Sports

Keysor steps down as basketball, volleyball coach at DCB

By Tyler Ohmann

05/15/2012

Dakota College at Bottineau head men’s basketball and head women’s volleyball coach Ken Keysor has stepped down from both of those posts.

Keysor also stepped down from his instructor post to take a job offer at Burke-Divide Electric Cooperative. The position being offered to him by an old associate in the high school coaching ranks.

Keysor stated the time consuming nature of the posts as well as financial well-being and family time as reasons for his departure.

“I was finding a lot more of my time was being dedicated to the program and the players, and I have a son who is a freshman and I wanted the opportunity to watch him play,” Keysor said. “In all honesty my family is more important than my job.”

“This was an opportunity financially that I really felt I couldn’t turn down,” Keysor said. “I had originally turned the job down in late March, early April, but another offer was made and I was like ‘holy cow, I guess I can’t turn that down.’”

Another factor in accepting his new position, was the amount of what Keysor said was ‘gray area’ involved in college coaching.

“At the end of the day I’m a black and white guy, right and wrong, and I don’t like being in the middle, because you don’t know where you stand,” Keysor said. “A lot of things that go with college coaching that is a gray area, and I understand that every job has a little gray area, but the college end was a lot more gray area than I ever imagined.”

Keysor stated the example of recruiting players who are academically ineligible as gray area.

The time the job took up also was a major factor in Keysor’s resignation from his posts.

“I think that everybody thinks that coaching is practicing and going to the games,” Keysor said. “Here, we instruct classes as well, and recruiting is tasking, especially not getting student athletes.”

Keysor said. a good retirement package and benefits also factored in.

Keysor stated that his time in the Air Force helped qualify him for his new position at Burke-Divide.

But Keysor said the decision was not an easy one.

“My wife and I certainly didn’t look at it and say, ‘oh yeah, its a done deal’ right away,” Keysor said. “We struggled big time, because I’ve been treated extremely well, and this is something that I always wanted to do, but at the end of the day the gray area was too much.”

Keysor said he will miss being called coach, which he has been at DCB for the past four years. His breaking the news to his athletes was very emotional.

“There are a lot of reasons to leave, but the one reason I wanted to stay is the relationships with the players,” Keysor said. “When we had our meeting, I broke down within three sentences, and when I say break down, I mean tears were streaming and I couldn’t speak.”

Part of the reason for that emotion is that Keysor sees his students as children, which he finds a bit ironic.

“I have to laugh, because I say I’m leaving to see my son play, but we had 14 men’s basketball players and 11 volleyball players that were my kids to a certain extent,” Keysor continued. “That’s the most difficult part of it, but it was emotionally tasking, and I want to relegate that toward my family.”

All in all, Keysor said he was happy how he spent his time in Bottineau.

“I’ve enjoyed my time here,” Keysor said. “It’s been four years of an outstanding time.”

DCB is also looking for an assistant football coach/assistant athletic director after Andre Mooney decided to return to Arizona after two years in Bottineau.