies, they recruit better players from area high schools. HA HA HA.