Thanks for the ride Coach Gardner
Bluejay football coach Mike Gardner opts for Ohio's Malone College
By RYAN RICHTER
Sports writer
Musical chairs are an eternal game when it comes to the coaching world.
Every season, coaching changes are as common as night turning to day.
First, the college football world, not just Kansas, was hit hard when Kansas State legend Bill Snyder decided to hang it up after pulling off one of the biggest turnarounds in NCAA football history.
Then future Hall-of-Famer Dick Vermeil bid the NFL farewell.
Both the Wildcats and Chiefs have found their replacements, though.
That same heartbreak that hit Manhattan and Kansas City hit Hillsboro last week with Bluejay head man Mike Gardner accepting the job at Malone College after two phenomenal years at Tabor.
That was about as much of a surprise as the NFL playoffs sadly not including the Chiefs.
It didn't take a football genius to know the doors for Gardner were always open somewhere else.
That is what happens with big-time coaches like Gardner. And football is a religion in the Buckeye State.
What a feather it's been in the Bluejays' hat to have a coach like Gardner, though, even for a short time.
From the time Gardner popped up in Hillsboro in the second year of the Tim McCarty era five years ago, the two revived a football program left for dead.
McCarty ran the show with Gardner leading the defense.
With the heralded recruiting class of 2000, Tabor started appearing on NAIA football screens.
Gardner's effect worked right away with the Bluejays posting a stellar defense.
Hopes were raised to an all-time high at Tabor in 2003 with several standouts back from Gardner's defense that finished second in the NAIA overall.
Everything panned out as Tabor did the unbelievable, advancing to the NAIA playoffs for the first time in school history where it was upended in the first round by eventual runner-up Northwestern Oklahoma State.
That same NWOSU team featured current Dallas Cowboy wideout and kick returner Patrick Crayton.
The Bluejays did it with Gardner's smothering defense, led by such stars as All-Americans Chad Duerksen, Jason Phelps, and leader Eli Kennedy.
That helped earn Gardner AFLAC's 2003 National Assistant Coach of the Year.
McCarty dropped a bomb on Tabor when he decided to return home to Oklahoma, accepting the head coaching job at East Central after the end of the Bluejays' most successful season.
Among the gnashing of teeth with both the loss of the winningest class and coach in school history, the Bluejays were hard up for some good news.
With success following him everywhere he'd ever been an assistant such as Lindenwood, Bethel, Hastings, and Baker, Gardner decided to take a crack at attempting to fill McCarty's huge shoes.
While many might have second guessed Gardner, I honestly knew the Bluejays would be fine, if not better.
Gardner's knowledge of the game, business-like approach, no-nonsense attitude, and the relationship with his players are the marks of a successful coach.
In his first stint as head coach, Gardner made it look easy as Tabor came up three points short of an undefeated regular season with a crushing double-overtime loss to Bethany.
One of the most significant stories from Gardner's first year was that of former Hillsboro great CJ Hill.
The sole leftover from the fabled class of 2000 after being plagued with injuries, Hill wrestled with the thought of giving up his final season of eligibility with McCarty's departure.
But Gardner helped convince Hill to stay and play, making him believe the Bluejays could win their first-ever KCAC football title.
Hill was rewarded for staying behind with Tabor posting its best mark ever, going 10-1 during the regular season, capturing league glory, and earning All-American honors.
Gardner, to no surprise, was named the KCAC Coach of the Year.
Tabor again advanced to the NAIA playoffs, where it was soundly beaten by top-ranked Sioux Falls in South Dakota, 72-11, but ended the year ranked 14th.
The Bluejays' days of sneaking up on teams were over by the start of the 2005 season.
With Gardner being named one of small colleges' top coaches, the Bluejays opened the year heavy favorites to repeat as KCAC champions.
As they were expected, the Bluejays steamrolled anyone in their way behind the legs of Roger Butler, the arm of Ricky Ishida, and the hard-hitting Jake Schenk.
Tabor ranked among the NAIA's best in just about everything, including the nation's highest scoring offense en route to an unbeaten regular season and a second straight league title.
For seven years, the first round of the NAIA playoffs have been the end of the road for the KCAC.
But Gardner and his Bluejays changed that, holding off Graceland, 17-14, in a thriller at Wichita.
Gardner's final game came a week later when the Bluejays bowed out again to fourth-ranked Sioux Falls by a closer margin than the year before.
Still, Tabor ended the year sixth in the nation, and finished with an 11-1 school record.
For the first time in more than 30 years, Tabor landed a player on the NAIA All-American's first team in the KCAC Player-of-Year's Butler.
Not just one, but two, with Schenk being selected to the first team at linebacker.
What comes next for the Bluejays is unknown.
One thing's for sure, though, Gardner's shoes will be harder to fill than even that of his predecessor.
Gardner by far was the KCAC's best coach in the short time he was at the Tabor helm.
He backed that up, going 20-3 with two of the three losses coming to the Cougars, a perennial powerhouse, in the playoffs.
Making it even harder yet, Bluejay offensive coordinator Dustin Miller is heading to Canton, too.
Miller was one I thought might get a shot. He knows the game, too.
It's unlikely any of the KCAC top dogs like Monty Lewis, Dave Dallas, Andy Lambert, Dave Cunningham, or Mike Moore will leave.
So Gardner is headed to the home of the NFL Hall-of-Fame in Canton.
Malone plays its games right next door so it'll be a short walk for Gardner to see the game's greatest.
He definitely established himself as arguably the best Tabor's ever had.
