Golden Eagles | Field 2 Field

College football recruiting is quite a process, both for players and coaching staffs. A Spring Grove, Minnesota, high school standout had played his first year of college ball for the University of Minnesota-Crookston and very unexpectedly found himself going through the process a second time. Here’s what it looked like when the news first broke late last year.

Spring Grove native Alex Folz enjoyed a successful first season of college football at the University of Minnesota-Crookston in 2019. After getting significant playing time as a freshman for the NCAA Division 2 level Golden Eagles, Folz was into offseason workouts and studies when he got the news that no college athlete expects. He wouldn’t be playing football for Crookston again.

The school had decided to ax its football program due to “budget concerns.” Folz was left without a team to play for, decided to open himself up to the college football recruiting process once again, and found a new team to play for. This time around, it’s going to be a much-bigger road trip from Spring Grove to his new home. The Spring Grove high school standout is now a member of the Eastern New Mexico State University Greyhounds football team. Why decide to join the team in Portales, New Mexico?

“The first few days of looking for colleges generated some interest from NAIA schools, NCAA Division 3 schools, but nothing that big,” Folz recalled. “I had a couple of offers from NCAA Division 2 schools in southern states like West Virginia. I sent some film out to Eastern New Mexico and by the fourth day of my college football recruiting process, the head coach (Kelley Lee) sent me an email saying he loved my film and thought I’d be a good fit there.

Spring Grove native Alex Folz, shown here as a freshman playing for the University of Minnesota-Crookston, found himself going through college football recruiting for a second time after Crookston decided to cut it’s football program after the 2019 season. (Contributed photo)

“Coach said they might even have opportunities for me to do more things than just offense, which I loved doing at Spring Grove and did at Crookston,” he added. “The recruiting coordinator called to talk to me, and they eventually gave me a pretty nice scholarship.”

He began to look into the team and program, including their facilities and liked what he saw. Folz said the multiple coaches he talked to “seemed nice.” Appropriately enough for the social media age, Folz followed several of the Greyhounds’ players on Twitter, who all seemed to enjoy what they were doing down in New Mexico.

“I thought to myself ‘is this what I really want?’,” he recalled with a laugh. “Minnesota is great, and I have family here, but it’s got to be nice to live in warmer weather and get out to explore the U.S. a little bit.”

Folz admits that the whole “re-recruiting” process ended a little quicker than he thought it would.

The highly decorated high school player had a successful first year with the Crookston program, more so on a personal level than in terms of team success (0-11). He felt the team had something building as a member of a large recruiting class for the Northern Sun Conference school. The team was doing offseason conditioning work when they got notified of an “emergency team meeting” out of the blue.

“I’d just finished class and was sitting with one of my roommates when he got a phone call saying a friend had heard the football team was getting cut,” Folz said. “The friend on the phone knew someone at St. Cloud State that had a meeting at the same time and their program also got cut. We initially thought it was just rumors and nothing like that would happen.”

However, after scrolling through social media reports and other online articles, Folz and his teammates slowly started to think there might well be bad news coming. A lot of his teammates had no idea what they were going to do if it was true because this was the only place they could play while going to school.

“Our coaches came into the meeting room and sat at the back, which is not something they normally do,” he recalled. “The Chancellor (Mary Holz-Clause) stepped up to the microphone and told us she was sorry we had to find out the way we did because they wanted to news to come straight from the administration. She also said, ‘as of today, we’re cutting the football program.’

“You could see it in the faces of every guy in the room,” Folz added. “The look in their eyes said, ‘are you kidding me?’”

What Folz didn’t appreciate was the fact that Holz-Clause told the team they’ve been trying to cut the football team for the previous 18 months. “That’s what got me,” he said emphatically. “Our coaches found out just ten minutes before she told us (on Dec. 10). Why couldn’t they have told us as soon as the season ended (Nov. 16)?”

That meant more than 60 players had to find new colleges by spring. That’s when coaches typically want their new players enrolled so they can get to know the team and practice in the spring. That left them less than a month to find a new home.

And, the school wasn’t prepared to offer a lot of extra help to the students. Folz said athletes who had questions could ask and they’d try to assist them. However, the former Golden Eagle football players were on their own in the college football recruiting process.

From a personal perspective, Folz was disappointed because he had a successful freshman season.

Spring Grove, Minnesota, native Alex Folz is shown here carrying the ball for the University of Minnesota-Crookston football team. Crookston decided to cut its program after the 2019 season, forcing Folz to undergo college football recruiting a second time. (Contributed photo)

“I started the season playing on all four of the special teams’ units,” he said. “I was also a running back. As the season went on, I took over the punting job, returned kicks, and was on the punt return and kickoff teams. Halfway through the season, I moved from running back to slot receiver just because their numbers were low at the position.”

The former high school quarterback also took snaps as the backup quarterback in practice, just in case of an emergency.

The biggest adjustment to college sports came in the classroom. He said Friday and Saturday were his busiest days for football. “That meant you couldn’t be as much of a typical college kid the rest of the week,” he said. “You really have to take your time to study and get your homework done. When all that’s done, you still have to pay attention to the game of football. It’s a big time-balancing exercise.”

Folz is heading out for New Mexico on Jan. 8, will move into his apartment, and then have a couple of days to adjust to the new surroundings. School starts on Jan. 13. Folz is leaving familiar surroundings and heading almost 1,150 miles from home. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks about the distance?

“I’m really excited,” he said after some thought. “I’ve always wanted to get out and see the country. The only thing I’m nervous about is meeting new teammates. We had a close brotherhood at Crookston. I felt as though I could have gone to any of the players or coaches with anything. I’m hoping all those guys down there will be the same way and I’m sure they will.

