His Lessons Well-Learned Ewu’s Kramer Has Always Coached, But Had To Learn About Handling People

From the time he was a 6-year-old schoolboy, growing up on his family’s 800-acre wheat farm near Colton, Mike Kramer dreamed of being a college football coach.

His mother, Jan, tells how her son used chalk to diagram plays for him and his five brothers on the furniture in their home.

“The kid had a football imagination you wouldn’t believe,” she once told a Tacoma sportswriter. “He coached everybody.”

But when he was given his first college team at Eastern Washington University four years ago, Mike Kramer made the same mistake many young head coaches make. He treated it like a video game. And the only person he was about to trust with the joystick was Mike Kramer.

“Back in my youth, I couldn’t wait to become a college head coach so I could call my own plays,” Kramer admitted, “because you’re perceived, then, as being the hero. You’re involved in the dynamics of the game, you’re involved in the flow and you’re actually a participant in the outcome.

“In a certain sense I figured you’re not going to buy a Nintendo game and then let somebody else call the plays.”

So Kramer, after trying to stay the course set by his predecessor, Dick Zornes, and finishing a modest 4-7 in his first year at the reins in 1994, decided to put his personal touch on every aspect of the Eagles’ offense in 1995.

He named himself offensive coordinator, banishing longtime assistant J.D. Sollars to defense. He put himself in chsarge of analyzing opponents on video tape, formulating game plans, making most personnel decisions and calling every play.

He strapped on a pair of headphones so he could communicate from the sidelines with his assistants in the pressbox. But he seldom listened.

And the Eagles promptly finished 3-8, losing their last three games by an average of 31 points.

Stepping back was key to success

Kramer had failed to realize he was dealing with real people, not computer-generated images on a television screen. He stepped on several egos, including that of Sollars, and alienated most of his assistants - three of whom were still smarting from having been passed over for the head coaching job.

Kramer’s heavy-handed approach not only brought his team a couple of dreadful seasons, it nearly cost him his job.

But after meeting with school administrators and discussing possible solutions with Zornes, his old boss, Kramer decided to step back and take a look at the big picture of Eastern football. Only then was he able to admit that that picture was, indeed, bigger than Mike Kramer.

And that he needed to make some changes.

“If I had been bull-headed, I think we still would have been successful to a degree,” Kramer insisted. “We could have kept it going somehow, even if I had kept all the coaches in place the way they were.

“But there was absolutely nobody telling me that what I was doing was going to work.”

So Kramer humbly asked Sollars to switch sides of the football once more and resume the duties of offensive coordinator he had held from 1991-94. He reassigned second-year assistant Rick Redden from tight ends to defensive backs, and hired Rick Olson to coach the defensive line for defensive coordinator Jerry Graybeal, his former college teammate at Idaho State.

But perhaps the most important change Kramer made was to deep-six the headphones he had worn like a favorite hairpiece and take himself out of the play-calling loop.

“I knew I couldn’t stand pat, as much as I wanted to,” Kramer said. “As much as I believed I could make it work the way it was, I had to try something different.”

Two years later, conference champs

Kramer became an observer on the sideline and immersed himself with the broader duties of overseeing the entire program - from the types of kids it was recruiting to the way they were progressing as students and athletes.

He entrusted Sollars with devising offensive game plans and gave Graybeal free rein with the defense. And he made a point to stay out of their way unless they requested his help.

Since then, the Eagles have emerged as a power in the Big Sky Conference. They finished 6-5 last fall, losing close games to eventual playoff contenders Montana and Northern Arizona.

This year they went 10-1 to earn their first outright Big Sky championship and the automatic playoff berth that comes with it. On Saturday at 12:30 p.m., they face Northwestern State (8-3) in a first-round playoff game at Albi Stadium. It will be Kramer’s first as a head coach.

“It was a real soap opera,” he said earlier this week while looking back on his staggering start at Eastern. “I think every assistant coach has a blueprint as to how they’ll do things if they’re ever put in charge, and rather than be flexible or compromising I think most guys in their initial head coaching job are driven to get their own thoughts and ideas disproved before they’re willing to say, ‘You know, maybe there is another way.’

“In my enthusiasm, I may have overestimated the importance of doing everything my way. And it took me two years to realize that wasn’t going to work.”

End was near

Today, the scene on Kramer’s staff is much more serene. Sollars and Graybeal, while always competent in their roles as coordinators, now seem content. And Kramer is having a ball holding court with the media and building a resume that will probably land him a Division I-A job in the not-so-distant future.

The entire program has come a long way since that dismal day following the disastrous 1995 season when, in Kramer’s own words, “the president’s office was calling, and it wasn’t to wish me good luck.”

Looking back, Kramer isn’t sure how close he came to being fired. And he’s not sure he wouldn’t have welcomed the ax.

“I guess I was so shell-shocked I didn’t know what to think,” he said. “There was the dread that they might fire me, yeah, but then there would be relief in being able to do something different that would be a lot more positive than getting crushed every weekend, giving up all those points and having to stare at all those kids, their parents and my assistant coaches.”

Shortly after the meeting with administrators, Kramer met with Zornes - at their insistence.

“I think he was asked by our administration to take me by the hand and guide me,” Kramer said. “But the only thing he told me was that I was going to have to make some changes.”

Zornes provided assistance

Zornes, who had tried to distance himself from football after his bitter resignation, admits he was approached by the university’s brass to help put the program back on track.

“My feelings were it wasn’t the disaster that some people thought it was,” said Zornes. “Basically, I started meeting with Mike to talk about what was good and what was bad with the program.

“I told him I thought he was micro-managing too much, which you typically do when you’re a head coach. I might have helped a little bit, but to Mike’s credit, he also listened and made some key decisions himself.

“Mike’s always had great rapport with the media and great charisma with the general public - and that carries over into his recruiting. But he has also improved his management and delegation skills, which is what being a head coach is all about.

“The real job of a head college football coach is to make sure his staff is the best staff in the conference.

“And that’s what Mike has done.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: LOOKING BACK Mike Kramer’s record at Eastern Washington: Year Conf. Overall 1994 2-5 4-7 1995 1-6 3-8 1996 4-4 6-5 1997 7-1 10-1