Winner football, a top program for four decades, seeks new heights with 3rd-straight South Dakota state title

Before there were the wins in 1987, 1989, 2009, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021 and, potentially in the Class 11B state championship Friday, 2022, there was the first. The 1981 11A State Championship was not only the first appearance for Winner, but the debut of state championships across South Dakota.

It was the Warriors against Vermillion. And by then, Winner had a pretty good idea it might get there. In then-head coach Harvey Naasz’ mind, there were three things that could happen when you threw a pass, and two of them were bad. So Naasz’ Winner teams ran the ball. And it worked. Winner, when there was only a conference championship up for grabs, hadn’t lost a game the few years prior. Now there was just a little more on the line.

Early in the fourth quarter of a 21-14 game, senior nose guard Dan Bolander shed his blocker and came face-to-face with the Vermillion fullback. Fundamental football, the lower man wins. He dipped the crown of his helmet, the Vermillion runner dipped his and… POP!

“He made a heck of a hit,” then-Winner linebacker and longtime coach of the Warriors Brian Naasz said.

Bolander’s helmet twisted slightly on his head. He wound up on top of the pile and picked himself off the ground in a daze. Bolander walked back to his position, but before he got set, a teammate of his, Brad Hedlund, rushed over to his side.

“Hey,” Hedlund said to Bolander.“You’re bleeding.”

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Hedlund held his hand to the side of Bolander’s head where blood sputtered out of the opening by his ear. Naasz guided him off and medics removed his helmet, revealing his earlobe, which had been almost completely snapped off. There was no other option: Bolander would need it stitched back on.

“No,” Bolander said. “Can you tape it?”

Bolander missed a series and then returned to the field, where under his helmet, he wrapped white medical tape around his head resembling a thin headband. What Bolander did wasn’t something that Naasz claimed to teach. It was just who the Winner kids were. The Warriors closed out the 31-21 win, and all were on the field to celebrate, even Bolander. He smiled and hugged his teammates with the bandages holding a chunk of cartilage to the side of his head.

“Nowadays,” Bolander said, “they probably wouldn't allow it.”

After the celebration died down, Bolander headed to the emergency room. They stitched his ear back together and then Bolander jumped in the car again, this time en route to Yankton. He had to help a friend move.

‘We created a monster’

It’s the eve of another state championship game week, a day Winner senior offensive lineman Tayden Mathis has been through four times before. Monday’s a lighter day, with scouting report and a review of Elk Point-Jefferson’s plays and formations. That only means so much, though. Winner’s not changing much about the way they play.

Now on a 34-game win streak spanning almost three full seasons since current head coach Trent Olson took over the program, the Warriors are playing for what would be a program record third-straight state title.

“It's kind of unbelievable to think that my class is carrying this winning streak,” Mathis said.

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Winner has been to 17 more state title games since 1981 — a fact that Harvey Naasz remembered a member of the SDHSAA predicted when it made the classifications, saying “we created a monster” and Winner would dominate — and in 40 years, not much has changed. Offensive coordinator Ben Connot carries a “little notecard” with about 15 plays on it to use on the sideline.

When Olson was named Winner’s fifth coach in the last 50 years after the 2019 season, he didn’t feel the need to say anything to his players, asking for a buy-in. Warriors football — that wasn’t going to change. It was players who created success anyways, Olson said. And in that regard, Winner had become a machine.

Gone were the days where Harvey Naasz pleaded with his players to use the weekend to forget about football. “Go out and hug cousins, chase girls, do something else” until 3 p.m. Monday afternoon. Harvey Naasz won a lot of games with kids from farming backgrounds, making the most of their “part bully." But winning built banners and banners built legacy. Now, in Winner, football is a religion. Second to only religion, as Sunday remained the only off day.

For years, South Dakota high school football’s most dominant maulers were built out of a weight room 12 feet in width and 40 feet in length. Players left a window cracked open so they could sneak in off hours, and when bars were put on that very window in the last few years, players swiped those very same coaches' keys. It’s how players like Mathis, who didn’t play much at all in his first three years with the Warriors, built on 35 pounds since his freshman year to become a starting lineman on a team that hasn’t had a competitive game in a little over two seasons.

