Past to present: Vision finally turns into reality

FORT RECOVERY - Pat Niekamp, Randy Diller, Bill Bechtol and Ed Wehrkamp become excited and emotional when they speak about the recent success of the Fort Recovery football team.

All four men helped launch the program in the early 1990s with the goal of becoming a winner.

Now that Fort Recovery is preparing to play in its first-ever state title game, they're like proud parents.

"We take a lot of special pride in this," Diller said. "We put a lot into this in the beginning years and it wasn't because we wanted the accolades. We wanted the kids to have a program they could enjoy being a part of and a program that could be successful."

Pat Niekamp, the father of Indian head coach Brent Niekamp, can't help but appreciate what his son has accomplished, especially considering where the program was when he began coaching.

"I'm amazed that he had the patience, the community had the patience to see things through," said Pat, who had served as as Fort Recovery's superintendent during the 1990s. "I look back and I think to myself, I couldn't have done it. I would have gone crazy, still might. It took so long and when you're playing such good competition, you can make a lot of strides but it might not show up in wins."

The wins have piled up for Fort Recovery this season and the community support has been insane.

Nearly 1,500 fans stood in the rain and sung the alma mater with the Fort Recovery football team after last Friday's state semifinal victory over McComb at Spartan Stadium in Lima.

That moment was something Pat Niekamp, Diller, Bechtol and Wehrkamp dreamed of when they were laying the groundwork for football at Fort Recovery in 1989. It's a moment, however, that they all admittedly weren't sure would ever happen.

"It's a neat thing that's happening," Diller said. "We always envisioned it, but we just didn't know when it could happen playing in our league."

The plan for football was formed by the newly-established athletic boosters. Initially, they presented plans to build a new track facility. But always entrenched in their minds was starting football, though they just couldn't come out and say it back then.

"There was always that thinking in our eyes that sometime down the road we'd like to start a football program," Diller said. "It's pretty hard to start a football program without a facility. Our thinking was lets get the track built, lets get it there and then we know the football field is available there inside the track."

"It was a tough sale for a while because Fort Recovery was a basketball town," Bechtol said. "We knew if we threw football out there, there was going to be opposition to it."

The group eventually found a location for a facility and found support from donors and members throughout the community. Members of the community have continued to support the facilities' progression over the course of time.

"Both sets of bleachers, the press box, the concession stand building, the team rooms, the track - everything that's out there right now was pretty much a booster club project over the years and was done with local labor," Diller pointed out.

The boosters approached the school board with the proposal for football in December of 1991. The proposal received support and to gauge student interest, Fort Recovery held presentations/ clinics that brought in some of the areas most respected football names. Minster coach Ken Newland, the first MAC coach to win a state football title in 1989, and some of his Minster players traveled to Fort Recovery on one occasion to put on a clinic. Roughly 40 students showed interest at the time.

Twenty-two players were on the team when the Indians took the field for the first time in 1992. That bunch was coached by Jim Hay and played a mixed-bag of JV/varsity games. Fort Recovery hosted an opponent for the first time that season against Our Lady of the Lakes, a team that had been to the state finals in Michigan a few years prior. It ended with a 42-8 loss for the home team.

Hay focused on the fundamentals that season and kept the playbook simple, running just a handful of plays on offense. Bill Bechtol's son, Chris, was a senior on that team. The group was rough around the edges but played competitively, defeating one varsity opponent on its schedule (Landmark Christian) by a score of 14-6.

"These kids were farm boys, for the most part, who put on the pads and went out and played football," Diller said. "We looked like a JV team but we played very competitively that year, and that was because (Hay) kept it simple."

The Indians nearly made the playoffs two years later with a 6-4 record. A loss to Lima Central Catholic in Week 10 derailed their playoff chances. A season later, the Indians began to play an MAC schedule.

Up until last year, Fort Recovery's football program had endured a lot of below-.500 records. At one point, the football program considered leaving the MAC. They ultimately decided against it because they would have had to leave the MAC completely in other sports.

