Tate honored by SC Hall of Fame selection
By Chris Mangan
chris.mangan@capjournal.com
Published/Last Modified on Thursday, Feb 10, 2011 - 06:05:04 am CST
Even though he is in two other hall of fames -- Huron High School Hall of Fame and South Dakota Football Coaches Hall of Fame -- he still considers it an honor to be selected.
“It’s an honor, that’s the first thing that went through my mind,” Tate said. “When I look at the people that are in the Hall of Fame, a lot of them I had as athletes and they were tremendous athletes at Stanley County, there’s just a couple of other coaches, a couple of contributors. They all are tremendous people.
“Just to be included in that, I just felt that was a tremendous honor. It’s something I never thought about, to be honest with you. I’ve been there so many years and I work around those plaques every day, it just becomes second nature to see them and just to think I’m going to be sitting alongside those people, it makes me proud.”
Tate accomplished a lot on his time on the sideline for the Buffalo football team. He posted a 117-62 career record, appeared in five state championship games and won a state title in 1986. Even though he has the state title, that isn’t what he calls his most memorable moment.
“When you put in as many years as I did, there are a lot of memorable moments,” Tate said. “Anytime you win a state tournament that has to rank up there awfully high and it does. On the same token, here we were a 9-man school and took on some very, very good class 11B and class 11A teams. We just added a couple guys to the team and went into their hometown and beat them.
“There wasn’t any way we were getting those 11-man teams into our place and we went in and beat them on their own home field. Some of those wins I can remember better than a lot of the other ones.”
Being a football coach isn’t easy; it takes a toll on people. Coaches spend a lot of time preparing for their next game by watching film, breaking down the other team and how to exploit the opposition’s weakness. Not only does it take a toll on the coach, it takes a toll on their family.
“When I was coaching football, it took hours and hours. I was watching film after film after film,” Tate said. “It consumes you seven days a week. You have Saturdays and Sundays off but it was probably driving to pick up film on somebody.
“My kids, even though they were pretty young and even when they were junior high and high school, they knew how to break down a football tape just as well as I did because if they wanted to be around dad, all three of those girls had to sit down and watch football with him. They got pretty dang good at it.”