Every Monday, Matthew Elder will be writing a column focusing on small school (FCS, Division II, Division III) football here at Crystal Ball Run.
Today he gives us his first submission, on a sad situation at Northwest Missouri State.
Northwest Missouri State is one of the best known football programs at the Division II level. It may not be known by the average SEC or Pac 12 fan, but at the DII level they are among the elite. The team is different this year though, touched by the loss of multiple coaches, the tragedies of tornados, and the questions that come along with any program in transition this team is finding a way to win. Through it all they are proving just how good they can be.
Following a 12-2 season that saw Northwest lose in the National Semifinals to eventual National Champion Minnesota-Duluth, their coach Mel Tjeerdsma called it a career. Coach T, as he is known to his players, finished his 27 year coaching career with a record of 242-82-4 (.737 winning pct). He came to the Bearcats in 1994 and during his time as coach the team won 12 Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA), and 3 National Championships (1998, 1999, and 2008).
When Coach T left the program in December of last year many correctly assumed that long time Defensive Coordinator Scott Bostwick would step in and take over. Bostwick had come to Northwest in 1994 with Coach T and with Bostwick getting the reigns many assumed Northwest would only see a minimal dropoff.
Tragically Scott Bostwick would never get his chance to coach a game at Northwest. On June 5th, 2011 Coach Bostwick was found dead after suffering a heart attack. Coach Bostwick was only 49 years old when he died. His death sent shock waves through not only the Northwest Missouri program, but through of all Division II.
I was fortunate enough to get Aaron Heintzelman to give me the local reaction to Coach Bostwick’s passing. Heintzelman is the MIAA blogger at D2Football.com, and he said that everyone was in “a sheer sense of shock” when the news of Bostwick’s death became public. “Bostwick was the consensus only logical pick to replace Tjeerdsma after his retirement.”
With just a few months before the season started, Northwest turned to Adam Dorrel. Dorrel had previously been the offensive coordinator under Coach T and had just been named Assistant Head Coach by Coach Bostwick. Dorrel a former Northwest player himself had been brought to the program just six years earlier by Coach T and had been instrumental in the Bearcats winning five consecutive MIAA titles and a National Championship in 2008.
When Northwest opened their season on September 1 against Truman, many wondered how this team that had lost two head coaches in one off-season would react. They were still healing from Coach Bostwick’s passing less then three months earlier, and many wondered if football would even be the main focus.
Well, you better believe it was, and Northwest played that game the only way they knew how, in dominant fashion, with a 65 to 3. They outgained Truman 525 to 258 and they played with their hearts and minds on their fallen coach.
For those that wondered if it was just an one game outburst, if all the emotion and heartache came out in that first game, the answer was a definitive no. Northwest has ripped off 3 straight wins to start their season and they have done it just as Coach Bostwick would have it with strong defense. They have limited their opponents thus far to only 27 points (they’ve score 190). They have the No. 2 scoring defense in the country allowing only nine points per game and lead the country in turnover margin at 2.33 turnovers per game.
Make no mistake about it, this team is playing with a heavy heart, but its also playing like a team with an angel looking over it. This past Saturday Northwest hosted its first ever stadium “blackout,” an idea Coach Bostwick had pushed for since they were debuting brand new all black uniforms this year. This day was dedicated in honor of Coach Bostwick. Instead of their traditional white bearcat paw print on their helmets this year those paw prints are red and have the intial SB painted inside of them. The paw print is red because Coach Bostwick was known for always wearing a red hat on the sidelines. On Saturday the fans in the stadium wore red hats in his honor.
I asked Heintzelman about what this team’s start has meant for the university. “It’s monumental,” he said. “No one will ever forget Bostwick, or what he meant to the program and university, but the Bearcats continuing with ‘business as usual’ helps Bearcat Country heal, if even just a small amount.”
More than any other team I’ve ever been around, this team is built as a team of equal parts. The loss of one, or in this case two, coaches is huge, but perhaps no team is better suited to deal with such a tragedy,” Heintzelman told me.
This team may go on to win yet another National Championship, they may end up flaming out and missing the playoffs entirely. No matter what happens these kids, and this program are winners for their ability to simply show up through this all. They are paying their former coach the greatest tribute one can by taking care of business week in and week out on between the hashes.
This year we are all Bearcats.
Follow Matt Elder on Twitter @MatthewCElder.
