by Zach Nienaber
Of the Sportsweek staff

It has been a quarter century since Coon Rapids experienced and celebrated a state high school football championship and this week, this Friday night (Sept. 19) that moment in athletics history will be revisted during the Cardinals Northwest Suburban home game with Andover.

Yes, the 25th anniversary of this state championship football moment realized in November of 1983 with a win over Bloomington Jefferson in the Metrodome, will be celebrated in a grand way. All surviving members of the 1983 team have been invited back for a halftime ceremony.

“The booster club [Coon Rapids Sideliners] paid to hire a search firm,” said Coon Rapids Activities Director, Kelley Scott, who oversees the athletics program.

Former players and fans alike are invited to a pre-game barbeque outside the stadium where brats, hamburgers and other fare will be on sale. Then at halftime each player, coach or member of the medical staff will be honored in front of the home crowd.

It was a celebration that almost didn’t happen though — a long time ago!

The Cardinals were not expected to do much that 1983 season. In fact, the team was picked to finish fourth in the conference, which would have been problematic as not every team was allowed into the playoffs those days, just those who finished at the top of their conferences.

The team opened with a lackluster double overtime victory over Kellogg. The Cardinals followed that up with a last minute victory over Blaine. “It was a crazy play,” said former center Adam Elliott.

“When we beat Blaine in the last few seconds, that was when we saw it coming together,” said the team’s middle linebacker Jon Scott.

The team went on to eventually win the state championship over a Bloomington Jefferson team whose star was Danny Grant, son of former Vikings coach Bud Grant. But even that game had its perils.

Jon Scott, the starting middle linebacker, and only player on the team to go on to play Dvision I football, fell to injury early in the game. The Cardinals fumbled on their opening play and Bloomington returned it for a touchdown. On the ensuing extra point Scott jumped over the line to block the kick but instead came away with a separated shoulder.

“We had a lot of guys go down in that game. We had been playing outside all October in the cold and when we came into the dome it was like a sweatbox. We had guys plying both ways who had not done it all season,” said Elliott.

The team went on to eventual victory and state championship, the only in Coon Rapids football and Coon Rapids High School athletics history.

“Jon (Young) wants people to come back. The B.O.C. (Brotherhood of the Cardinal), the alumni night, these are thing that Jon wants to build. The old school values that the team had. That team had just one division one athlete but if you play together, do things as a team look what you can accomplish,” said athletics director, who is the nephew of retiured Coon Rapids head coach Ron Scott, who directed the team that 1983 season.

The team expects at least 40 members of the team to be present at the game, but the word has been spreading fast and even more may arrive on game night. Jon Scott will be coming from Oklahoma for the event. Others will travel from as far as Mississippi.

All for a chance to commingle with former teammates on a field they once called home...