Radtke’s goal, as always: the state final
Newly-hired Portage coach has led three schools, including Griffith, to title games over 43 seasons
Russ Radtke is 39, or at least that’s how he sees it.
“I told my granddaughter, when I get to a certain age, I start counting backward,” he said. “Next year I’m going to be 38.”
And that’s how it feels for Radtke, who acts like he’s 27 but is really 67.
It’s Radtke’s fifth act.
Radtke, who has had only one losing season since 1991, started coaching at North Judson and was there for 10 years; he was at Connersville for six years; he jumped to Griffith and coached there for 19 years; he was at New Prairie for eight years; and he’s going into his first season at
Portage.
In year 44, he’s as juiced as he was on his first day of coaching. Portage was 1-9 last season. New Prairie had gone 3-7 in the season before Radtke arrived in 2012. The Cougars went 9-2 in his first season and played in a state final in 2014.
Where others see headaches and impossible mountains to climb, Radtke sees the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I’m excited,” he said. “We’re going to have some fun and see if we can make this type of program work.”
Radtke knows Portage’s history.
It won the Class 3A state title in 1977 under Les Klein, and it was a top-tier Duneland Athletic Conference team under Craig Buzea, who took the Indians to a state final in 1994. Buzea left after the 2006 season, and Portage hasn’t won more than six games in a season since.
Radtke has been around too long to guarantee that’s he’s absolutely, positively going to return Portage football to its glory days. But he’s pretty confident.
Only one team he’s coached, Connersville, hasn’t reached a state final.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Radtke delivered nine file cabinets from his office at New Prairie. Radtke and his assistant Julio Cisneros pushed them out on dollies and two-wheel carts and loaded them into his Dodge
Ram 250 truck with double axles. He has 16 file cabinets.
Radtke has saved every game plan for every team he’s played since 1977. The earliest stuff is hard copies.
He’s bringing along longtime assistant Ted White, who worked with him this season after five years as the head coach at North Judson. White worked as an assistant for Radtke at Griffith.
“He’s the best offensive line coach in Indiana,” Radtke said.
He said his staff, when complete, will be one of the best he’s ever compiled.
Radtke has tweaked his option offense. It’s no longer a traditional wishbone. It’s a pistol option, which means the quarterback is in a shotgun formation.
He still defers to the run, but he’s open to slinging it if he has the right quarterback.
Radtke has complete control of the program, starting with the feeder system and the Pop Warner teams.
Off the field, Radtke can be charming.
At game time, though, he is combustible and intense like no other coach I’ve covered.
That hasn’t changed. Dave Melton, a freelance reporter who covers sports for the Post-Tribune and played center for Radtke, said the coach’s style is unique.
“He demands so much from his players and pushes them to reach levels they might not have reached otherwise,” Melton wrote in a direct message on Twitter. “It’s not for everyone, and there are times I thought I’d quit.”
Melton said Radtke’s appetite for game planning is “absurd. He studies so much film. The scouting reports he put together were bigger than the ones I saw in college.”
This should be an interesting experiment. The Duneland Athletic Conference is the premier conference in Northwest Indiana.
This could be the ultimate challenge for the ultimate challenge guy.
Radtke said the goal, as always, is to get to the state final.
Coming from anybody else, that sounds absurd, given where Portage has been the past few years.
With Radtke in charge, don’t bet against it.
After all, he’s doing the impossible and getting younger every year.