Abby alum coaches WFCA all-star game
It’s been many a long year since Ryan Karsten was last in Abbotsford, longer still since he was a student and member of the Abbotsford Falcons football team.
But as he tells it, he’s never forgotten the lessons he learned during his time as a Falcon, or the people who taught him.
“I had great role models when I went to Abbotsford, and had some really great coaches.”
Karsten says it was because of men like Reed Welsh, Gary Gunderson, Mitch Petrie, Jeff Salisbury and Ken Martine that he eventually got into coaching. And, in a roundabout way, it was coaching that brought him back to Abbotsford High for the first time in over 20 years.
Karsten’s return is his first since he graduated from Abbotsford High in 1993. The reason for his stop was to give his players a little rest before the WFCA All-Star game on July 16.
“I was telling the kids, I haven’t been in that building in over 20 years,” Karsten said as he gazed at the new facilities and the changes the last 30 years have brought to his alma mater.
Ryan also noted that the football field where today’s Falcons compete is far different than when he played at Red Arrow.
“Oh man, 30 years ago, we thought we were pretty cool playing on that because everyone else had Friday night lights,” he remembers. “We’d run out of the south doors by the commons, run through the pine trees like a bunch of savages. Playing football in Red Arrow 30 years ago was pretty cool.”
When asked about his own playing days, Karsten is frank and honest.
“I was a bench-warmer at best,” he says with a laugh. “I was a one-year starter. I was not a very good high school athlete.” Ryan says that while he was never athletically gifted, he was a keen student of the game. “I understood the game, and understood the X’s and O’s part,” Karsten says. “So that part drew me into coaching.” After graduating from Abbotsford High, Karsten attended UW-Oshkosh, majoring in elementary education. These days he’s a sixth, seventh and eighth grade math teacher with the Siren School District.
“That was my first place after I graduated from college. It’s been my only place teaching and coaching.”
Karsten is also the athletic director, head football and girls basketball coach. He’s closing in on 10 years as head coach of the Dragons football team, and 11 as head girl’s basketball coach.
Asked when he sleeps, Karsten chuckled and said, “I don’t, but that’s what caffeine and sugar are for.”
Karsten has had to adapt his playbook over the years, with Siren switching from 11-man to 8-man football about 10 years ago. Karsten said the switch was the best decision the district could have made.
“Due to numbers and school size, it was just not feasible to continue playing football against teams that were almost double our size. We decided to go 8-man, and it’s been a good adjustment.”
Karsten says far from a diminishment of the game, 8-man football actually highlights an athlete’s abilities.
“I truly believe you’ve got to be a better football player to play 8-man than 11man. In 11-man you have a safety over the top, or someone else to help you make a tackle. At 8-man, it’s such a wide open game that if you miss one tackle, he could go all the way to the endzone.”
Thankfully, Karsten has been blessed with superb athletes during his tenure as head coach, with multiple players going on to play college ball, or playing in the WFCA All-Star game.
Karsten says he drew on his time with Abbotsford and his mentors to help create a culture of success in Siren. Ryan says his coaches taught him more than just the X’s and O’s.
“Those guys really instituted stuff with me about how to be a leader of young men, life-lessons to teach, stuff like that,” he says. “I can still hearken back to my days, to halftime speeches that those guys gave. I still look up to them and talk to them to this day.”
Karsten brought Abbotsford’s culture with him to Siren, and he says he’s making a far bigger impact as a coach than he ever did as a player. With Karsten at the helm, the Dragons have gone 47-33, including four straight trips to the 8-man Jamboree, the post-season precursor prior to the WIAA adopting an official playoff format and state champion in 2019.
Ryan’s coaching success has led to several WFCA all-star games, both as an assistant and head coach.
“In 2017 I got asked to assist, and then the next year I was brought back in. Then in ’19, I was the head coach. In ’19, the game got called at halftime because of weather. Then in ’20, one of those assistants got the head coach job, and he brought me back, and we called it ‘unfinished business.’” Karsten says this year’s team put in an excellent effort, and he was proud of the way they held their own against what should have been a one-sided contest.
“On paper they had six all-state players and we had none. We lost a kid due to injury, my starting linebacker . . . and we kinda got in scramble mode. But it was a very competitive game, 35-16.”
Ryan said the end result wasn’t the important thing — it was the experience. Above all, Karsten says he was happy to make an impact that went beyond just the game of football — a lesson he learned during his time at Abbotsford.
“That was something that was always taught to us,” Ryan says. “And that’s what this is all about, getting the kids together, raising money for the Wisconsin’s Children Hospital. That’s the ultimate goal for the week, and I think we accomplished that.”
Ryan Karsten
GIVING BACK -Ryan Karsten takes time for a picture with his family, wife Tina, daughter Rudi and son ConLee after the 2019 WFCA all-star game. Karsten has used football to impact players, just as his coaches at Abbotsford shaped him.SUBMITTED PHOTO/RYAN KARSTEN
