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Coaching clinic

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. – A Wednesday night basketball game at Minnesota State Community and Technical College-Fergus Falls has not changed much in four decades.

    The same 900-seat gymnasium still stands, still full of fans. And the popcorn machine might still hold the same batch of kernels.

    The name of the school is longer now – goodbye Fergus Falls Community College – as are the players’ shorts. On the sidelines, though, the only differences are physiques and hairstyles.

    Ann Williams is doing what she’s been doing for 27 years, coaching the Spartan women to victory in the 6 p.m. game. Dave Retzlaff is doing what he’s been doing for 36 years, guiding the Fergus Falls men to triumph at 8 p.m.

    “It appears that it’s a permanent move,” Retzlaff said, and the only problem for Spartans fans is that it’s not an eternal one.

    Williams, 58, has a record of 442-219 and led the Spartans to the 2001 national title. Retzlaff, 60, is 613-292, and his 1998 squad won the national championship, the only men’s junior college team from Minnesota to ever win a national title.

    At a level where the two-year players occasionally outlast their coach’s reign, Williams and Retzlaff are linked by longevity, success and kinship.

    “It’s brother-sister, he’s just a great friend,” Williams said. “There isn’t any other person as far as basketball that I’d go to more for advice.”

    His son, Jason, the former national player of the year and current Spartan assistant coach, has unique insight into Retzlaff ’s abilities. And the career numbers are evidence of Retzlaff ’s dominance in the Minnesota Community College Conference.

    To find the secret to that success, though, first listen to his biggest rival.

    Jay Pivec took over the Minneapolis Community College program in 1990. He’s won five state championships. If it wasn’t for Retzlaff, however, Pivec could be the John Wooden of the league. Three times since 1990, Fergus Falls has defeated Minneapolis in the state title game. Last season, Minneapolis went 25-3. All three losses came against the Spartans.

    “The staples are he tinkers very little with his system,” Pivec said. “They play very good position man to man defense, and they really run their offense almost perfectly, almost all the time.

    “Pull out any film from the last 14 years and this is what you’re going to see. It’s meat and potatoes basketball.”

    Retzlaff, who suffered losing seasons his first two years at Fergus but none since, has won seven state titles.

    The Spartans have advanced to the state tourney 31 of the past 34 seasons, and this year’s team is again one of the favorites to win the title.

    Like Williams’ squads, most of Retzlaff ’s players have come from the Fergus Falls area. He estimates 20 of his players in 36 years have been from outside of Minnesota.

    Retzlaff said he wants “players to be athletic so that they can defend. We want players with moral character, because I don’t have the time or patience to be chasing around with anybody else.

    “And over the years, the one thing you really look for in the kids, that you appreciate so much as a coach, is young men that have a toughness about them, that competitive nature of not wanting to lose.”

    All of those qualities were possessed by the best player Retzlaff said he’s coached, his son Jason. Jason Retzlaff was the point guard on the 29-0 1998 national title team and went on to play at North Dakota State. Now a teacher at Fergus Falls High School, Jason joined his father’s staff as an assistant last season. He’s part of the Minnesota Community College Conference’s First Family.

    His older brother, Ryan, led the Spartans to the 1996 state title. His younger brother, Justin, played on the team from 1999-2001.

    “He relates to his players in a way that the guys want to play for him,” Jason said of his father. “He’s a great teacher as well. He knows the game inside and out. I’m still learning something every day in practice.”

    The elder Retzlaff played basketball at the University of Minnesota-Morris and coached at Graceville (Minn.) High School.

    A member of the MCCC Hall of Fame – as are Williams, Ryan and Jason – Retzlaff said he’s only considered one other job since arriving in Fergus in 1968.

    “I’ve never had any desire to be in a scholarship situation or be a Division I coach,” Retzlaff said. “It’s a recruiting battle for us, just like it is for everyone else. But in my 36 years here, there’s never been pressure on me to win.”

    But don’t think that takes anything from Retzlaff ’s competitiveness.

    “I don’t know how many games I’ve won,” he said, “but I can tell you about every one of the losses.”

    Hobbies, aside from winning, are few for Retzlaff. There’s the house on the lake, though he says he doesn’t fish and is only occasionally on a boat.

    Jason says his dad does a “great job landscaping around the house,” but his skills as a fantasy football league owner are lacking.

    Coaching hoops, though? Retzlaff knows all about that.

    “Certainly we’ve won games, but even if we hadn’t won them, they’ve all been great games,” Retzlaff said. “They’ve been great challenges. It’s what you live for as a player and coach.”

    His colleague with the women knows the feeling.

    Ann Williams might have been born to be around basketball. Then again, most people from her home state can say the same thing.

    Williams grew up in the hoops heaven of Indiana.

    “Everybody in Indiana thinks they know the game,” Williams said. “I used to talk to the custodians at school about basketball.

    “I had a little blackboard at home I used to draw basketball players on, and I’d draw boots on them.”

    After attending Ball State University, Williams coached high school teams in Michigan and South Carolina before venturing north for the Fergus Falls job.

    For 10 years, she coached volleyball, basketball and softball. She continues to coach the volleyball squad, leading the Spartans to a second-place finish in the nationals last fall.

    Still, basketball is her favorite sport and the one she’s found the most success in. The Spartans have won 16 division titles and the state crown in 1985. The 2001 national title came on Fergus Falls’ first trip to the tournament.

    Former Minnesota State Moorhead and current St. Cloud State women’s coach Lori Ulferts, who coached against Williams at rival Crookston in the 1980s, praised more than the victories.

    “I really admired her program,” Ulferts said. “I was a young coach and, yes, it’s do or die, but she’d help me. We’d talk about things and sometimes you don’t get that with an opposing coach.”

    Williams also teaches biology at the college. A call to her office is as likely to bring questions about missing worms in the classroom as ones about zone defenses.

    She said her jobs at Fergus are ideal because she “kind of wanted to be a vet, I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a teacher, I wanted to be a coach. I get to do all of them.”

    Brenda Johnson played for Williams from 1982-84 and is now her assistant. Her daughter, Emily, is Williams’ goddaughter and she calls the veteran coach her mentor.

    “I’ve gone with her to hundreds of games all over,” Johnson said. “We’ll walk into a gym and there will be someone there who knows her. These area kids are still real proud to have her come to their game.”

    Williams’ influence was not limited to her own players. She also had an impact some of Retzlaff ’s players, as well. At least one in particular.

    “She’d probably be my second mother,” said Jason Retzlaff, whose family used to live by Williams. “She was my mother at the gym. She was so kind and generous to us growing up, on bus trips. … She’s got a big heart.”

    Although she says she gets less fond of winter every year, retirement is not near for Williams. After missing the state tournament two straight seasons, this year’s Spartans team is again a contender for the title.

    The beat goes on.

    “If you get any players from Ann’s team, you know they were taught the game correctly,” Ulferts said. “She’s a legend in my mind in the state of Minnesota.”

    Sort of like the Spartans’ men’s coach.