Diller said they had good teams in past seasons that just simply couldn't get past the other MAC powers. That's why what's happening now is so special.

"From Day One, I used to talk to people who didn't understand anything about football. They just couldn't see what the big deal about football was," Diller said. "I'd always tell them just wait until we have Friday night football, then you'll understand what I'm talking about. When we actually get to having successful football, do you understand what an atmosphere this is?"

"It used to be that you couldn't get people to talk about football," Bechtol said. "Now, you walk into the post office and people are like 'Hey, what's that team like that we're going to play?' "

"I'd say the production has been down in Fort Recovery," Diller joked.

And the former players showed up in full support at Thanksgiving time as nearly 70 of them showed up to watch the current team practice.

"Brent called them all together and said 'Look around. Everyone of those guys would like to be in your position,' " Wehrkamp explained. "A little bit of them is with that group. It took a lot of hard work to get to that point."

Fort Recovery athletic director Kurt Rammel said a big part of the Indians' recent success is the addition of a larger training facility three years ago.

"They've had the weight room. They had the circuit training prior, but this just opens it up to a whole new level," Rammel said. "You add the agility side of things and the speed training side of things to the power lifting. ... Now you go from the big and strong to the big, strong and fast, which is the ideal athlete these days."

Postseason success in other sports, most notably the baseball team's trip to the state semifinals last spring, has been a springboard to success on the gridiron, too, Rammel added.

"I believe having a large group of those kids who played on that baseball team allowed them to play with so much composure," Rammel said. "It allowed them to deal with that up-and-down, rise and fall throughout a game. I think you see that this year big time on the football field. It's like what Brent says, it's not a panic if we don't go down and score right away. It's not a panic if there's a fumble or if we turn the ball over. We've got a defense that does its job. We've got an offense that can score. Everybody is doing their part and trusting each other."

Brent Niekamp entered this year with a regular season record of 33-69. After the program's best season ever in 2014, the Indians encored with an even better 2015, winning a school record 12 games.

"It's something in our town and with our program that would have been unthinkable 3-4 years ago," Brent Niekamp said during a state teleconference on Monday. "It's a big testament to our kids, our players, especially our seniors who were still battling through those lean years. They kind of saw the path to success with a little tournament run last year and they really took ahold of that with the idea that we could take it a couple steps further. They've had that in mind since last January and they worked really hard to get to this point and I'm really proud of them."

Much like Fort Recovery's football founding fathers, Brent has been around the field for most of his life. Brent played for the Indians before helping construct a winning program. He also had a hand in constructing the field.

"I came home for lunch one day from school and I smelt matches in the garage," Pat recalled, "I said 'Who the hell's burning matches in the garage?' You know how they look around and say 'Not me. Not me.' I look around and I find the matches. So that afternoon, instead of going swimming, those guys had five gallon buckets and were picking up rocks off the football field. ... So (Brent) was working on the field a long time ago."

The foursome who began the program have all had sons play for the team. Ed had four (Kyle, Brian, Nick and Kevin, better known as "Pork"); Bill three (Chris, Collin and Nick); and Randy one (Tony). They also remained with the team in some capacity for its entire existence, whether that be coaching, chains crew, etc. And they've always remained optimistic through thick and thin.

For many years, Bill watched as St. Henry, Coldwater, Marion Local and Versailles won state title after state title. Bill hoped it would someday happen for the Purple and White.

"Did I ever envision this? No," Bill said. "But I certainly hoped for it because we started going to every playoff game and every time I watched Minster or Marion or whoever win state, I thought someday ... someday, we'll get to go. Although it seemed way out there, it was always in my heart that I just wanted to be one of them for our school, for our town."

And now that Fort Recovery is on the brink of winning the state championship game, Bill is very proud to be in the same company as so many other proud traditions in the MAC.

"We're one of them," Bill added.

And that was the goal all along.