West Central’s Steve Milder still going strong heading into 54th football season

Steve Milder will turn 74 years old in September. He’s weeks away from starting his 54th season as a football coach, his 48th at West Central High School in Maynard.

He has no plans on slowing down anytime soon.

“I retired 14 years ago,” he said last week. “... I really screwed up my wife’s schedule.”

That retirement didn’t last long, a matter of months actually.

“Things work better for her when I’m not in her hair all the time,” he said.

So he’s ready for another season of football, a game he said has “been good to me.” He’s been very good for football, too.

If you haven’t noticed, the calendar will flip to August later this week. It’s still July. It’s hot. It’s steamy.

But we’re in football season now.

The NFL started camps last week. College football kicked into gear a couple of weeks ago when the Big 12 held its annual media days in Dallas. The Big Ten did the same last week, in Las Vegas of all places. Other major conferences have held or are holding their media days, too.

The high school football season still is a couple of weeks away. This is the period after the state baseball and softball tournaments where the Iowa High School Athletic Association and the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union encourage students to take a break, take a vacation. Get away with no school activities allowed.

But it’s coming.

Teams with a Week 0 game can start practicing on Aug. 11. Week 0 games are Aug. 21.

Iowa State has a Week 0 game in Ireland, a mere 26 days from today.

So football is here and Milder is ready once again, with the same fire in his belly and that same determination to make his players not only better on the field, but better in life.

“When I'm not fired up to start, it's time to quit doing it,” Milder said in 2018.

He’s still fired up.

Like many of the best coaches, though, Milder is not just teaching technique and toughness. He’s teaching life skills. Notice it’s “teaching” and not “coaching.”

He’s seen a lot over the past five decades, and not just coaching the 11-player game for years before switching to 8-player in 2008.

“There’s a distraction that we didn’t have (before),” he said about all the social media, the constant videos streaming on our phones, tablets and TVs. “... we don’t see as many kids outside in the summer. That’s true throughout society.

“But they are still kids.”

And kids, he said, even when they resist a bit, still want to be taught, still want to be coached.

“They still like to compete,” he said “... If you don’t demand much you’re not going to get much.

“There’s something about working with kids, trying to get them to the highest level they can reach.”

Milder said there is too much specialization, too, although that’s really not an option at schools like West Central. Years ago, his goal was to have 10 boys per class — freshman, sophomore, junior, senior — on his roster. With an enrollment just north of 60 students last year, that goal has dropped to six per class.

He said he one year there weren’t even six boys in one class.

“You take what you’ve got and you coach the kids up,” he said. “You take the kids and you do the best you can with them.

“At a school like ours, we can plan ahead. But one injury can totally revamp what you do ... you have to find a way.”

Milder is coming off a summer filled with football and other duties. He said his players played some 5-on-5 — “you can’t really ever walk away from it” — and he still is getting emails as the West Central activities director.

“I’m not the AD,” he said but is filling in — for the third time — while the school finds a permanent AD.

He still works as a counselor in the school system, three-quarters time so he can have breakfast and lunch with his wife. He still teaches a few classes at Northeast Iowa Community College, something he has done for the last 20 years.

It’s all about education — on and off the field.

“I don’t know when the end is,” he said.

Hopefully no time soon.

Comments: (319) 398-5861; jr.ogden@thegazette.com