November 30, 2018 at 2:18 p.m.
The sport was secondary
Millot reflects on tenure as RHS soccer coach that brought with it success, challenges, memories and life lessons
The sport was secondary
On this night he was ready to answer a few questions, just not about the numbers that make up a coach's resume. He doesn't remember what year he took over the program - he thinks it was 1995 or '96 - and couldn't cite his career record.
"I don't care about stats," he was quick to admit. "I couldn't even tell you what our record was this year with the boys (it was 8-6-3). Those things, they don't interest me."
What interested Millot was building programs that lived up to the team's slogan, "committed to excellence," be it excellence on the field, in the classroom or within the community.
"I want people to look at this soccer program as a program that earned the respect - earned the respect of the community, earned the respect of the conferences that we played in and really does have a lot of respect around the state of Wisconsin," he said. "People know, when they read Rhinelander on a schedule, they know that we're going to step on the field, play anybody and compete."
Truth be told, the coach doesn't need to discuss his record because it speaks for itself. Millot guided the Hodags to two WIAA state tournament appearances, four other trips to the sectional finals and 12 Great Northern Conference championships between the boys' and girls' programs.
After making his intentions known, Millot is preparing for the next chapter of his life, which he hopes will include more travel and more time with family. But, on this night, he's eager to take a step back and consider the legacy he and his soccer teams will leave behind.
"To sit down and talk about the last 20 years, I can't even think of everything that happened in the last 20 years," he said. "It's a book that has a lot of chapters. Every season really was a different chapter. You had different challenges. You definitely had highs and lows in each one of the seasons."
The beginning
Millot admits he didn't know exactly what he was getting himself into when former Rhinelander High School AD Tom Shafranski, now an executive with the WIAA, approached him about becoming the head coach of the school's newest varsity program.
After a few years as a club endeavor, the Rhinelander girls' soccer program was moving up to varsity. Shafranski, who coached eighth-grade boys' basketball with Millot at the time, said he should consider the position.
"He knew I had some knowledge of the game. One thing led to another," Millot said.
A few months later, he would take over the boys' program as well, after his predecessor was forced out due to what he characterized as parental pressure. Millot did not exactly receive a warm greeting.
"There were people in that group that were adamantly opposed to me being hired as the guys' coach," Millot said, noting some went as far as writing a letter to the editor against his hiring. "They had other people in mind they wanted to take over that position."
A trip to the sectional finals in that first season seemed to quiet the naysayers and Millot became a fixture on the sidelines for the next two decades.
Becoming "Hodag Strong"
Millot is the first to admit that he could not have built the Hodag soccer program into what it has become without plenty of assistance. The saying, "It takes a village," could not ring more true in this instance.
First, there needed to be a foundation from the youth level on up. That was established by the Rhinelander Soccer Club.
"The Rhinelander Soccer Club has been phenomenal as far as what they've done for youth soccer in our community," he said. "It's a group of volunteers doing their best to try to put a quality youth organization in our community. They strive every year to improve and make it better."
Then there's the litany of assistant coaches who have been with the program over the last two decades, all of whom Millot said were fantastic, whether they were with the team for a year or several.
Some went on to be head coaches themselves. Amber Laggis was an assistant for both the boys' and girls' teams before eventually taking over the RHS boys' and girls' swim programs - a position she held for eight years. Rodney Sternhagen was an assistant under Millot before heading back home to Northland Pines, where he spent a season as head girls' hockey coach.
Then there's Richard Kotula, who's been on the sideline with Millot for more than a decade. Millot calls Kotula his right-hand man.
"He's to the point to where he really knows what I'm thinking," Millot said. "Without even asking, he knows that I need things done. Or I'll ask him to do certain things and he'll do it without question."
The club and the assistant coaches helped develop talent for the varsity ranks. From there, Millot said he tried to instill in his players the ethos that while winning is important, there's so much more to sports than the numbers on scoreboard at the end of the game.
"The sport, in itself, is secondary," he said. "As a coach, I believe it's our responsibility, more so than anything else, to teach these kids, educate them about life, make them good citizens who can contribute to society when they graduate, help them make good decisions."
Watching his players excel on the field, in the classroom and in the community was all part of another slogan the team adopted over the past few years, "Hodag strong."
"When you talk about strength, we're really talking about the inter-strength of the mind and the heart and the integrity you hope that all of us can represent - not only the players, but the staff, our community," he said.
All in the family
Millot had the opportunity to coach all three of his children - Brennan, Gabbe and Gunnar - during his career. All three excelled on the field and the two eldest, Brennan and Gabbe, went on to play collegiately at the Division II level.