“We all just want to play football,” he said with a laugh.

By Chad Smith

The University of Minnesota-Crookston baseball team describes itself as “gritty, not pretty.” Whatever they’d like to call themselves, it’s working. In spite of the challenges that come with a small-college program, the Golden Eagles won 14 of their first 22 games. Eagles head coach Steven Gust said they’re playing some pretty good baseball in spite of fielding a young roster this spring.

“We’re getting the job done,” he said with a smile visible through the phone. “it’s been a bit of a surprise because we lost key contributors from last year’s team. However, we’re finding ways to win in spite of that.

Steven Gust is the head coach of the University of Minnesota-Crookston baseball team. (Photo from goldeneaglesports.com)

“We aren’t going to overpower people on the mound this season,” he said. “Our best kid from last year, Zach Seipel, got drafted by the Atlanta Braves. That’s good news but he was only a junior, so we did expect him back this year. The kids we do have back are doing a good job of filling the strike zone, mixing their speeds, and are attacking hitters.”

The first player drafted

Getting a player drafted into Major League Baseball is a feather in the cap of any program. However, it’s an even bigger feather for a small school like Minnesota-Crookston because he was the first Golden Eagle ever picked in the MLB draft. What makes it an even better story is the young man didn’t originally come in to pitch for the Golden Eagles.

“I saw him as a catcher in legion baseball,” Gust recalled. “I thought he had a pretty decent arm behind the plate. I wasn’t sure about his hitting, but good defensive catchers can be hard to find. It was one of my first years coaching and our pitching was thin. We needed someone to pitch the end of a scrimmage and he volunteered after pitching just nine total innings in high school.”

Gust said, “The ball jumped out of Zach’s hand and he was around the zone. After that, we told him to sell his catcher’s glove and he became our closer. He left here throwing a 93-94 mile-per-hour fastball. He’s a great kid and he’s only going to get better as a player.”

The University of Minnesota-Crookston was understandably excited when Zach Seipel became the first Golden Eagle drafted by a Major League Baseball team. He went to the Atlanta Braves in the 27th round and head coach Steven Gust said he expects Zach to do well and move up the chain. (Photo from goldeneaglesports.com)

Getting a player drafted is big milestone considering that before Gust and the current staff arrived, the Golden Eagles had won just two of their previous 100 games. Literally, the team was 2 and 98 before Gust showed up.

Building a program

“We were fortunate to add some good players to some really good-character kids that were already here,” Gust said, “and they all bought in right away. There are so many pieces to the puzzle when you’re trying to build a program like Minnesota-Crookston.

“The pieces include working on facilities and trying to get the highest quality you can,” he added. “You have to find good assistant coaches that don’t mind working for literally nothing other than their passion for the game. We also don’t have a lot of scholarships to offer, so that’s not a strength either.”

When Gust took over the program, there were 18 Golden Eagles on the roster. Now, in spite of some limitations that come with smaller-school athletics, they currently have 46 players on the roster. They recruit primarily in Minnesota and North Dakota. They’ll include a few kids out of Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota as well.

“The majority of our kids come in from our backyard,” he said. “We’ve created some excitement in the area by bringing in a lot of familiar players. The attendance and support from the community have been great. We’re just trying to do the little things that maybe one day will allow us to start thinking about winning a championship.

“We don’t have any 5-tool recruits,” Gust added. “We’re getting better players who happen to be good students as well. Our team GPA in the fall was 3.3, which is almost unheard of. We’re looking for guys who might have a little chip on the shoulder because they weren’t recruited by some of the bigger schools. They’ll have a passion for what they’re doing out there on the field.”

Gust added, “There’s no way I could run a program if I didn’t have a great group of people around me.”

Weather is a challenge

Like most schools in the north, the weather is always a challenge to deal with. Gust said one of the biggest goals for all the Crookston programs is to get a covered practice facility. What really hurts the team is not being able to get outside much early in the season to get some much-needed practice in. Gust says, “I think that’s coming here at Minnesota-Crookston, it’s just a matter of when.”

The Eagles team is basically brand-new this season. They graduated a lot of seniors from last spring’s squad. Last year, Crookston won 24 baseball games, but Gust said they were “disappointed” because they thought they were headed back to the postseason tournament. However, it didn’t happen.

“We have several junior college players on the roster this spring,” Gust said. “Sometimes, it’s hard for Junior College players to buy in when they come to a four-year school. However, our guys seem to have bought in right away. We’ve found ways to get things done so far in spite of facing some really good pitching in the first three weeks of the conference season.”

NSIC a solid conference

From top-to-bottom, the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference is one of the best Division Two conferences in the country. For example, they have the defending national champion Augustana (Sioux Falls, SD) Vikings as a member of the conference.

“Minnesota-State Mankato is always good,” Gust said. “Concordia-St. Paul has some really solid arms this season. St. Cloud State might be the team to beat. Even the teams that have been on the bottom over the past few years have gotten better. Teams like the University of Mary (Bismarck, ND) and Minot State (Minot, North Dakota) are among the teams taking steps forward.”

Even before they got going in their conference schedule, Crookston headed south to play some very good non-conference squads. They started off their season with perennial power Central Missouri State. Gust said people told him he was crazy to play them. However, he did see some good things in spite of losing to CMS.

“I thought a lot of good things came out of playing tough competition like that,” he said. “I saw signs that we could be a pretty good team. We also went down to Florida to play some really tough teams too. I think our non-conference schedule really prepared us well to do some good things in the conference.”

Tag: Golden Eagles

Minnesota-Crookston baseball – “Gritty, not pretty”