Prep football preview: The genesis of team

In the land of football cupcakes, the Hopkins Royals were big, sweet and covered with gooey frosting. At least, that's how it appeared as the 2006 season moved into its final weeks. The Royals were in trouble. Under third-year coach John DenHartog, the Royals lost five of their first six games, giving them a pastry-fresh record of 2-19 since the midway point in 2004.

But DenHartog saw a turnaround coming. Really, he did.

"The work ethic was always there, and the attitude of the kids never wavered, even when we weren't winning games," he said.

And then things changed. In Week 6, Hopkins played Minnetonka tough in a 35-26 loss, and the regular season ended with victories over Edina and North Branch. As the postseason began, the cupcake had become a big nasty boulder, rolling downhill and picking up steam.

The Royals went 3-0 in the Class 5A, Section 6 playoffs, capturing the section championship and advancing to the state tournament for the first time since 1999. The season finally ended in the state quarterfinals against St. Cloud Tech.

"We knew we had the potential for that to happen," DenHartog said. "We preached that they were good players and good athletes and they could put it together. I think the big key to the turnaround was confidence."

• • •

The Turnaround. It's what every struggling football team dreams about and works toward. Some are simply trying to win one game or put together a modest winning streak. For others, the goal is to take a step beyond a winning record and go deep into the playoffs. And for a fortunate few, the goal is returning to the familiar pinnacle of the Prep Bowl and a state championship.

The Turnaround happens in different ways. In some cases, a new coach takes over and things drastically improve in a matter of two or three years. Sometimes change comes slowly, if at all. And for a few teams, major improvement seems like a dream that never turns to reality.

Some coaches look at all the success their teams have had and wonder, "Why me?" Dave Dose, who has led Glencoe-Silver Lake to four Prep Bowls and three Class 3A championships since 2000, is one of them.

"I pinch myself and ask, 'Why are we so blessed with these great kids and great athletes?' I'm not being corny here," said Dose, whose Panthers open defense of their state title Friday at Hutchinson. "We've just had a ton of kids who are so talented and easy to coach."

Other coaches are trying to get their teams off the bottom. One of them is Beau LaBore, who has a 2-18 record in two years at Woodbury. LaBore had a summer chat with Rich Kallok, the former head coach at longtime power Cretin-Derham Hall. That conversation shed some light on the challenges all coaches face.

During an NFL-sponsored youth football gathering at the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, Kallok talked with LaBore about the process of coaching and learning.

"Rich said, 'It took me 15 years as a head coach to put together, to understand, to be completely comfortable with my first two weeks of practice,'" LaBore said. "He said he didn't necessarily know why they did all the things they did until he was there for 15 years. So I thought, 'Wow, I have a ways to go.'"

• • •

These days, every football fan in Minnesota knows about Eden Prairie. The Eagles, the defending champions of Class 5A, also captured big-school titles in 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2002. But things were much different in 1992, when coach Mike Grant left Forest Lake to take over at Eden Prairie.

The Eagles of the early '90s had something in common with Hopkins, pre-2006 turnaround. Eden Prairie had won "maybe five games in five years or something like that," Grant said.

Some people thought he was crazy to take the job. At Forest Lake, where Grant coached for nine years, his 1991 team had reached the state playoffs. But he viewed Eden Prairie as a sleeping giant.

"They were saying, 'You tell us what we need to do to get better. We're going to do what we have to do,' " he said. "At some places they say, 'Average is OK.'"

In Grant's third season with the Eagles, they were ranked No. 1 in the state for the first time. And in year five, they won a state championship.

Among Grant's first duties was getting kids enthused about playing football, as well as working hard to become high-quality players.

In his first summer at Eden Prairie, he remembers seeing one football player who worked out regularly in the weight room. These days, that number is upwards of 150.

Grant began visiting every elementary and junior high school in the district, talking about football and championships.

"I was going to every wrestling match and every basketball game and every hockey game, going around the community talking to parents and kids, convincing them that this is the thing to do," he said. "We had to change the attitude. We had to make it fun, make it something that you wanted to be a part of.

"I run into so many Eden Prairie graduates from 1989, 1990, 1991 who say, 'We wish we'd had the chance to play football when it was really a lot of fun.'"

• • •

Jeff Ferguson and Dave Nelson are two coaches with gold medal résumés. Ferguson has led Totino-Grace to three Class 4A state titles in the past four years, including 2006. Nelson took four Blaine teams to Prep Bowls, winning a 5A crown in 1988; he moved to Minnetonka in 2002, and the Skippers won the 5A championship in 2004.

But Ferguson and Nelson remember the dark days, too.

In 1984, Nelson became the head coach at Blaine, and Ferguson was one of his assistants. The Bengals were 0-9 that season, but the worries went deeper.

"I think the sophomore team won one game," Nelson said. "The JV was 0-8, the freshmen were 0-8 and the eighth grade was 0-8."

Nelson thought his coaching career was nearly at an end when it had barely begun. He said he thought to himself, "I'll never win a game."I was 28 years old, and I said, 'I'm going to be unemployed at 30. They're going to give me one more year, maybe.'"

Twenty-three years have passed, yet Ferguson still vividly recalls how it felt to lose every game. He termed it, "Like you're a wolverine backed into a corner."

After that season, the wolverines/coaches gathered at Nelson's house. They knew what needed to be done.

"We had a tremendous commitment by our coaching staff," Nelson said. "We just said, 'Let's bond together and turn this thing around.' And we just started working with the kids, trying to get them excited about football. We tried to have high expectations."

A year later, Blaine won five games. The coaches went to offensive and defensive platoons in order to let more kids become starters. The roster grew, victories became a constant and the standard was set. Four years after that 0-9 season, Blaine won its first state title. The Turnaround was complete.

• • •

As the 2007 season begins this week, football teams all over the state hope to follow a similar script. The mountain is steep for some, but optimism is king during the preseason.

"We have people this year who want to play football, and we want to bring a lot of energy to every game," said Woodbury senior running back/defensive back Kevin Foss, who could be speaking for every player in Minnesota. "If we're not going to win the game, we're at least going to try our hardest and work our hardest."

At Hopkins, the energy and hard work that began paying off last year still resonates as a new season begins.

"It really helps a lot," DenHartog said. "And it really helped in January, February, March, getting kids in the weight room. It helped this summer in having kids work out and be a part of camp and be excited about it.

"I think it also helps quite a bit in our expectations for this year. Now it wouldn't be satisfying to just go above .500. We're trying to have high goals and compete with the big boys and do a good job."

Nelson, talking about the successes at Blaine as well as Minnetonka, said: "Our kids believed. They understood how fun it is and how cool it is. They kind of drank the water."

That's the water of winning, the water of success, the sweet taste of The Turnaround.

It sure beats cupcakes.

John Millea • jmillea@startribune.com