Fridley resigns from Dickinson State

• Guy Fridley

Guy Fridley resigned as coach of the Dickinson State women's basketball and softball teams Monday to become South Heart High School's secondary principal and athletic director.
• Guy Fridley coaching softball

Courtesy Photo by Lenny Gemar Guy Fridley, middle, announced Monday that he was resigning as head coach of Dickinson State’s softball and women’s basketball teams to become the secondary principal and atheltic director at South Heart High School. Fridley spent seven years as softball coach and three as women’s basketball coach, helping both teams reach national prominence.

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The coach who built one program and turned around another at Dickinson State has resigned.

Guy Fridley, who coached the DSU softball and women’s basketball teams to national prominence in the NAIA, resigned from the university Monday to become the secondary principal and athletic director at South Heart High School.

Fridley said being the head coach of two sports affected his personal and family life and heavily influenced his decision to take the administrative position.

“It came to that point where, ‘Am I going to miss coaching, or am I going to miss my kids grow up?’ ” Fridley said. “I’m at ease with that decision.”

Fridley spent seven seasons as the Blue Hawks’ head softball coach and was the women’s basketball coach for three seasons.

Fridley compiled a 219-85 record as DSU’s softball coach. Under his guidance, the Blue Hawks won the past four Dakota Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles and reached the past three NAIA national tournaments. This year, DSU went as far as the national semifinals.

While he was establishing solid footing with the softball program, Fridley wasted little time turning the DSU women’s basketball team into a contender.

After taking over the team prior to the 2006-07 season, Fridley endured two struggling seasons — the Blue Hawks had a combined 13-44 record — before building a team that won both the DAC regular season and conference tournament titles.

The Blue Hawks’ breakout 2008-09 season eventually ended in the Elite Eight round of the NAIA Division II tournament. They finished 26-7 overall.

Both DSU’s softball and women’s basketball teams will likely be ranked high in national preseason polls. Each returns several starters and experienced players.

“It was a gut-wrenching decision,” Fridley said. “I certainly enjoy every one of those kids that I coached.”

Fridley’s departure leaves DSU with two coaching vacancies to fill less than a month before the fall semester begins. DSU athletic director Roger Ternes said decisions could be made as early as today as to how the school plans to pursue hiring new coaches.

“It makes me anxious,” Ternes said, “especially because you want to give both the returning and the new players some comfort level that the job is going to be in new hands, that kind of thing.

“As much as anything, you want to make sure you’re taking care of the young ladies who’ll be part of the program. … If there’s a sense of urgency, that’s where it’ll be.”

Fridley informed returning members of the softball and women’s basketball teams of his decision with a mass text message.

It read, “Hey All. I will be calling you all the next couple of days about my situation. I just resigned as coach. I will fill you in when I call you.”

DSU junior Kelsey Boedeker, an all-DAC guard on the women’s basketball team, is in Arizona on vacation and said the text shocked her.

“I didn’t know what to say,” Boedeker said. “At first my reaction was kind of upset and angry and the more I got to thinking about it, I knew coach had to do what is best for him and his family.”

Fridley and his wife Amber have two young children, 4-year-old Amy and Paxton, who will be 1 year old on Aug. 8.

“It’s been tough,” Fridley said. “You can go ask any coach’s wife, it’s not the easiest. My wife has been extremely supportive of what I’m doing. I’ve not only seen the wear and tear it takes on me, but I’ve seen the wear and tear it took on my family.”

Fridley, who earned his Master’s in Sports Management online from Nova Southeastern University (Florida) in 2007, said moving to the administrative side of education was the next step he had hoped to take in his career, even though it came a little sooner than he expected.

He added that he does not plan to do any coaching at South Heart, whose teams combine with Belfield in athletics to form the Heart River Cougars co-op.

Nonetheless, Fridley will be amongst familiar faces — including one he saw nearly every day during his time as DSU women’s basketball coach.

Ashley Emmons, an all-DAC guard and the heart of the Blue Hawks the past three seasons, was recently named Heart River’s varsity girls basketball coach.

Emmons said her feelings were torn when she first learned of Fridley’s decision. While she was happy Fridley would be her new boss, she was sad that her friends and former teammates are now without a coach.

“I’m thrilled because I’m going to love working for him and staying in touch with him, but I feel horrible for those girls,” Emmons said. “… He left that program better than it’s been in years. He left it at one of the best seasons, so anybody that comes in, it’s going to be an easy job for them.”

Ternes said Fridley had informed him he was applying for the position in South Heart and the two had held extensive discussions about the direction Fridley hoped to take his career.

“Was I blindsided or anything like that? No. We’ve been sharing what his long-term goals were,” Ternes said. “You never want to lose somebody of his quality, but you knew his training and his education was going to lead him in that direction.”

Quality was one of the main characteristics associated with Fridley’s teams.

As a softball coach, he had nine All-Americans and put 38 different players on the all-DAC team, five of whom were the named conference’s most valuable player. Last season, Kia Herbel became Fridley’s first — and now it appears, only — women’s basketball All-American.

He was named DAC softball coach of the year four times and earned the honor as women’s basketball coach last season.

The North Dakota Associated Press Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association honored both the DSU softball and women’s basketball teams as College Female Teams of the Year this summer. It’s the third consecutive year the softball team has won the award. Along with that, Fridley earned College Female Team Coach of the Year, an honor he earned for softball in 2007.

Fridley, a Watford City native and the son of legendary high school football coach and Dickinson native Fred Fridley, came to DSU as a student-athlete in 1998 after attending Williston State College for two years. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2001.

Fridley worked as an assistant men’s basketball coach for six seasons under head coaches Tim Daniel and Scott Berry, beginning as a student assistant in the 2000-01 season.

“Dickinson State has certainly been very, very good to me,” Fridley said. “It’s been a great place to me and my family to call home. The opportunity to go be a coach there has been great. I can’t ask for anything different than the opportunity I had there.”

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