When Andy Carr showed up for work at Presentation College on June 1, he was stepping into uncharted territory.

Carr and his staff had no offices to work in. No computers, either. The staff didn’t even own a single set of keys to the building they’d be spending their days working in.

There were no blueprints for this kind of undertaking. Instead of fixing a broken program, Carr and his staff were building one out of nothing.

‘When a head coach gets his first position, usually he’s fixing something that’s broken,’ Presentation head coach Carr said. ‘But for us, it’s going to have our thumbprints all over it. We’re building from the ground up.’

This summer, Presentation threw its hat into the world of college football, and when Carr showed up for his first day of work, he began his journey to create history for the small South Dakota school. The Saints will begin playing in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference in the fall of 2011. The Saints’ first game is scheduled against Trinity Bible on Sept. 3. The last weekend of October 2011, they’ll be playing a conference opponent in the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

The Metrodome can seat more than double the population of Aberdeen, S.D., the town in which Presentation College is located and the third largest city in South Dakota.

But fortunately for Presentation, it’s the only game in town. There are no other Division III football programs in the entire state of South Dakota. That, Carr said, was one of the driving factors to make this team become a reality.

‘That’s really what drove (Presentation president) Dr. (Lorraine) Hale to do this,’ Carr said. ‘A large portion of the population is being unserved.’

Talented athletes from South Dakota who cannot live up to Division I or Division II football previously had nowhere to go, Carr said. Already, Carr and his coaching staff have begun informally recruiting and getting the word out about the team. He said he has seen numerous coaches’ lists, and two or three players on their teams would have jumped at the chance to play in-state Division III ball.

With enrollment currently around 800 students, the 60- to 65-man roster Carr hopes to bring to campus in the fall could make up almost 10 percent of the student body.

Presentation has seen its enrollment grow in the past few years, and for Carr, football seemed like a natural next step.

But it’s not an easy one. It’s more than playbooks and schedules. Luckily for Carr, he had the guidance of another coach — in his own league, nonetheless — that had gone through this process only three years ago.

Greg Carlson, head coach at St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn., came in at the end of the season last year with a 4-6 record. The year before, they went 1-7. The year before that, those Saints didn’t exist.

So Carr sought the advice of his colleague when he took the job. Carlson gave Carr the advice he was looking for — the ‘do’s and don’ts,’ the little things he can’t forget.

‘Some of the coaches at St. Scholastica told us we need to be clear and explain everything,’ Carr said. ‘We can’t take for granted that they know how to break down at the end of practice, what style of dress we wear on the road and to take their hats off when we go out to eat.’

Carlson recognized the difficulty of the position Carr had gotten into, but he also noted the benefits of taking the risk.

‘Just knowing that, for the first time, your team is taking the field representing their college,’ Carlson said. ‘Wearing the uniforms you helped design, the coaching staff and players you chose — they’re a part of history.’

Pat O’Brien recognized those benefits, too, and took the leap from a comfortable high school head coaching job in Tampa, Fla., to Aberdeen to become defensive coordinator and secondary coach for the Saints.

O’Brien said he’s looking forward to starting from scratch. When Presentation coaches head out on the recruiting trail, they don’t have to give players empty promises. Those freshmen coming in will get the chance to play football right when they get on campus. They don’t have to wait years for a spot like they would at other schools. They can pursue their passion right off the bat.

‘The pot is empty,’ O’Brien said. ‘Every time we go and sit down and talk with a player right now, we can say, ‘You know what, you have a chance to play.’ Every freshman we talk to can get a truthful statement from us.’

And it seems that Aberdeen is ready for a team like Presentation. With a population of only around 30,000, O’Brien said the community has been supportive of the endeavor.

So for Carr, a man who has been working to become a head coach his entire career, the time and the location is ready. He’s finally the one who will help to create the traditions and structure the team needs. And Aberdeen’s history will be made from his thumbprints.

‘We’re recruiting on the base that we have a chance to make history,’ Carr said. ‘We’ll be the first picture in that trophy case. We’ll let them be a part of building that tradition.’

knmciner@syr.edu

 

Published on October 20, 2010 at 12:00 pm