Bob Lutz: Mike Schartz gives football rebuilding another try at Southeast

Mike Schartz tried this once before.

He took over a moribund Campus football program in 2009, confident he would be the coach to finally get things rolling with the Colts. They rolled all right – straight downhill.

Campus, which has had only 10 winning seasons since 1971 and hasn’t been better than 7-3 in that time, was 6-31 during Schartz’s four seasons, the same record they had been in the four seasons before he arrived.

But Schartz, one of Rick Wheeler’s top assistants when Wheeler made Heights a perennial winner in the 2000s, is not deterred. After two seasons as defensive coordinator at Southeast, he’s taken over as coach this season for a team that has won 11 of its past 36 games and was beaten by Heights in its opener 53-14 Thursday night.

Why would Schartz take another job that will require major lifting to rebuild?

“Southeast has the history behind it that Campus didn’t have,” he said. “It’s all in the trophy cases.”

Sure enough, the Buffaloes are many steps up from Campus when it comes to tradition. Southeast won four state championships and finished second three times during a seven-year stretch from 1974-80.

Yes, it’s a long time ago. No, Southeast hasn’t approached that kind of success since.

But that kind of winning is something Schartz, a kid growing up in Dodge City during those Southeast glory years, plans to emphasize.

“I welcome a challenge like this, I would never shy away from it,” Schartz said. “I think I’ve made a difference in every program I’ve been a part of and I think this program is headed in the right direction. I’m looking forward to this opportunity very much.”

Schartz said another reason he took the job is because Chris Asmussen is the Southeast athletic director. He’s also the coach Schartz is replacing and they worked together at Campus, where Asmussen was an assistant to Schartz.

They’re close friends, Schartz said, and equally determined to make Southeast a winner.

And you better believe that perhaps the top reason Schartz is at Southeast is because a new Southeast High is scheduled to open late next summer at 127th Street East and Pawnee.

“Right now, we’re the only school in the City League that doesn’t have anything new for athletics,” Schartz said. “We’re all really looking forward to what we’ll have at the new school. We want to take all of this great history from the old building and transfer it out there.”

The new Southeast was to have a football stadium on the premises, but that isn’t going to happen for now. Schartz, though, is convinced it will.

Schartz thinks the Southeast community deserves a competitive, winning football program, too. It’s probably going to take some time to make that happen.

“One of our goals is – I feel we have to get the kids who are supposed to go to Southeast to come to Southeast and not choose other options as freshmen,” Schartz said. “I’m trying to get my name out there and promote Southeast.”

Schartz thought he deserved more time to fix the Campus program, but the Colts made the decision to hire former Rose Hill coach Greg Slade after the 2012 season. Slade, too, has struggled at Campus, which won two games in his first two seasons.

It’s hard to create success where there has been little. Southeast’s fall from grace has been shocking.

“It’s really about the timing,” Schartz said. “I felt like we had the kind of kids in our program at Campus who could get it done.”

The danger in taking over programs that perennially lose is telling yourself you’re close to a turnaround when you’re really not. It’s difficult to be objective from the inside.

At Southeast, Schartz is trying to create a healthy respect for the Buffaloes’ tradition but a recognition that getting back to or close to that level will require hard work.

“We’ve been picked last this year, but I think we can surprise some people,” Schartz said. “Our kids have had a good summer and I think we’re getting better every year. We just have to be able to score some points this year. Last year that was a really problem for us.”

Schartz has three former Southeast players on his coaching staff and two of them, Chris Poe and Coy Noble, were on state championship teams.

His son, Tanner, is a senior offensive lineman.

“We absolutely love it here,” Mike Schartz said. “It’s a great school with great tradition and history behind it.”

But not so far behind, Schartz hopes, that it can’t be resurrected.

This story was originally published September 4, 2015 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Mike Schartz gives football rebuilding another try at Southeast."