Winona State's Sawyer will make this next season his last

Pat Ruff, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·3 min read

Apr. 26—Tom Sawyer announced to his players on Sunday that this coming fall would be his last season as Winona State University's head football coach.

Sawyer got those words out and immediately had to exit the room, he was so overcome with emotion.

Saying goodbye to something he'll have done for 25 years isn't easy, especially when you've enjoyed it and had as much success at it as Sawyer.

But at 61, Sawyer says it's time. He's actually been at WSU for a total of 43 years, first as a Warriors player, then a WSU football assistant, before taking the head-coaching job in 1996.

"It was hard to tell my staff that I was going to be done on Friday, and that was a precursor to meeting with the team on Sunday," Sawyer said. "That was the final piece of it. It's hard. You've got 43 years of emotions coming at you. To just walk away from it, that's not easy."

Sawyer is easily the most successful football coach WSU has had. He is 190-86 over 24 seasons, and has been named Northern Sun Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year five times — in 1997, 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2017.

Winona State is coming off an 8-4 season in 2019, and like all Division II programs, had its 2020 season shut down due to COVID.

Sawyer is anticipating a potentially special 2021 campaign, as WSU returns a team that is both experienced and infused with young talent.

He'd considered not coming back for this final year. But when close to 12 of his seniors from the 2019 team decided to come back and take advantage of an extra season granted to them due to COVID, Sawyer wanted to be a part of it.

"When all of those guys decided to come back for another year, I just said, 'If you're in, I am in,'" Sawyer said.

As much as it saddens Sawyer knowing this will be his final season at WSU, there are some things he's ready to move on from.

Among them is this being a virtual 365-days-per-year job.

He's not complaining that it turned into that, acknowledging that this is what being a head college football coach entails, with recruiting never ending.

But now in his 60s, Sawyer says that end of the job is better suited for a younger man.

"College football is a young-man's game," Sawyer said. "The schedule is just as tough when it's not the season as when it is the season. Football is a grind in the middle of winter, being gone recruiting 3-4 days per week. You're just not around, but that's just the nature of the job."

As much as Sawyer said he's always enjoyed the competition that comes with college football, he doesn't list it as his No. 1 thing.

Tops for Sawyer is the relationships he's built with players and fellow coaches over the years. That will be the ingredient he'll miss most.

"The daily interaction with the (players), the fun stuff you do with them," Sawyer said. "That's why I've always loved coming to work every day. I love that interaction with people."