LOGAN, Utah- Dave Kragthorpe was only the head football coach at Idaho State for three years. But his three years were magical as he guided the Bengals to the 1981 National Championship in his second season.
Since leaving Pocatello he has never stopped following the Bengals and this weekend he is the men's basketball team's host during the three-day World Vision Invitational at Utah State.
Kragthorpe, who is a Utah State alum that earned all-conference honors in 1953-54, currently lives in Logan where he says he is now officially retired after spending 10 years volunteering in the Utah State alumni office and athletic department. Now Kragthorpe spends his time watching his grandson's play sports, attending Utah State games and making trips up to Pocatello to watch Idaho State games.
This year Kragthorpe and his wife Barbara were able to see three ISU football games and they make a trip up to Pocatello for basketball games once or twice a year.
“I enjoyed living in Pocatello,” Kragthorpe said. “It was just a special place. I had as good as people at Idaho State as I had anywhere else.”
Kragthorpe attributes the success he had at Idaho State, especially during his National Championship run to three factors.
“We had players despite the fact we had lost 17 straight games,” Kragthorpe said. “We got several junior college players including quarterback Mike Machurek. We got six to 10 JC players that were good players.”
Kragthorpe said the third factor to his success was the opportunity to get players from the United States International University when they dropped football. An assistant coach, Mike Shepherd, who was a GA with Kragthorpe at BYU, used to coach there so he had connections to get players from that school that could come in and make an immediate impact.
“When I hired Mike we did not know they were going to drop football,” Kragthorpe said. “Two weeks later they dropped it and we went and got six guys who all contributed. With those three basic elements everything meshed so well together.”
Kragthorpe said one memory he has of the 1981 season was beating Boise State 21-10 in Boise.
“Going there early and beating them gave us momentum,” Kragthorpe said. “We knew we would be pretty good because we won six games the previous year. That win was big and it got us started.”
After Kragthorpe's three years, he left to become the Athletic Director at his alma mater, Utah State.
“I thought that would be a life-time commitment,” he said. “How many opportunities do you get to be an athletic director at your alma mater? Then I realized I missed coaching.”
After two year's he realized he was offered a job to be the head coach at Oregon State, where he was named Pac 10 Coach of the Year in 1989.
“The opportunity to coach at a Pac 10 school was good,” Kragthorpe said. “To be honest I was spoiled by the Idaho State experience. I thought I could do the same thing. We had to play money games and that level you shouldn't have too.”
Kragthorpe left Oregon State in 1990 and the last year he did any coaching was 1994. During that span he spent time helping friends coach a season at a time. In 1993, Kragthorpe was also named to the Utah State All-Century team.
His son, Steve, was recently the head coach at Tulsa and Louisville and Kragthorpe spent a lot of the fall in those places supporting his son.
