Gardner will need time to retool Tabor back to gridiron success

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 29 December 2009 19:44

During the past 40 years, with the possible exception of maybe four or five years, there never has been much excitement in Bluejay nation about Tabor football, much less coaching searches.

Coaches came. Coaches left. Recruits came, but after a year or two, most left.

Tabor has hired a lot of coaches in its football history. Most were not met with much more than passing interest. The feeling usually was, “Good luck to the poor soul who was hired.”

When Tabor searches for a new coach, generally it does so in relative anonymity. This time? Not so much.

Enter, or should I say, re-enter Mike Gardner, the coach who led Tabor football to unprecedented heights, including two consecutive KCAC titles and Tabor’s first postseason...

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Putting football in perspective: a lesson worth learning

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 15 December 2009 20:09

Football and niceness don’t typically go together. Football is a rough and often violent game. However, the following story reminds us that football is still a game, and sometimes the game is secondary to lessons that are taught when people do something nice.

On Nov. 7, 2008, a high school team from Faith Christian School in Texas made national headlines playing the Gaines­ville State School Tornadoes, a school with about 290 males ages 12-19 whose home was a state-operated maximum-security correctional facility.

Players at Gainesville have to earn the right to play. They must have served at least half their sentence and not have any behavioral issues. As a result, the team composition changes weekly, depending on whether a player...

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For every winner, there’s a loser

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 01 December 2009 21:24

It’s not easy being the goat; the bigger the stage, the greater the pain.

If you grew up reading the comic strip Peanuts, you know all about Charlie Brown—the round-headed kid who seemingly couldn’t do anything right. He was an awful pitcher on an equally lousy team. He whiffed kicking the football because Lucy always pulled it away at the last second.

The difference between most athletes who play the role of goat and Charlie Brown is that most professional athletes have had a considerable amount of success.

This year’s baseball playoffs featured a line drive that should have been caught but wasn’t by Matt Holliday of St. Louis. If he had caught the ball, the Cardi­nals would have won the game and evened the series against...

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Winning still a challenge at TC

Written by Joe Kleinsasser Tuesday, 17 November 2009 14:23

Tabor College played in a nice, brand spankin’ new football stadium this fall, but the challenge to produce a winning team on the field is as great as ever.

There was some misguided sentiment that a new stadium would magically produce a winning football team. But the last I checked, new facilities don’t score touchdowns or tackle anyone.

Tabor managed to win two KCAC football championships earlier this decade with a below-average stadium. While it’s convenient to say the new stadium should translate into more wins, the truth is it will still take a lot of work by coaches and players alike.

Joel H. Wiens Stadium levels the playing field and removes some of the excuses for not being able to recruit. It compares favorably with most...

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