Ryan Kusilek wanted it noted, on the record, that he did not break into tears in the immediate aftermath of Wisconsin-River Falls’ 24-14 win over North Central in the Division III national title game Sunday night in Canton, Ohio.
But his wife did.
Kusilek, who quarterbacked the Falcons from 2012-15, earning all-WIAC Conference honors, stood with a smile pasted to his face and his eyes glued to Wisconsin-River Falls coach Matt Walker as the final minute of time ticked off the clock.
“I think it really hit me when they do the victory formation with the ‘V’ sign and whatever, and he takes the headset off and it’s like, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s happening,’ ” Kusilek recalled. “And you could tell he didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to think.”
Emotions flooded Kusilek we he watched Walker finally get the chance to embrace his wife, Jana, on the field.
“I can’t put to words someone who deserves it more than he does,” Kusilek said. “He lives it, it’s his everyday person. He cares, he gives a (darn) and he’s just like a really good dude and a great coach on top of that. If you’re in a locker room with Coach Walk — after a win, after a loss — the passion was there, whether it was the first week, the 10th week, a Tuesday practice. It’s always there, it’s always consistent, it’s always genuine.”
Asked for her favorite moment from a jubilation-filled evening in Ohio, Wisconsin-River Falls athletics director Crystal Lanning responded: “Just seeing Coach Walk be able to celebrate.”
A nation of onlookers fell in love with the Falcons’ head coach during his postgame television interview on ESPN, during which he reminisced about the program’s struggles early in his tenure, credited everyone from the program’s past and present for the success and said of River Falls: “There’s no place in the world like this town,” as his voice shook and tears streamed down his cheeks.
“He’s got the most engaging personality. Anytime he steps in front of a microphone, he’s on,” Lanning said. “But even when he’s not behind a microphone, anyone he’s talking to; it could be someone in a hallway, it could be someone in the office, it could be a student walking by. There’s just something about his personality that’s so engaging, and people are just drawn to him.”
Blake DuDonis coached the Wisconsin-River Falls women’s basketball team for three seasons before going to Fairfield in 2022 to serve as a Division I assistant under his wife, Carly Thibault-DuDonis. Together, they’ve morphed the Stags into a perennial NCAA tournament team.
Three and a half years after leaving the Division III program, DuDonis posted a photo of himself in a Falcons hat Sunday as he watched the title game from his home. He noted that coaching at Wisconsin-River Falls “was one of the great joys of my life.”
“The people are why,” DuDonis posted. “(First) day on the job, Matt Walker walks in (and says), ‘I’m taking you to lunch.’ ”
“That’s just the person he is,” Lanning said.
Palms up
Kusilek was surrounded by families of current players in the stands at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium on Sunday. He enjoyed hearing the belief they all expressed in the head football coach, and found it a little funny.
He shared their belief. It’s why he committed to the Falcons out of high school, fresh on the heel’s of Walker’s debut season, a one-win campaign. Kusilek was buying more into the person than the program.
“The culture that he had. We had to change it. There was a lot of kind of a, ‘Well, this is just how we do it’ attitude,” Kusilek recalled. “And (Walker) was like, ‘Nope, we’re going to change it. I’m here to change it. We’re going to work our tails off, and it’s going to take time, but you’ve got to believe. You’ve got to believe it’s going to happen.’ ”
Many of the sayings used by this year’s team originated early in Walker’s tenure: Win the day, Falcons fly together, palm up.
The latter, Kusilek noted, is essentially Walker’s version of P.J. Fleck’s “Row the Boat” culture at the University of Minnesota. The idea of “palm up” is you’re always giving to the program via your efforts and actions, rather than taking.
Guys bought in.
“It was fun to be on the front end of it,” Kusilek said. “Sure, obviously, would’ve loved to win a lot more games. But I just think that what his message was, his consistency and just absolute belief in it, that translated into us. It didn’t always translate into results on the field, but we believed in him, we believed in the program and we believed that, one day, this could be it.”
Lanning witnessed the buy-in and believed in the process. It’s why, while Walker has joked he should’ve been fired at multiple points in his first decade on duty, his boss never considered such a move.
“I could see everything else happening the right way,” Lanning said, “but I think maybe what’s satisfying is now other people can say, ‘Oh, it’s a good thing you stuck with it.’ ”
Because consistency, ingenuity and, yes, an upgrade in facilities, led to improvement in player ability. But while the athletes changed, the man leading them did not.
“I think that’s been really cool,” Kusilek said. “People, especially in this day and age, they want to play for someone that they can trust, that they can believe in. He’s here to develop men, to develop a team, develop a culture. He’s not here to just find his paycheck at a university, moving-up-the-ladder kind of thing.
“All the adversity, all the losing seasons, we all know what he went through. And the belief we had was the same belief these people had. And they put it together, which was great.”
Arrival
Lanning was overwhelmed, and in disbelief. The school held an alumni reception Saturday night in Canton for those who made the trip to see the title game. Upon her entrance into the restaurant, she saw countless people from all eras of the school’s history.
“There were times when we thought we had lost some of them along the way,” she said, “but they were all here, they all made the trip and it was just unbelievable.”
Later that evening, she received a request to have parents greet the team at the stadium the next day, ahead of the title game. She shot out one message, unsure of what the late-notice response would be. The next day, hundreds were on site.
During the title game, she pulled out her phone and captured videos of the packed stands filled with Falcons fans performing the team’s touchdown celebration.
Everyone was all in.
As the title game wound down, the AD found herself filled with pride. Wisconsin-River Falls has won the last two women’s hockey national titles. Now here the football team was not only representing the school in a title game, on ESPN, but winning it.
There’s no denying Wisconsin-River Falls as a bona fide, championship-caliber school.
“What we experienced here this weekend, I could never have envisioned it,” she said. “There’s something so exciting happening within this department.”
Lanning has been with the university for nearly 20 years. When she moved into the AD position a decade ago, the word “potential” was frequently tossed around.
“I always wanted to move beyond the potential to (the point where) we’re actually there,” Lanning said. “That’s the thing that keeps going through my mind: We don’t have to say, ‘We have the potential to be there’ anymore. We can say, ‘We are there.’ ”
Someone noted to Kusilek this was a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience. He felt compelled to offer a correction.
“It could be,” he said, “but it’s not going to be.”
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