Ron Stolski was on the verge of tears Friday night when talking about Randy Shaver’s Prep Sports Extra. Stolski, executive director of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, was speaking at the organization’s annual clinic in St. Louis Park and referencing 40 years of the KARE11 Friday night show that is imbedded in the state’s football culture.
“Thank you for four decades of the discipline, the dedication and commitment and effort to make our Friday nights special,” Stolski told Shaver and the audience of state high school football coaches.
Prep Sports Extra followed the 10 a.m. news in the fall and for a long time was the most viewed program in its time slot in the metro area. When the lights went out at prep football games in the state, players, coaches and fans could relive and forever remember many of the evening’s most enduring moments. “You and Prep Sports Extra have always been our fifth quarter,” Stolski told Shaver before presenting him with an award.
Stolski, the retired Brainerd High School football coach and one of the state’s winningest coaches ever, talked about the fraternity among coaches and others involved with high school football. He saluted Shaver for his legacy and what his show has meant to prep football in the state, telling his friend that he will forever be “in the huddle of the keepers of the game.”
Shaver came to WTCN (now KARE11) at 24 years old in January of 1983. A former high school football player in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he worked his way up from sports reporter and weekend sports anchor to sports director, and since 2012 has been co-anchor on the evening news at the station. He announced this winter that he will be retiring from the station after his 6 p.m. June 28 newscast and ending 43 years total in the TV industry.
The departure includes an end to the Prep Sports Extra which last year celebrated its 40th anniversary. Shaver opened up to the clinic audience Friday evening and said ending the iconic show that he started, produced and anchored was a decision he “had to make for the sake of the show.”
Then he added: “This last year, our resources, as in every walk of life right now, got cut back. And I have to be honest, I only know one speed for the show. I only know one way of doing it.
“So to ask me to find other ways to fill the show or do the show (won’t work). I did it last year because I wanted to get it to 40 but I also realized that it’s time for either someone else to do it and do it differently…I don’t know. But for me to try…and to piece it all together just didn’t work.
“That and the fact that it was time for me to walk away from the news side of what I am doing in my life right now. So, I really do appreciate this (the honor at MFCA).”
Shaver’s passion for high school football is off the charts and has been for decades. No high school sports show in this market has endured like Prep Sports Extra. “You know it’s just been a labor of love,” Shaver told Sports Headliners. “I never made a dime more for doing it—for all the extra time I put in to make it as great as it could be.
“I just loved Friday night. …I loved more being there until 3 in the morning logging all the video that we would shoot. That to me was the most enjoyable part. To be able to log all that video and to watch all of it. Stuff that we didn’t use on the air. I’ll miss that part.”
But the football community likely hasn’t seen the last of Shaver. He told the clinic audience he’s working “behind the scenes” to stay connected to them and prep football. Perhaps a podcast is next.
“I don’t want this connection to end because it’s so special for me. So just know you might hear something in July that I am popping up someplace and hopefully that’s just the beginning of something I can continue. “
Shaver has been approached about coaching football. “I don’t think that’s in the cards,” he said. “I think it’s going to be something more media related. I am working on trying to figure out what that looks like and feels like, and hopefully by July I’ll have it all figured out.”
During Shaver’s adult life he has twice been a cancer survivor. In 2003, he started the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund. That charity has benefited from the MFCA’s Tackle Cancer initiative.
About half the state’s high schools, most of the MIAC and Northern Sun member schools, and the Gophers and Vikings have raised money via Tackle Cancer. After 12 years almost $3.5 million has been raised. “It’s been amazing,” Shaver said.
Stolski credits another prep coaching icon, Dave Nelson, with extraordinary efforts in making Tackle Cancer so successful. “My nickname for Dave Nelson is ‘Bulldog’,” Stolski told the clinic audience. “You get Dave Nelson on a project, on a challenge, on an issue, and I’ll tell you he’ll get it done.”
About a year ago the two men gave a presentation on Tackle Cancer at a national football coaching gathering. Attendees were impressed, with some saying they couldn’t duplicate the initiative back home. Stolski said Nelson and Minnesota’s prep coaches made it happen and that there is a difference between “can’t and won’t.”
Nelson told the audience 92 percent of Tackle Cancer fundraising goes for research and patient assistance. “Cancer touches us all and as Randy (has) said doing nothing is not an option,” said Nelson who was a longtime metro area high school football coach and is now an assistant coach at Holy Family.
A symbolic check in the amount of $566,626 was presented to Shaver on Friday night, the latest contribution from the Tackle Cancer initiative.
Nelson implored coaches who aren’t involved to form a committee and get started. Both he and Shaver emphasized Tackle Cancer isn’t just a Minneapolis-St. Paul initiative. “It’s never been a metro thing,” Shaver said. “Cancer doesn’t know what that is and it doesn’t care.”
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