He called the experience a mixed blessing, as it put both he and his children under a microscope.
"People are always wondering if you're showing favoritism to your own kids," he said. "I'll never forget the backlash I got when I put Brennan, my oldest son, on varsity as a freshman. That wasn't really heard of too often. A few coaches had done it before me but, for the most part, you had a lot of kids out, so varsity teams were pretty much junior- and senior-laden. It only took one game for Brennan to play in, against I believe it was D.C. Everest, for people to realize, 'Yeah, that kid belongs where he's playing.'"
The Millots set rules about the relationship - Dan was coach on the practice and game field, and dad off of it. That usually worked.
"Gabbe, well, she had her sparkling personality," Millot joked. "Sometimes she'd feel that I wasn't listening to her and it was, 'Coach. Coach. Dad!'"
Then there w Lauri, Dan's wife, who was quick to step in and mediate, if necessary, when the lines blurred.
"Lauri did a great job of protecting the kids from me. I say that in a light-hearted way, kind of a good-cop, bad-cop type thing," he said. "She'd make sure I wasn't overplaying the kids or whatever. She'd send messages to me by phone, when that was OK, or she'd have someone come around and say, 'Hey, Lauri says, get your kid out of the game.'"
Coaching puts a strain on a family, with the amount of time required outside the school day between practices and games. For Millot, that strain was multiplied at least twice - and some years three times. There was a period, during the early 2000s, when he was simultaneously the head RHS boys' soccer, girls' basketball and girls' soccer coach.
Coaching his kids helped close the gap a bit, but Millot admits that too often over the past two decades it was sport first, family second.
"My family sacrificed a lot," he said. "If there's a single biggest regret that I have over my tenure as a coach it was the decisions I made at the time not to spend more time with my family, when I was in control of certain parts of the schedule.
"In the end, I wouldn't be the coach or the person I am today if it wasn't for the support of Brennan, Gabbe and Gunnar, and Lauri. I think it goes without saying, if you don't have the support of your family, I don't think you can be a successful coach."
The state years
There was perhaps no more poignant juxtaposition of sport and family for the Millots than the 2015 WIAA Division 2 girls' soccer state semifinal against Green Bay Southwest.
The 1-0 loss it still a sore subject because of the way it went down. Gabbe Millot - who led the state with 50 goals scored that year - was disqualified midway through the second half of her final high school game after picking up her second yellow card of the match for dangerous play.
"When we go back and look at the film of that game, nobody in that game deserved a red card," Dan Millot said, reflecting on the match. "There were probably some yellow cards that could have been given, both ways, in that game. Gabbe, being our No. 1 player at the time, was literally getting the crap kicked out of her. You saw some discrepancies. Again, I'm probably biased, but this is us looking back at (the game film) months after the fact, a little bit more objectively."
"It hurt. You don't want anybody's career to end the way that ended ... Whether it would have been Gabbe or not, you look at an athlete of that caliber where you put in that kind of time and effort to master your game and get to that point, and to have it end like that, all you can do is feel for the kid."
It was a sour end to what were otherwise the two most successful years in Hodag soccer history. Rhinelander went 38-8-4 over the 2014 and 2015 seasons and twice defeated River Falls in the sectional finals to reach the state tournament. The Hodags' trips to Milwaukee were the first in a WIAA-sanctioned sport without an individual component for Rhinelander since the Hodag baseball team made it to state in 2003.
"I think it was great for the program and I also think it was great for the school and the community," Millot said. "I think the two biggest things are that the team played as a team, they understood roles and responsibilities and I think, that being said, it was a good ride."
A record of success
Rhinelander's move to the Great Northern Conference, starting in the 2010-11 school year, brought with it plenty of success. Millot's girls teams have gone 82-4-3 in that span - including a 49-game unbeaten streak at one point - while his boys' sides were 70-10-10.
In that time, the Hodags had nine conference offensive players of the year, five defensive player of the year and Millot has been voted conference coach of the year three times (the GNC has not awarded a girls' coach of the year since 2013 and has inconsistently voted for a boys' coach of the year).
Just because Rhinelander went from being a small fish in the larger Wisconsin Valley Conference pond to the big fish in the smaller GNC pond did not guarantee success. Millot said his players had to go out and earn it every practice, every game and every offseason.
"Everybody looks at, 'Oh, you moved down a division, so Rhinelander should win everything now.' Well, that's not the case," he said. "You still have to have athletes that work hard, can compete, that know the game, and I think that's the hardest thing for some parents to accept. They're just not going to step on the field and win. There has to be work.
"Part of that is that I've had a lot of players that have worked in the offseason. The other thing is my whole philosophy that we're not going to underestimate anybody. We have to go out there and give 100 percent. I just demand that from the kids."
