Kramer carries on
BOZEMAN – Former Montana State football coach Mike Kramer, who was fired in May, said he’s spent the past few months helping his mother with the family farm and looking for work.
“I’ve been in Bozeman three days since I was let go,” he said.
Kramer plans to be in Bozeman this weekend to watch his daughter, Gretchen, play volleyball at Bozeman High School.
The Montana State football team, meanwhile, will be at Eastern Washington. It’ll be the first time Kramer hasn’t been a part of the MSU-EWU game since 1988.
Kramer, who coached at EWU before taking the MSU job, said he’s “ecstatic” that the Bobcats are off to a 4-1 start.
“I knew they’d be that good.”
But the memories, and his firing after the arrest of a fifth former player within a year in May, make it too difficult to return.
“I don’t think I’ll ever go to a Bobcat game again,” he said. “I don’t think that’s in the cards.”
The past 15 months have been difficult for Kramer.
His father, Dan, died in July 2006, leaving Mike’s mother, Jan, now 76, to look after the farm in Colton, Wash.
Then in December, just days after leading Montana State to its best season in 22 years, Kramer interviewed for the head coaching job at Idaho, his alma mater, for the second time in less than a year. But the same week drug charges were filed against Andre Fuller and former players Eddie Sullivan and Derrick Davis, leading Kramer and Idaho athletics director Rob Spear to mutually agree that Kramer should stay at MSU.
When former wide receiver Ricky Gatewood was arrested on drug charges in May, Kramer was fired.
“The story of my life the last 400 days has been incredible,” Kramer told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on Tuesday. “I don’t think anyone would want to believe it or live it.”
Since his firing, Kramer said he has received constant support from fellow coaches.
“The leading guy, other than (former MSU assistants) Don Bailey and Rob Christoff, has been (Montana coach) Bobby Hauck. They’ve all been just fabulous.”
Kramer said he has put 4,000 miles on his car over the past two weeks visiting various colleges in the West, hoping to find another coaching job. Next he plans to head south, and possibly to the Midwest.
“I’m just trying to market myself the best way I know how,” he said. “My heart is with the kids who are transitioning from high school to adulthood.”
Kramer said there were no jobs available at the time he was fired and replaced by former Drake coach Rob Ash.
“The only position available was at Drake, and I didn’t have the confidence at the time to get a job as a dog catcher.”
Kramer said his most likely next move is to become an assistant coach, he hopes at the Division I level.
“It’s where my heart and my guts are,” he said.