Sports

Nesvold steps down as Sioux head coach

By Matthew Semisch

11/25/2014

After 24 years of coaching high school football and leading the Westhope-Newburg-Glenburn (W-N-G) Sioux for the past 18 years, Tom Nesvold is hanging up his whistle.

The long-time W-N-G head coach has decided to retire from coaching. He will remain in his teaching job at Westhope Public School (WPS), but he is choosing to step away from the Sioux football program he has brought to prominence.

Nesvold ends his time leading the W-N-G football program having ammassed a 109-59 record with the team. The Sioux won six region titles under him and reached the North Dakota state title games in 2012 and 2013.

They finished their 2014 season with an 8-2 record after falling 48-26 to Grant County-Flasher (GC-F) in the first round of the state playoffs on Oct. 25.

“You start winding things down after 24 years,” he said. “That’s a lot of time to be in anything, and I enjoyed the job and the kids, and I wouldn’t change anything about it. 

“I’ve met some pretty special people in that job and have gotten to know a lot of parents, coaches, officials, and it’s been quite a ride. Like anything else though, there’s a time to end it. 

“There’s never a totally good time to end it,” he continued, “But you just do what you set out to and move on.”

Nesvold’s assistant coaches and WPS administrators knew of his intentions the week before the playoff game against GC-F. He then told his players after the game that he would be stepping down.

Resigning, Nesvold said, was something he decided upon before the Sioux’s 2014 season began.

“I finally made up my mind before the start of the season on what I was going to do,” he said. “It certainly had nothing to do with outcomes with the football team, but it kind of creeps into your mind that you have to know when the time is to hang it up.”

Taking over for Nesvold will be a pair of co-head coaches. Layne Fluhrer and Anthony Lee will share those duties going forward.

Fluhrer and Lee were assistant coaches under Nesvold. Lee has been W-N-G’s defensive coordinator, while Fluhrer has helped run the Sioux’s offense.

Fluhrer also serves as WPS’s athletic director as well as the head coach of Westhope-Newburg-Bottineau’s (W-N-B) softball team.

As for Sioux football, continuity within the coaching ranks will be key. 

What’s perhaps even better, however, is that Nesvold is leaving the cupboard well-stocked for his successors.

W-N-G loses six seniors from its 2014 roster. Much of the Sioux’s nucleus on both sides of the ball, though, will be back next year as the team moves back from nine-man football to 11-man.

“You want to leave some horses in the barn, so to speak,” Nesvold said. “They’ll do just fine, and a lot of it has to do with the coaches that are in place right now, and they’re ready to go.”

Fluhrer and Lee, Nesvold said, were natural choices to take the reins.

“It was kind of obvious,” Nesvold stated. “Westhope is leading the program, so generally the coach or coaches are going to be from Westhope no matter what, but it’s also how they’ve been working together already. 

They’ve always had a good coaching partnership, so the team will be just fine under those guys.”

Nesvold joked that he has forgotten what it’s like to watch football as a fan. He told his players after their playoff loss, however, that while he’s stepping down as a coach, he’ll be close behind the team in the tight stands at Westhope’s field.

“I just told the kids when they found out in the locker room,” he said, “That I’m not dying but just moving four feet back.”

Nesvold was also quick to acknowledge the team’s large community support.

“I want to send a thank you out,” he said, “to all the parents and the players and the coaches and everyone that’s made my life as a football coach easy.

“That so many people have done that is quite a tribute, I think, to this community and to this area we’re living in.”