Former SD high school football coach Kim Nelson's legacy is more than just wins and losses
In 2001, Matt Christensen was the captain of the Augustana football team and was eager to break into the high school football coaching ranks after graduation.
Kim Nelson, then head coach at Sioux Falls Washington, heard that Christensen wanted to get into coaching and told him to keep in touch.
Four years earlier, Christensen, a Yankton native, played for Nelson in the 1997 All-Star game. Even after only being coached by him for a short time, Christensen could tell Nelson was someone he didn’t want to disappoint, even if was just an All-Star game. So receiving that kind of praise from Nelson in 2001 changed the trajectory of his life.
“I remember that was just major,” Christensen said. “It was really cool to have his respect at the time.”
More: Kim Nelson, legendary South Dakota high school football coach, resigns from position at Roosevelt
In 2002, Christensen earned his first assistant coaching job with Parker Hurley and in 2003 he made the move to Brandon Valley, where he’s been ever since.
Nelson, a 45-year coach and the winningest coach in South Dakota high school football history, stepped down from his position as Roosevelt's coach Tuesday to pursue coaching at the college level. Although he’ll no longer be a part of the high school coaching ranks, he’s had an immeasurable impact on the coaches who are and the sport of football in South Dakota as a whole.
Nelson is a creative offensive mind. He brought an offense reminiscent of the Mike Leach air raid to South Dakota high school football with spread out formations and huge splits. He was one of the first in the state to run a spread passing and no-huddle offense and ran it effectively.
Nelson won a record 317 games throughout his 45-year career and a state championship with the Rough Riders in 2011, but most importantly, he made an impact on the kids who played for him and the coaches who worked with him.
“I don't remember a lot of games specifically or scores or anything like that. I just remember the people that I worked with and the kids that I coached,” Nelson said. “The wins are, it's kind of OK to figure that out, but it's really not why you coach … The relationships you establish and the people that you can maybe help, even a little bit, are much more important.”
Guiding the new generation of coaches
Vincent Benedetto’s first teaching and coaching job was at Roosevelt High School in 2017. He was hired as a social studies teacher and the new offensive line coach, working under Nelson. Benedetto said what he appreciated about working with Nelson was he always listened, and that he was always open to new ideas, which made assistants feel like they had some ownership in the program too.
After Benedetto’s first year coaching under Nelson, there were some head coaching openings in the area. He brought some of them up to Nelson to let him know he was thinking about applying and Nelson was nothing but supportive throughout the process.
Benedetto left Roosevelt to accept the head coach position at West Central in 2019.
Nelson also supported Jared Fredenburg, the defensive line coach under Nelson at Roosevelt before being promoted to defensive coordinator in 2012, when he was thinking about applying for the Lincoln football head coach position. But he wasn’t sure if he was ready to lead a program.
“A lot of head coaches are kind of, I don't know how supportive they are of losing one of the coordinators or whatnot, but he was very supportive,” Fredenburg said. “With Kim, he was very supportive and gave me some confidence that I was ready to take that step.”
Both Fredenburg and Benedetto used Nelson as a sounding board for ideas and viewed him as a mentor in their early years as head coaches, even after Benedetto made the move from West Central to Jefferson.
“I haven't been on his staff since 2018 and I'm obviously coaching at Roosevelt's rival school, but that hasn't changed our relationship,” Benedetto said. “I still look to him as a mentor, and I've still learned a lot from him.”
Fredenburg said he learned a lot from Nelson’s calm demeanor and has tried to mimic that in his own way, while Benedetto said he learned a lot about how to carry himself as a head coach by watching Nelson.
“The most important thing I learned from him is just (to) treat players with respect, treat coaches with respect, and being a good person is really the main job of being a high school head coach,” Benedetto said. “He put that on display every day.”
Benedetto and Fredenburg are just two of the many successful coaches from Nelson’s coaching tree, but it’s telling that in the past two years, two of Nelson’s former assistants have won the 11AAA state championship.
Jonathan Fernandez covers high school and college sports for the Argus Leader. Contact him at jfernandez1@argusleader.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JFERN31
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Kim Nelson's coaching legacy goes beyond SD high school football
