Nov. 15, 2002: All in an early morning's work

The wakeup calls came at 5 a.m. Thursday for the Stephen-Argyle Central High School football team. That's part of the deal in Nine-Man football; kickoff in the state semifinals is at 8 o'clock sharp.

Once roused, the top-ranked Storm had a light breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Arden Hills. Then 36 young men pulled on their football pants, carried their helmets and shoulder pads to the bus and rode through the darkness to face No. 2-ranked Nicollet at the Metrodome.

Upon arriving at 6:30, they were sent to the Gophers locker room. Oops. Mistake. They had to pick up their gear and walk down the hallway to the Vikings locker room. A journalist joked with coach Mark Kroulik about the danger of this move, considering the bad NFL karma that might be floating around in there.

During his pregame speech, Kroulik alluded to the Vikings' highest-profile player in a way unlike any other coach has ... ever. Kroulik began his presentation with a word about the toilet facilities in the purple-carpeted locker room. He informed the Storm that mere moments earlier, he had been using those facilities in a . . . trying to be delicate here ... non-standing position.

"It hit me," he told them. "The 100-million-dollar Randy Moss and I were in the same spot. What a great equalizer."

This was at 7:20 a.m. And the boys from Stephen (population 708) and Argyle (656) were wide, wide awake. And no wonder. Up north where Grafton, N.D., is a short ride away and Manitoba is always a daytrip possibility, they have been practicing football in the early-morning hours for decades.

"Our kids are at school for football practice at 5:15 in the morning," said Kroulik, who was the head coach at Stephen before it and Argyle merged in 1996. "How it started was because of fall harvest time, when the kids were needed at home. It's been a tradition for a lot of years, maybe 25 years."

The allure of farm chores isn't nearly as powerful these days, but the coaches poll the boys every year about practice time, and the choice remains a.m. rather than p.m.

On this morning, the guys wished they had slept in. Most everything went kablooey for the Storm. Nicollet intercepted three passes and Stephen-Argyle lost two fumbles. A fake punt failed, two onside kicks fell flat, players got hurt, the offense never got going and the defense found itself backpedaling all morning.

Nicollet, big and feisty, led 30-0 before the Storm found the scoreboard. The final was 38-16 and the game was over at 10:25 a.m., about the time drive-through windows stopped serving breakfast.

Among the injured players — talk about bad karma — three of them played the same position. Senior lineman Shane Pawlowski went down with a foot injury, backup sophomore Ben Kuznia rode off in an ambulance after a shoulder/collarbone injury, and backup-backup freshman Matt Gratzek kept playing despite a wrist injury.

At halftime Kroulik borrowed a kneepad from Pawlowski — now on crutches — stuck it on Gratzek's swelling wrist and wrapped tape around it.

But no remedy was found for what ailed the Storm, owners of a proud football tradition. Argyle won Nine-Man state titles in 1981 and 1986 and Stephen won it all in 1992. Stephen-Argyle Central has been to the state tournament every year since 1996, winning the championship in 1999 and reaching the semifinals seven consecutive years now.

But since that '99 title, the Storm has lost in the semis every year. Everything had been going right in '02 ... until Thursday morning.

"During the year, all that stuff went our way," Kroulik said. "If the bounce of the ball today was unlucky, well, we were due."

After the loss, offensive coordinator Bryce Lingen, the quarterback on Stephen's 1992 state championship team, said to a roomful of emotional teenagers, "Your tears, fellas, should be tears of joy, too. This has been a great season."

More tears came as handshakes and hugs filled the locker room. A couple of hours later the Storm boarded the bus for home, thoughts already turning to early mornings in the autumn of 2003.

John Millea • jmillea@startribune.com