Coaches discuss Tjeerdsma’s influence

By Cody Thorn St. Joseph News-Press

The branches of the Mel Tjeerdsma coaching tree stretch far and wide.

Former assistant coaches serving as head coaches include Central Missouri’s Jim Svoboda, Missouri Southern’s Bart Tatum, Angelo State’s Will Wagner and Northern Colorado’s Earnest Collins Jr.

This season, Tjeerdsma went head-to-head against former assistant coaches Svoboda and Tatum.

The two went a combined 0-3 this season against their mentor.

While the wins didn’t come for either the Mules or the Lions against the Tjeerdsma-led team, the two both recalled stories of the man who shaped their coaching career for the better part of a quarter century.

Svoboda has known Tjeerdsma since high school, playing for him at Dennison High School in Dennison, Iowa. Tatum first met Tjeerdsma when he was recruiting him as a running back/linebacker at Cooper, Texas more than 25 years ago.

In 1994, the trio converged on Maryville, Mo., to help build the Bearcats’ football program.

“Not a lot of people realize our relationship goes back to 1975 at Dennison High School,” Svoboda said. “Two years later (I) went to Northwestern College where he was offensive coordinator.”

After playing for Northwestern College, Svoboda became an assistant coach and was on the staff with Tjeerdsma when the team won the NAIA National Championship in the fall of 1983.

“I was with him for a total of seven years before I even got to Northwest Missouri State,” Svoboda said. “It seems like I’ve been with him more than I haven’t.”

Tatum served as a graduate assistant for a season following playing for Tjeerdsma at Austin College in Texas. A two-year stint at Sam Houston State followed for Tatum, but he never lost contact with Tjeerdsma.

“From the time he recruited me, I developed a great relationship with him,” Tatum said. “I made it known to him that I wanted to coach college football and he said he’d help me. I remember him saying that if he ever got a chance to put together his own staff he’d love to have him there.”

After Tjeerdsma got hired to coach Northwest, he made phone calls to his two former players.

Tatum was hired as an offensive line coach and Svoboda — coming over after compiling a 52-19 record as the head coach at Nebraska Wesleyan — was named the offensive coordinator.

“I can’t imagine a better person to work for, be around, learn from,” Svoboda said of Tjeerdsma. “He’s the crème de le crème. His record speaks for itself.

“Our relationship evolved from standpoint to more to coach-father figure we became colleagues when I was at Nebraska Wesleyan when I was head coach there. There was a high degree of trust there. One of his many attributes is that he picks good people and he lets them do what they do. He’s not a micro manager.”

Svoboda ran the offense until 2003, when he left to become quarterback coach and later offensive coordinator at UCLA. The success he had a Northwest carried over to the Bruins making three straight bowls.

“We always look for that factor in the quarterback,” Svoboda said. “We call it the ‘IT’ factor. We know when we see it. Coach T has the ‘it’ factor. What coach does is he picks out good people and he trusts them. In the end, they become better because they know they’re an intricate part of the process. He allowed you to take pride in your own work.”

Tatum became offensive coordator after Svoboda left for UCLA and called plays for the national runner-up in 2005. Tatum took the job at after that season.

“He had a profound influence on me in more than one way,” Tatum said. “The most prominent was as a person. He is a very good human being. He is unselfish and cares about the players. He is in it for the right reasons.”

In building the Missouri Southern program Tatum is using the same ideologies he learned at Northwest, as in recruiting talented players and redshirting them to make them pretty prepared for college football.

“I have no regret about leaving Northwest whatsoever, but the only negative I can say is that I had to play him every year. He is like blood … he is family to me and it is very uncomfortable. There is so much history between us. I have been at Southern for five years, but vast majority of my coaching history has been with him.”

Svoboda and Tjeerdsma met twice this year and both games were classics. Northwest won in Warrensburg to clinch the MIAA title and then won in the Division II quarterfinals

Just two weeks ago, in Florence, Ala., the two sat together while their respective quarterbacks, Eric Czerniewski and Blake Bolles were part of the Harlon Hill and Division II Football Hall of Fame banquet which Tjeerdsma was inducted too.

“There is a reason (Mel) is in every hall of fame he’s ever been in,” Svoboda said. “I was joking with him at the Harlon Hill deal when he got into the Division II hall of Fame. If there was a hall of fame for being in the most hall of fames, he’d be in it.”

Cody Thorn and Andrew DeWitt can be reached at npsports@newspressnow.com.