by Dave DeMars
news@thenewsleaders.com
More than a hundred young men showed up at the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School on Aug. 15 to kick off the new football season under a new head coach, Phil Klaphake. It was a day of excitement and confusion for both coaches and players as they began the new season full of hope and expectation.
“Day one was a challenge,” Klaphake said. “And I knew it was going to be – we knew it was going to be. The challenge was just simply knowing where to go – knowing when I say this, knowing where to go to – where do we stretch? – when we are doing team to team, where do I need to stand? It was just more organizational.”
Obviously no one knew the system and working patterns of a new coach after 15 years under coach Bill Magnuson, but three days of practice have worked out some of the wrinkles and Klaphake is encouraged by what he sees. He said he’s hoping a few more guys will come out for the team.
“We’d like to have around 120 by the first game of the season,” he said.
On his coaching style
For the team to make the transition to a new coach will be a challenge, but Klaphake said he is full of enthusiasm and not daunted by the challenge, and he has nothing but words of praise and admiration for his predecessor.
“Bill did a great job,” Klaphake said. “He came in here when the school was a 3-A program and built it now to where the community has grown and blossomed into a 5-A school. Bill was an amazing person. He was great with kids and he was an amazing football coach. For me, it’s now just kind of continuing what he did and kind of just doing it with my flavor.”
Klaphake’s flavor comes from his past playing and coaching experiences: four years of high school ball at Princeton, three years of quarterbacking the St. Cloud State Huskies and achieving a number of personal and school bests, and three years of coaching at St. Cloud State and Gustavus Adolphus. His experiences have had him coaching receivers, and defensive backs and playing quarterback. While he set some passing records, he was also a running quarterback. Suffice it to say he has experience on both sides of the ball and on the sidelines.
“I have always been a coach,” Klaphake said. “I’ve been coaching VFW baseball, coaching youth basketball and football since I was in middle school. It’s just what I’ve always done.”
The secret to having success as a coach, Klaphake said, is the building of relationships. Players have to be able to trust in the coach and know what the expectations of the coach are. Another part of the equation is clearly communicating those expectations, and being fair and understanding in dealing with the kids. Each one is different, and coaches need to learn the emotions and needs of the kids. Some kids respond to some gruff reprimands while others simply need to have an arm around the shoulder while coach explains what needs to be done.
“It’s about getting to know each kid,” he said. “Once you know them, you can be a better coach. You have to know your kids – know what they need to help them be the best. At the end of the day, I’m a cheerleader, and I’m a coach.”
The coming season
Balance is the key to the game of football, Klaphake said. You need both offense and defense to win football games, and he’s a firm believer in the old adage defense wins championships.
“It’s true,” he said. “But there has to be balance. You can’t win a lot of games if you don’t have a good defense, but you can’t win a lot of games if you don’t have a good offense either.”
Klaphake said he plans to spend the majority of his time on the offensive side of the ball because that’s where he’s played and that’s where he’s most comfortable and knowledgeable. He said he will let defensive coordinator John Rasmussen have pretty much a free hand in running the defense.
“John has done a great job with the program, and I’m going to let him do what he needs to do,” Klaphake said. “Obviously, I’ll put my input in since I’ve got some experiences, too, on that side of the ball, but I’m going to spend most of my time on what we are doing offensively.”
For these first two weeks, the team will have two-a-day practices every other day, with off days being single practices. Since the team has only met three times thus far, Klaphake said it’s impossible to have any real idea of capabilities. He’s only beginning to get an idea of speed and athleticism.
“We are just excited,” Klaphake said. “We really are. I’ve been very impressed with our kids’ energy and focus and their willingness to learn. I love what I do and I’m so lucky to get to coach these kids.”
I didn’t really look at who was going to be available, Klaphake said. It’s a little difficult trying to gauge what kind of shape the kids are in physically. What we do look for, he added, is who is showing a lot of heart – who is going full out – moving from one practice station to another pretty quickly.
“We did a little bit of a short conditioning thing, but we did some things to get kids moving around, and I thought they handled it well,” he said. “I was impressed with that.”
Asked about the type of offense they might be running this year, Klaphake was guarded.
“You’ll find out when we play Princeton,” he said. “We know right now as a staff what we are going to do, how we are going to operate and what kind of plays we are going to run. But we are still trying to determine who are our best players. Once we know who our best players are, our job is to get those kids on the field. If we have three really good running backs, we might have three in the game.”
Klaphake said the coaching team will build its offense around the players, but the system will pretty much stay the same. It’s more who are our players and who do we call on, he said. He said he believed he had some good talent in the line and he was excited about that, but he added he hadn’t really had enough time to evaluate fully. He was confident his line coaches were teaching the skills necessary and was certain the line would be solid.
“The game is won and lost on the line of scrimmage,” he said. “The offensive and defensive lines – you are going to win with those guys. So we have to have five great offensive linemen, and then four great defensive linemen if we are going to be a good football team.”
The Storm will have a big scrimmage at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27 at Delano, and the first game is at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 2 at Princeton.
At the end of the Aug. 17 practice, new head coach Phil Klaphake gathered his tired Sauk Rapids Storm team around him to ask one question: “How do you feel?” The correct answer, no matter how tired, is “I feel great, Coach!” Each and everyone of you contributes to the success of this team, Klaphake told his players.
Cody Borgert (7) shows great early season form in passing to Marcus Santillana (90) during a Sauk Rapids Storm football passing drill at practice at Sauk Rapids High School. Gage Dooley (5) is the defender on the play.
DeAndre Jackson (84) focuses on kicking the ball during a Sauk Rapids Storm football practice.
Seniors dig hard for the goal line during a wind sprint drill at the end of the Aug. 17 practice for the Sauk Rapids Storm football team. Wind sprints are a part of nearly every pre-season practice.
