9/5 football: Kravik makes sure football is fun for Bangor

By TODD SOMMERFELDT / tsommerfeldt@lacrossetribune.com

BANGOR — Coaches coach because of their love for a particular sport.

For some, the desire to win is reflected through a stressed demeanor that seems to bury that love below the surface.

For Kevin Kravik, the passion he holds for any sport he enjoys — football, track and field, bowling and fishing to name a few — is proudly on display. His wife, Roxanne, sometimes hears Kravik’s passion for football from their home near Bangor High School.

“There have been times,” the Bangor defensive coordinator said with a smile, “when

I’ve come home from a morning practice and my wife asks me why I was yelling at so-and-so.

“She says she can hear me from the practice field sometimes.”

But Kravik’s yelling is rarely without some form of positivity. In fact, his ability to keep the mood of everyone around him light might make just as much of an impact on the Cardinals as his extensive coaching history has.

“That’s just my personality,” Kravik said. “I don’t want to call it care-free, because I care, but I want the kids to enjoy football and be enthusiastic about football.

“I just like to have fun and laugh while we do that.”



The plan, which also included spicing up conditioning practices with interesting competitions, is working.

Matt Christopherson and Justin Pfaff won one of those competitions: a tandem piggy-back race that included a 20-yard sprint for each of them with the other on his back.

“He always makes practice fun,” Christopherson said of Kravik, also a history teacher and girls track and field coach at Sparta High School. “He’s a good coach.”

Kravik, a former football player and pole vaulter at UW-L, has had plenty of chances to work at that. He’s been through two tenures as an assistant coach at Sparta and was the head coach at Bangor from 1994 through 1997.

Transitioning back into the role of an assistant coach after leading the Cardinals to 21 wins over four years, he said, wasn’t easy.

Going from the man in charge back to being one of the charges took some time to get used to when he became the defensive coordinator for Larry Severson’s first staff at Sparta in 2005.

After two years of coaching with Severson, Kravik decided he’d had enough. But after he stepped down, Kravik received an offer he couldn’t refuse from Rick Muellenberg.

“I wasn’t going to coach, and then Rick called me up,” said Kravik, who grew up in Deerfield, Wis. “One of his coaches left to become assistant principal at Eau Claire Memorial.”

What was initially temporary became more permanent after one season because it’s worked out so well. Kravik’s addition to the staff has made a happy man of Muellenberg.

“I completely trust him with the defense,” Muellenberg said. “That’s good for me because then I can really concentrate on the offense.”

Kravik trusts that his methods can bring out the best in the players surrounding him, too.

“They just want to be treated like human beings,” Kravik said of his players. “That’s what I do with them.”