In a sports-crazed town that's strong in basketball and wrestling, too, former Winner player Kaden Keiser explained football’s the one sport where everyone gets to play together. Others were more blunt: What else is there to do? It’s a point of pride for the town an hour and a half from the nearest Walmart. East River? West River? Good luck beating this community of 2,852.

Due to farm consolidation, Winner is actually smaller than it was when the school won a title in 1981. But the last seven years of Winner football have been more successful than any era in the school’s, and perhaps the state’s history, and Brian Naasz could only think of one thing that could ever stop it: “The end of the world.”

A ‘real’ Winner football team

The Krolikowskis were just looking for a better school. Jeff and Dondee Krolikowski owned a store in Wanblee, South Dakota, about 45 minutes north of their hometown, Martin. They had grown frustrated with the academics at the schools in Martin for their sophomore son, Kray, and their seventh-grade son, Krockett. Before the school year, they chatted about that with the Pepsi delivery man: they were thinking White River or St. Thomas More.

“No,” said Jody Brozik, who delivered the Pepsi’s and later was elected mayor of Winner, South Dakota. “You’re coming to Winner.”

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The Krolikowskis said it’s too far away, how will they even find a place to live. But Brozik insisted that, while they looked, Kray and Krockett could live with him. So, that’s what they did. The two boys moved 102 miles east to Winner, landing two future college football players (Kray at South Dakota then Sioux Falls and Krockett at South Dakota State) in a community, which at that point, breathed the game.

Winner moved its stadium beneath a hill right next to the high school in 1990, which made the environment feel bigger. And on Friday nights, there isn’t an excuse not to be there. People parked their cars along the hill, honking at a big play or touchdown. Parents, students, alums and even the local elementary schools attended — but they weren’t watching. Instead, the kids rounded up the opposing schools’ kids and played a game of pad-free tackle football on the practice field, which since Naasz was the head coach has caused countless broken noses and bones.

Kray remembers one of the first things a teammate told him in the locker room is that if the team didn’t make it to, at least, a semifinal then “you weren't really considered a Winner football team.” Kray started in Martin, but as a sophomore at Winner he was sent to the scout team. He heard about Winner’s hard-nosed, hard-hitting reputation and “practiced as hard as I could” the first practice.

“I was expecting maybe some negative feedback for me going hard on the scout team… I was just a sophomore,” Kray said. “But I used to get a lot of positive feedback.”

That’s Winner’s secret. Rarely, if ever, is a freshman playing a significant role. So they send them to the scout team, to deliver hits, but mostly, to take them. But for Winner’s younger players, it’s a way to contribute to winning without seeing the field. Kray eventually grew into an all-state defensive end for the Warriors, tallying seven sacks the season prior when the Warriors went undefeated and captured a class 11B state championship.Krockett and the rest of his class saw that success and experienced success of their own through the middle school years, and Kray remembered they came to their freshman year with the Warriors “a little arrogant.” Krockett remembers double-teaming his brother with a teammate on a block and pancaking him.

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“That was the worst decision you’ve ever made,” Krockett remembered Kray saying. Later that practice, Kray grabbed at his brother’s facemask and deposited him to the turf. Practices were ruthless, but it gave Winner’s players something to work with. By the time Krockett was a senior in 2015, the Warriors had already won another state championship and the games, by then, were getting out of hand.

“After a while it was like, ugh. I wish we could have gotten a little bit more of a competitive game,” said former quarterback Drew DeMers. “But nonetheless, I still had a lot of fun.”

In the 2015 season, Winner finished off its second-straight state title and its 25th-straight win. Krockett can remember going through it, and it all felt crazy at the time.

“No way that's gonna get beat,” Krockett thought. “Not a chance.”

“Then,” Krockett continued, “five years later…”

Honk, honk

The Winner sideline at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium was filled with tears, but all-state lineman Oscar Pravacek kept composed. He gathered the young players in the room following the Warriors’ 18-14 loss to Bridgewater-Emery/Ethan in the 2019 state final.

“This isn't your guys’ fault,” Pravacek declared. “I want you back here next year. I want you to win it.”

That stuck with the freshmen, Jack Peters, Tayden Mathis, Blake Volmer, Riley Orel, Dalton Peterson and more, especially. At that point, they figured they’d be good. But they didn’t know quite what that meant just yet. Their first season, they had experienced so much success, but then the pain of losing the last game. So they had to at least get back. And they did.

