RAPID CITY, S.D. --- Mines' Alumni, administration, and fans are a big part of the recent success on the field.
That success on the football field didn't go unnoticed by the past Hardrockers who put on the shoulder pads and those alumni who support the program.
On a weekly basis, head coach
Charlie Flohr received emails in regard to how proud the alumni are of the team and how much it means to them to know that they're still a part of the football program, even though they're not playing anymore.
The Hardrockers had their first seven-win season (7-4) since they became a Division II program and were 6-3 in Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play, their best-ever record, and placed fourth, their highest finish in RMAC play.
"The support they have shown has been great, and they want us to be just as successful as we are," Flohr said. "We just want to continue to put a good product on the field that they can continue to be proud of us."
Mines president Dr. James Rankin was at the University of Arkansas before he came back to Mines. As a Southeast Conference program, he said their alumni and fans "lived and died" whether they were winning or not winning. He said the donations coming into the University and the Razorback Foundation were mostly based on winning.
"We had a good year of fundraising this last year and I'm sure some of that's been tied to athletic performance, so that's always good to see," he said. "We're at a little bit of a disadvantage in South Dakota. I cannot discount tuition. If you're coming and our tuition is $12,000 a year and you are a great athlete, I can't just say, 'OK, we'll pay you $4,000.' We can only give scholarships from money that's been donated, so it's important for us to be able to provide scholarships to be able to recruit good athletes and good students.
"It is always easier to make a call when you have a winning season. Joel (Lueken, Mines athletics director) and his team and Maria Cadwallader over at the Hardrock Club, have to go out and raise funds; that's what keeps our facilities going and that's what keeps the scholarships for the athletes coming in. It always helps when you have a good story to tell."
Senior offensive tackle
Connor Smith said that he has heard back from recent players who graduated and said they were talking about the season. He added that going out in the community, he would hear from people who said they used to play for Mines, so he said it was fun to see how the team is performing. He said the alumni were noticing them this year.
"When you can see a winning season or see your team perform well, obviously we're going to get more support throughout because everyone wants to win and everyone wants to be successful," he said.
Ryan Cadwallader, a wide receiver for the Hardrockers from 1993-95, is a 2012 inductee to the South Dakota Mines Athletics Hall of Fame. He still holds a handful of the school receiving records, including yards in one game (212), touchdowns in one game (four), and 13 touchdowns in a season. Cadwallader, who works for TCC Materials in Rapid City and Sioux Falls, said the Hardrockers have taken a good step forward with the last two seasons, especially the 2022 campaign.
"Charlie is doing a great job of getting his boys to buy into his philosophy," he said. "We've had flashes of good and very good, but it is great to see him put together successful seasons back-to-back and trying to get the momentum rolling. To get seven wins this season it was great to watch the kids compete and even the games they lost they were in a lot of them. It was fun to watch.
As a former Hardrocker, Ryan Cadwallader said the momentum is a good thing to see.
"A lot of us put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears throughout the years while we were going to college and to see the current staff have success, it is great," he said. "It's great to see them compete. It gets your juices flowing, remembering what it is like when we played."
Barry Granger, who played linebacker for the Hardrockers from 1978-80 and was inducted into the Mines Athletics Hall of fame in 2017, said it was great to see a strong seven-game winning season for the Hardrockers.
"Coach Flohr and his staff have done a great job rebuilding the program," he said. "Congratulations to the seniors for their strong leadership and positioning the team for future success."
Ryan Cadwallader said that winning solves a lot of things and people want to be part of a winning program by giving back. He said he has no qualms about giving to the program with the direction it is going.
"It's great to see our investment get a little in return with how they are playing," he said. "They (players) are really some good students as well. Mines has always put out good students that have been successful out in industry and hopefully that gets everybody else on board in getting some money returned and seeing where it is going to help these guys have success on the football field and in life."
There's little doubt that South Dakota Mines provides one of the more interesting game-day watching experiences than any team in college football with the three-level ramp that hosts approximately 350 parking spots. Hardrocker fans can reserve a spot and watch the game from their car, often blasting their horn on third-down defensive situations. Or they can just tailgate for four quarters while watching the game.
It doesn't go unnoticed by the Hardrockers or even their opponents.
"This place is just awesome," a New Mexico Highlands player shouted along the sidelines before the game, looking back at the ramp.