Coaching style
Demanding is one word some players, parents and even a few referees could have used to describer Millot's personality on the sideline, especially early in his career.
"I was called a slave driver because I demanded that the kids worked, and the girls did," he said, recalling his first girls' season. "They really worked. There's something to be said about 20 years (ago). The athletes back then, I'm not saying athletes today don't work hard, but what I put those athletes through when I first started coaching, I'd get some emails from teachers saying, 'Your players are falling asleep in class. They are having trouble climbing stairs.' We were working hard."
Intense would be another way to describe Millot as, for the 90 minutes his team was on the pitch, getting the win was job one.
"I don't think I ever denied that," Millot said. "I always told parents and kids that I really hate to lose more than I like to win. I think when you have that mentality, you're just driven to make sure you're on top."
That side of Millot softened a bit over the years. With age and experience came patience and perspective.
"The intensity that you see today is nothing that you saw 20 years ago," he said. "I've mellowed out over the years. It comes to the point where you have to realize that you have to direct your energy in positive ways in the right places. For me, it was more or less, of going back to the old adage you can control what you can control and deal with the unexpected."
Fond memories
There are plenty of games and memories that stick out for Millot during his tenure on the Hodag sidelines. He still recalls shrugging off how his first boys' team lost a sectional final game to Hudson on penalty kicks after a senior, who confidently said he could make the pressure-packed kick as the team's first shooter in sudden death, sent a shot sailing well over the crossbar.
He also recalls the Hodag girls' upsetting then second-ranked Oshkosh West 1-0 back in the late 1990s, despite being outshot by a 54-1 margin.
There are have been plenty of triumphs and heartbreaks over the years, but the games that seem to resonate the most are the ones Millot can reminisce about with his former players.
One such game was a girls' contest at D.C. Everest in 2007. In that game, goalkeeper Val Osterman was red-carded after literally tackling a D.C. Everest player on a breakaway just past the 20th minute, but the Hodags were able to steal a one-goal win despite playing more than two-thirds of the match a player down.
Jenna VandenHeuvel stepped in for Osterman and kept the Hodags alive and Jessica Hunter scored the game-winner. VandenHeuvel (now Toms) and Hunter currently teach in the district, while Osterman (now Leighton) was an assistant girls' coach during the Hodags' state tournament run.
"You look at those memories and they just make me smile, especially when you can talk to the kids about it today," he said. "I teach with Jenna. Jessica's a teacher in our district now. I give her a hard time about the goal that she scored. Val, of course, I always give her a hard time about tackling the person. The fact that you can have those relationships with your athletes after the fact, those are some really good feelings."
Looking ahead
Millot's ready for the next chapter of his life. After his family sacrificed so much during his coaching career, it's time for him to sacrifice a bit and put his family in the driver seat, he said.
"It's going to require a lot more travel and everything else," he said. "I've missed enough and I'm not going to miss anymore when it comes to that."
As for who will replace him, it's possible the district may hire two head soccer coaches, one for each program. The vacancies are posted on the district's website. Millot said it's possible one of the assistants could step in and keep the program running strong.
"Let's say nobody from outside the community or outside the current coaching staff applies for the position, I have confidence in the coaches that we have on staff right now for two or three of them to step in and take over a head coaching responsibility," he said.
"We've worked really hard to get to where we are. The importance (for the next coach is) maintaining our reputation and to continue to put a good, quality product on the field that everyone can be proud of."
A lasting legacy
That, ultimately, is the legacy Millot said he wants to leave behind - a program that has been successful in more ways than just in the win column.
"I looked at my coaching as a responsibility to educate kids, to do what I can to prepare them for the next part of their lives, after graduation, and what they need to give back to the community," he said.
"I never compromised my philosophy that the kids needed to come first ... My approach has always been the athlete comes first and let's do what's best for them. They may not like what we have to do for them."
In the end, for Millot, it was about more than the wins, losses and the championship trophies, more than the team's GPA or what his players became in the future. In the end, two-plus decades coaching Rhinelander athletics boils down to one word, respect - respect for each other, respect from the community and respect from anyone who crossed paths with the Rhinelander soccer program.
"I hope that when people put their judging glasses on us, they judge us and say, 'That team is classy. That team has players and coaches of high integrity,'" he said.
As he was finishing his meal, a couple of acquaintances stopped by for some small talk. "I'm getting old," Millot told them, although he's still got plenty left ahead of him. A long and memorable chapter in his life has come to a close and a new one, with new adventures surrounded by family, is set to be written.
"Our family had made some decisions and taken some different directions the past few years and it's time for that change," he said.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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