ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 8, 1995 TAG: 9512080069
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: STAGG BOWL NOTES
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
During championship week, coaches usually go to great lengths to make sure everybody knows ``We're not just happy to be here.''
Roger Harring couldn't be blamed if he felt that way.
The 27-year football coach of Wisconsin-La Crosse has been in championships before. He led the Eagles to the 1985 NAIA Division II title. He has 231 victories against 62 losses, giving him the seventh-best winning percentage among active NCAA Division III coaches.
But in 1992, the only time La Crosse has won the Division III national championship, Harring wasn't on the sideline. He was sitting in the stands.
Harring, 63, had heart surgery after the fourth game that year. Six blood vessels in his heart were 80-90 percent clogged, a condition brought on by high cholesterol and one that killed his mother when she was 49 years old.
Surgery that included six bypasses put him out for the season, but left him in the game of life.
``The priority is your health,'' Harring said. ``Your family becomes closer to you. Your friends and your job are a distant third or fourth.''
Assistant coach Roland Christensen stepped in to serve as head coach. ``Roger's wife, Mary, called me one Wednesday morning and said he was going into the hospital,'' Christensen said. ``About an hour later, the athletic director called and said they wanted me to take over the team.''
Christensen was an easy choice. No one has been at the school longer than his 34 years. He's been on the staff every year except two since 1960. In one of those he was too busy getting his doctorate in mathematics.
Although he's retired from teaching young people how to crunch numbers, he's still teaching them how to crunch running backs. Craig Driessen, a senior safety who was on that '92 team, remembers when Christensen took over. ``It was a good feeling,'' he said. ``He did a good job.''
Harring and Christensen seem to be the kind of men the Eagles would be eager to play for. When the team was getting its picture taken for ESPN on Thursday, they didn't yell for the players to get in line. They made sure their collars were all folded neatly in the same way. ``[Harring] never demeans the kids,'' said Larry Lebicki, La Crosse's assistant chancellor.
``He stresses the importance of happiness,'' Driessen added. ``Every week, he tells us to tell our parents we love them. It's what a head coach should do.''
Harring says he isn't bothered that he missed out on the sideline action in 1992. He wants to win the Stagg Bowl on Saturday, but more for his team than for himself.
As he put it Thursday, ``Anything on this side of the grass is great.''
HOT TICKETS: Rowan and Wisconsin-La Crosse fans are turning out in droves for this Stagg Bowl. After buying about 400 tickets for their trip to the 1993 Stagg Bowl here, the Profs have surpassed their 500-ticket allotment and are looking for more. According to Rowan athletic director Joy Reighn, six busloads of Prof fans will be coming to the Roanoke Valley, in addition to individual travelers.
The Eagles chartered two flights, one for their team and another for fans. One hundred eighty fans filled one charter, while 74 more filled out the team's plane.
MUFFED: Wisconsin-La Crosse's team plane still wasn't full when it landed at Roanoke Regional Airport at 9:40 Thursday morning. The Eagles' place-kicker, sophomore Thad Dugan, missed the flight. Team officials suspect someone forgot to pick him up on the way to the airport back in La Crosse. He's expected to arrive sometime this morning.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: MIKE HEFFNER/Staff. Wisconsin-La Crosse football coachby CNBRoger Harring has been at the school 27 years, but he missed a Stagg
Bowl victory in 1992 after undergoing six bypasses earlier that
season.