Senior defensive end/linebacker
Kyante Christian said it is one of the aspects of playing at O'Harra Stadium that he will never forget.
"Every time you looked on Twitter or Instagram, there was a picture or something saying the ramp was sold out," he said. "I think it happened four or five times throughout the season, so we were getting that much support from the community, from the school, from the administration and from the fans. Without that support I don't know if we have the same season, so credit to them for showing up and really pushing us over that hump, getting multiple winning seasons and getting that seven-win season. We couldn't have done it without them."
Rankin smiles when talking about the ramp.
"There's a lot of horn honking when the other team is third down and long and they're trying to distract the other team. That is a little bit of an advantage," he said. "We've changed our tailgating for the president's tent and alumni, so fans can also sit up there and watch the game at a table. It's really been a good experience."
Leadership came from a large senior class
The 2022 season saw 18 seniors play their final game against Chadron State on Nov. 12. Flohr credits much of their success to that senior class. He said they did a good job of regrouping when they had some bumps in the road.
The Hardrockers never lost two games in a row during the season.
"Knowing that we couldn't change the past, we had to continue to focus on the future," Flohr said.
"Every week our kids showed up prepared and knew the preparation during the course of the week was ultimately going to be what the outcome was at the end of the game. For us to continue to show progress has a lot to say about the type of kids we have in a program, especially the 18 seniors and our Leadership Council, to keep our kids moving forward."
Much of the 18 seniors on this year's squad were recruited by Tinker's staff, although Flohr was able to bring in a few himself the last couple of years. Regardless of how they got to Mines, he said the team bonded well and especially connected as a senior class.
Flohr said the Mines coaching staff sat down in January with the seniors and talked about what they're going to need to do to continue the program moving forward in the right direction.
"When you go back and look at every good program, not only at the Division II level, but every successful program, a lot of them are player-led, and hopefully we're giving them the right tools as a staff to be successful," Flohr said. "I tried to give our kids as much of that as I possibly could. Those seniors did a great job of relaying a lot of the information that we felt we needed to do for the rest of our football team. We didn't have any issues. Our kids were responsible, and they were accountable. We got better every single day, and ultimately for a head football coach, that's something I want to see within our program."
Looking for more success
For Mines, reaching seven wins for the first time in 12 seasons and back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in over 38 years, it is a time to celebrate improvement. It's not a time to be satisfied and complacent with that improvement.
Although the Hardrockers lose a strong senior class, they return plenty of younger talent. Of the 22 starters on both sides of the ball from the final game against Chadron State, 13 return – seven on offense and six on defense.
"For the future teams, we still have a lot of young guys that have a lot of potential, which is huge, so that it's not just a big drop off after this year," Smith said.
Flohr said that every good corporation, every good business, and every good program wants to continue to be consistent. He said it's obviously harder to stay at the top than it is to get to the top. That is something they continue to educate their players on because they've continued to show progress within the last couple of years.
"You've got to be thirsty, you've got to be hungry for more, and we can't be stagnant of the things that we did," he said. "Just because we did these things this last year doesn't mean we're going to do the same things again next year. I think our program is a little bit more on the map for a lot of teams. They know that maybe we're not the old South Dakota Mines team from the past. That is something our kids have to understand every single day is we've got to show up, we've got to get better every single day and we have to continue to keep our standards high."
What are the Hardrocker standards? Flohr believes they are different now than they were before he got this job.
"That's what drives me every single day. I think that's what drives our kids every single day, to show up and continue to give their best knowing that they're still a lot more out there that we can accomplish," he said. "We have a lot of good players coming back. We have a lot of players who are still young, but they got good quality game experience this past season.
"What I'm really excited for is we're going to have a new group of leaders stepping up and being those leaders within each position group, as well as a football team. Now it's time for us to kind of reset the page and look forward to next year and use all of the things that we were able to accomplish last year to help motivate us for what we want to do moving forward."
Parts 1 and 2 as well as a season highlight video are posted below.
Part 1: The Season
Part 2: The Present
About South Dakota Mines
The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology is a member of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) and NCAA Division II offering 10 men's and women's varsity intercollegiate athletic programs. The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference is a premier NCAA Division II conference with 15 members, as well as four associate members, located in the states of California, Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah.
