Steven M. Sipple: Bohl finds his niche at NDSU
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FARGO, N.D. — Nebraska football fans were especially surly that late-November day in 2002, hurling expletives toward soon-to-be-fired Husker defensive coordinator Craig Bohl as he trotted off the Memorial Stadium field after a 15-point loss to Colorado.
No sense in recounting the dirty details, except to say Nebraska finished 7-7 that season, which goes down as one of the most discouraging in program history.
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant period for Bohl, either, being in his mid-40s and suddenly out of work. His marriage was failing. His priorities were out of whack, he says now.
The thing is, he learned from the struggles and altered his approach to life. As a coach, he says, he learned he needed to improve his communication skills with players.
“I think I got too doggone embroiled in specific schemes, in X’s and O’s,” he says. “I can still remember walking down a hallway, seeing a player and not even acknowledging him because I always was thinking so much.”
It’s 5 p.m. on a recent Thursday. Bohl is talking and walking quickly — almost jogging — toward his office in the Fargodome. As the sixth-year head coach at North Dakota State, he has much more on his mind than X’s and O’s. He has an upwardly mobile program to lead. At the moment, he has a summer youth camp to oversee. He also has a recruit and the recruit’s father waiting outside his office.
Bohl is spitting out words with shotgun rapidity. He’s high-energy. When Bohl interviewed for the North Dakota State job in early 2003, “He literally got up out of his chair and was sweating and had his hands under (an imaginary) center,” Bison athletic director Gene Taylor recalls. Oh, Bohl wanted the job badly. As far back as the late 1990s, he decided he might make a better head coach than coordinator or assistant coach. He saw himself as a big-picture guy, a CEO of sorts, and here was his big chance.
So, on this breezy June day in Fargo, Bohl is sitting in an office that’s actually more befitting a head coach of a BCS program. A few years ago, North Dakota State, which competes in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), spent $3.5 million on coaches’ offices. Hey, why not? Fans are flocking to the 18,700-seat Fargodome nowadays. Bison boosters are more generous than ever ($2 million-plus in gifts this year compared to $750,000 in 2002).
“Our goal was $1 million,” Taylor says with a smile.
It obviously helps that the football team was a combined 20-2 the past two seasons. It’s 43-12 in Bohl’s five seasons in Fargo after stumbling to 2-8 the season before he arrived. In other words, Bohl arguably was right: He has turned out to be a better head coach than assistant.
“To me, he just has a presence,” Taylor says.
The 49-year-old Bohl, who had never been a head coach at any level, shows you photos that adorn his office. There’s one of Tom Osborne coaching on the sideline. Osborne obviously knew X’s and O’s. But the legendary former Nebraska head coach’s foremost quality, according to Bohl, is drawing the best out of people.
Osborne, you see, would seldom pass a player in a hallway without issuing a kind word or two.
“Tom loves people,” Bohl says. “For all of the guys who had an impact on me, his fingerprints are all over this program. This is Tom Osborne’s program. You can watch how we act. You can watch how we play.”
Bohl is pounding his hand on his desk now.
“We haven’t had one major off-the-field incident since we’ve been here,” he says. “Not one!”
North Dakota State wins by running the ball well (the Bison rushed for 394 yards in a win against Minnesota last season) and stopping the run. NDSU features an offensive line that would rank in the upper half of the Big Ten, Bohl says.
Bohl is particularly proud that North Dakota State’s 96-player roster features 19 North Dakotans and 31 Minnesotans. Every spring, Bohl drives his pickup to every high school in North Dakota. Every single one. He also crosses the Red River and scours Minnesota. He stops in diners. He visits with men who work in the oil fields in the western part of North Dakota.
“He’s a great communicator — it’s one of his great assets,” says Todd Matthews, head coach at Williston (N.D.) High in the extreme northwest part of the state. “He gets around the community. He’ll visit with anybody.”
Says Bohl, again pounding his desk for emphasis: “The heart and soul of the team is from right around here. We’re always going to have a strong offensive line because in this region of the country kids grow up on the farm, and they’re big. I’m telling you, they’re big and strong people. And they work hard.”
Bohl, a Lincoln native, seemingly has found a niche in Fargo (pop. 100,000), a seven-hour drive from Lincoln — a straight shot up I-29 from Omaha. He considers himself an “upper-Midwest guy.” He’s a humble sort — he genuinely despises taking credit for his program’s success. It’s about his players and assistants, he says.
But there’s no doubt this CEO has a strong grasp of the big picture.
“Our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness,” Bohl says of North Dakotans. “We’re a hard-working, humble people. Many times we don’t think we can do what we actually can do. We see ourselves as, ‘Well, we’re just little North Dakota.’ I don’t want to say it’s an inferiority complex, but ...”
North Dakota State fans were feeling superior in October when the Bison overpowered Minnesota 27-21 in the Metrodome in Minneapolis. NDSU rolled up 585 total yards and held a 14-minute advantage in time of possession. The Bison were the better team, period. Half the crowd of 63,000 wore Bison green and gold.
“When we won, there was an eruption,” Bohl recalls. “There was pride all over this region. People felt good about themselves.”
He pauses.
“We have guys on this team who will absolutely knock the snot out of you.”
Bohl obviously has recovered well from the debilitating punch to the midsection he received in early December of 2002, when he was let go by Frank Solich. Bohl’s Husker defense was ranked in the mid-50s nationally (which actually doesn’t sound so bad at the moment, huh?). The 62-36 debacle at Colorado in 2001 was still fresh in everyone’s minds. What’s more, Bohl’s marriage was failing (he and his wife, DeAnna, eventually divorced).
“This profession, it’s hard on marriages,” Bohl says. “I looked at some of the errors I made. I don’t think I had my priorities right, to where I valued my faith and my family. I really think I became an absent husband and absent father. There are prices to be paid.”
Bohl set out to become a better father, son and coach — in that order. He says he’s maintained an excellent relationship with his ex-wife. He visits his three teen-age children in Lincoln as often as he can. To that end, he bought an airplane (a single-engine piston-driven Mooney model) and learned to fly. His piloting skills also come in handy on recruiting trips.
“He appears to be a very ambitious person,” says Victor Gelking, 81, owner of the Fargo Flight School, who also happens to teach ballroom dancing (Bohl was a good student in both areas, Gelking says). “Craig’s easy to get along with, a friendly sort. But he keeps that team very disciplined. It’s a disciplined organization.”
Bohl keeps his airplane and Harley in a red hangar on the grounds of Fargo Hector Airport, right across the street from the Fargodome.
So, welcome to Bohl’s new world. He’s soaring, literally and figuratively, as is the program he leads. The Bison last season completed a five-year reclassification from NCAA Division II and this coming season will be eligible for the FCS playoffs for the first time.
Taylor, the athletic director, says he recently bolstered Bohl’s financial package “quite significantly.”
“But ultimately it’s never going to be enough when some of these bigger programs come after him,” Taylor says.
Bohl’s name pops up frequently in speculation when head coach openings occur. Minnesota showed significant interest in Bohl last January before hiring Tim Brewster, Taylor says.
“I get a sense that he was a lot closer to getting that job than a lot of people think,” Taylor says. “I don’t know what Craig’s next move will be. But if he keeps having success, somebody will come along and I’m just going to have to pat him on the back and say, ‘Hey, go after it, big fella.’”
Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.
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