Orel, a running back, started to rotate in at cornerback that season and was in the game for the Seahawks’ last offensive play in a rematch of the previous year’s final. BEE ran a wheel route to his side and with the Warriors in a zone, Orel broke to the ball and got his hand on it. It fell to the ground and the immediate feeling was “shock.” Orel nor any other freshmen had ever been a part of that.

“When you get to that taste in your mouth of winning,” Volmer said, “it makes you only want more.”

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And Keiser said, as the winning continued, the expectations grew larger. That was what kept the Warriors going, through 54-7, 61-12 and 57-6 wins in consecutive weeks prior. They beat Bridgewater-Emery/Ethan, a season after playing in them in the final, 44-0. Olson repeated to them: Championship teams get better every single week. No one wants to be the Winner team that slips. So the Warriors kept winning and winning. They won the state championship again and, once again, were set to graduate a large group of seniors. Before they each left the DakotaDome, Winner defensive coordinator Kevin Keiser crossed paths with Peterson as he was leaving the locker room.

“Hey, you got to be ready for next year,” Keiser said. “There's gonna be some open spots.”

So, Peterson, Mathis, and the rest of the players promised that opportunity went full-force in Winner’s summer acceleration program: six days a week in Winner’s tiny weight room with the entire athletic department. And the product was a “pleasant surprise” to Keiser. They were good again. They knew the win streak was there, and Peters, Orel, Volmer and everyone else all thought for moments what they were doing was crazy.

They passed 25, then 26, then 27, then 28, then 29. “(It’s) pretty unreal to think about,” Peters said. Then came the one that all the players had circled on their calendar: A matchup with West Central on Homecoming. As the Warriors dominated Class 11B, the question of if they even belonged there came up, frequently. Winner’s usually a talkative group. That week, their practices were silent.

“We knew everybody in the past would be coming to watch us,” Peters said. “Last thing we wanted to do is let everybody down.”

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West Central got the ball first, and Winner’s defense did what it does, forcing a three-and-out and Winner got back on the field. Volmer took the first snap, turned and pitched to Orel who found a huge hole and didn’t stop. This game wouldn’t be close either, as Winner eventually finished off a 46-12 win. Orel ran all the way to the end zone, untouched, and walked over to hand the ball to the referee. Then, from above the hill, the honks rained in.

‘Like their Dad’

The quarterback of that 1981 championship team sat his kids in the basement, cozied on sofa chairs with the family dogs. The footage was grainy, even on the big screen, but John DeMers had told his sons, Drew and Chaz, about the game over and over. It was time they saw it themselves. So, DeMers inserted the 8-track tape labeled “1981 Playoffs” and skipped ahead.

Something crazy happened in that championship game. On the first play from scrimmage, DeMers took the snap, faked to the running back and then floated a pass to a wide-open Dean Novotny. Just seconds into the game, Winner had scored. On a pass. And for more than 30 years, it was the longest passing touchdown in a state title game ever.

DeMers played defensive back at South Dakota State, but his kids were attracted to the idea of having the ball in their hands. So, generations apart, the DeMers family has two All-State quarterbacks: Chaz in 2006 and Drew in 2015 and 2016.

“They probably want to be like their dad,” DeMers said. “I just think they wanted to make sure that they follow that tradition.”

DeMers transferred the tape of the championship games to a disk and burned it on a CD. The DeMers, together or separate, have watched it many times since. Even with both of their careers in the past, there’s still been arguments: Drew never lost a game as starting quarterback at the varsity level (with two state championships), John never lost a game as a starting quarterback — period. And sure, Drew’s Winner teams were tough.

“But from a physical standpoint and toughness standpoint,” John said, “we could match anybody I think in today's era.”

Drew has more touchdowns, yards. But John will always have that state championship pass. Recently, Drew pulled the game up on YouTube and re-examined it. He watched closely, as he’d done many times before, trying to see if one of the best passes in Winner football history was thrown with a “bad spiral.”

Follow Sioux Falls Argus Leader reporter Michael McCleary on Twitter @mikejmccleary.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Winner football, a top program for decades, seeks new heights