{"id":706,"date":"2015-09-13T16:27:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-13T21:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/currents.winonastateu.com\/?p=576"},"modified":"2017-06-14T17:53:58","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T17:53:58","slug":"a-legacy-of-leadership-comes-full-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/2015\/09\/13\/a-legacy-of-leadership-comes-full-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"A Legacy of Leadership Comes Full Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>Men of Influence<\/h2>\n

Bob Keister answered his phone one day recently and heard a voice from the past.<\/p>\n

It was a man who played football at Winona State more than four decades ago. Keister, a Warrior coach from 1961\u201375, still gets calls like that from his \u201ckids,\u201d and they are all special to him.<\/p>\n

\ufffc\u201cHe wanted to thank me,\u201d said Keister, a 2015 WSU Athletics Hall of Fame inductee. \u201cYou stick with these kids, and every one of these guys, they\u2019ve all been successful. There are so many wonderful things they\u2019ve done, and that\u2019s exactly why I\u2019ve been so close to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warriors head football coach Tom Sawyer, who enters his 20th season in 2015, said a strong base of scholarship funding is crucial to his program\u2019s success. \u201cWe cannot be competitive without it,\u201d Sawyer says. \u201cSometimes (in recruiting players) it comes down to the exact dollar you can offer. We\u2019ve got to get out front and stay out front when it comes to scholarships. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve been very good at and we need to grow more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wally Madland is one of the many players who stayed in close touch with Keister after their playing days were over. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t just a coach, he was part of my life and part of my kids\u2019 lives,\u201d Madland says. \u201cNow with the scholarship, he\u2019ll be a part of Winona State football forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madeo \u201cMoon\u201d Molinari was WSU\u2019s head football coach from 1958\u201370. Keister and Martin were assistants on his staff during most of that period. Keister took over as head coach from 1971\u201375, while Martin was at WSU for 30 years, including 28 as an assistant football coach \u2014 he was head coach in 1986 \u2014 and nine as men\u2019s swimming coach.<\/p>\n

\ufffc\ufffcBernie Kennedy played on the WSU football team in the mid-60s, when Keister, Molinari, and Martin were on staff, and remembers it was a time when coaches rarely gave out compliments or pats on the back. \u201cMoon said to me once, \u2018If you can\u2019t get the job done, I\u2019ll find someone who will,\u2019\u201d Kennedy recalls.<\/p>\n

But Molinari also knew how to bring out the best in his players. Kennedy appreciated it, and formed a lifelong relationship with the man everyone called Moon. Molinari died in 2011, having helped the scholarship in his name grow out of his own initial $5,000 contribution.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, who manages fundraising for the Molinari fund, said about 30 former players and their families
\nhave contributed. \u201cWe wanted it to be a \u2018common man\u2019 scholarship, for a player who is dedicated in school, to his academics, who works hard in practice,\u201d Kennedy says.<\/p>\n

Merle \u201cPete\u201d Peterson began fundraising for the Warrior Football Scholarship in 2007, and about 20 people have contributed to help it reach over $100,000. \u201cI think it\u2019s a good start for the scholarship and I know students need all the help they can get,\u201d Peterson says. \u201cWe wanted to do something for the football team and look at the future and what they might be able to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peterson, who played football in the 1950s, said his experience as a WSU athlete and student had a lasting influence for him, and he always wanted to give something back. \u201cI played football in high school, but I was very small, about 5-foot-2, 112 pounds,\u201d Peterson says. \u201cI wanted to play more, and after the Korean War I got the GI bill and went out for the team. There were six Korean War vets on the team, and a lot of the younger guys looked up to us. Football really kept me in school, it\u2019s done a lot for me. I\u2019m very appreciative of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Larry Holstad Fund was initiated by Merchants Bank President\/Chief Banking Officer Greg Evans. The two have been friends since they met more than 25 years ago in Iowa; Holstad as a high school football coach and Evans as a sports reporter. \u201cIt\u2019s all about relationships,\u201d says Holstad, who served as director of athletics from 1997\u20132012 and joins Keister in the Hall of Fame 2015 class. \u201cNot only on the field but off the field.
\nI was recruited by Coach Keister in 1964 and that\u2019s a long time ago, but he\u2019s always been one of my mentors and it\u2019s because of how they treated you and the experiences you had.”<\/p>\n

The Coach Martin Football Scholarship fund was started recently by three of his former athletes; Dan Schumacher, a football player, and Rick Krueger and Harry Sieben, members of Martin\u2019s highly successful swimming program. Martin died in 2014. \u201cCoach Martin was a mentor for me,\u201d Schumacher says. \u201cI played football from 1986 to 1990 and we had four head coaches in five years. He was the one constant I had, and he kept me on track and kept things in perspective. It went deeper than just being a coach, he was to some extent a father figure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get in the Game<\/h2>\n

Interested in more information about general athletic scholarships? Contact University Advancement at wsufoundation@winona.edu. Or call 507.457.5020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Men of Influence Bob Keister answered his phone one day recently and heard a voice from the past. It was a man who played football at Winona State more than four decades ago. Keister, a Warrior coach from 1961\u201375, still gets calls like that from his \u201ckids,\u201d and they are all special to him. \ufffc\u201cHe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[56,2],"tags":[215,133,216,217,218,219,7],"class_list":["post-706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-wsu-magazine","tag-bob-keister","tag-coach-john-martin","tag-football","tag-john-martin","tag-larry-holstad","tag-madeo-moon-molinari","tag-winona-state-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/Legacy-copy.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PQMT-bo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1396,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions\/1396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}