It’s unlikely anyone ever called Randy Asche a “superstar” during his 20 years as a dairy farmer outside Pearl City from 1991-2010.

That’s exactly the term that was used, however, to describe Asche’s skills as the Eastland-Pearl City football coach on Monday afternoon in Lanark.

Prior to a basketball game in a fresh-soph girls tournament, a man in a Pecatonica Indians hoodie approached Asche and offered his congratulations on the EPC Wildcatz winning a Class 2A state football championship the day after Thanksgiving.

“I saw you on TV after the game,” the man gushed. “You’re a superstar.”

For Asche, the championship was a culmination of putting his distinctive stamp on a program that had always been solid, but unable to ascend into greatness. It is for guiding the Wildcatz to the top of the mountain that Asche is the 2014 Sauk Valley Media Football Coach of the Year.

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Asche would seem an unlikely candidate to lead the Wildcatz to the promised land. The
former Pearl City football and basketball player was an all-conference and honorable mention All-American defensive back at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, where he graduated in 1991.

After his playing career with the Duhawks wrapped up, however, the vast majority of his time was spent operating a dairy farm in rural Pearl City. His exposure to football was making sure the chores were done by late Friday afternoon, so he could attend a game on Friday night.

Most of the time that would be an EPC game, unless it was an opponent the Wildcatz were likely to handle easily. Then, he'd travel to another area game that would be more
competitive.

In 2004, Asche started his coaching career with the Pearl City 7th grade squad. There was a need for a coach, and he and some friends decided it would be something enjoyable to do.

“We just tried to have fun with it,” Asche said, “and tried to teach the kids some things we weren’t taught in junior high. We tried to make it fun, but held them accountable.”

For the first 2 years coaching, a handful of Stockton players joined the Pearl City team, as Stockton didn’t have a junior tackle program. While the young future Blackhawks were talented and added to the team’s success, it didn’t serve the purpose that Asche truly sought – to be a feeder program for Eastland-Pearl City. Stockton was dropped, and Eastland was added at the junior high level.

“I couldn’t see the sense of co-oping in junior high with a different school,” Asche said, “and we were going to be co-oping with Eastland in high school. Why wouldn’t you want your kids to get to know each other and build relationships at a young age? We made that decision, and whether it was right or wrong, that’s what we did.”

Making that decision disappointed some, but Asche stood by it. It was a pattern of making difficult calls that would continue in the future.

After the 2006 varsity season, Bill Johnson resigned as the EPC varsity coach. Asche had helped on a volunteer basis with the 2006 varsity team, traveling once or twice a week to Lanark to work with the defensive backs, but had no intention of applying for the varsity football job.

Asche had gotten married the December after graduating from college in 1991, he had two young children at home, and his days were full operating a dairy farm. When school officials approached him about applying for the varsity job, however, he decided to accept the challenge.

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Asche’s first two seasons on the job were somewhat successful, with 6-3 regular-season records, followed by first-round playoff exits. The Wildcatz were eliminated by Clifton Central in 2007, a game in which Asche noted the team simply didn’t perform the way it needed to. In the 2008 playoffs, EPC was handled by Lena-Winslow 35-6, after defeating the Panthers 34-21 in Week 7 of the regular season.

That season, and that Le-Win game in particular, made Asche realize changes were needed. First and foremost, the Wildcatz had to be physically better. He mentioned there were days in the offseason he would travel to Eastland to oversee a weightlifting session, only to have nobody, or only a few players, show up. He described it as “disheartening.”

“We weren’t physical enough,” Asche said. “We couldn’t stand up to teams that were 4- and 5-yarding us all the way down the field, and executing and beating us up.”

There would also be schematic changes.

In 2009, Asche, with the help of assistant coach Adam Talbert, implemented a 3-5 defensive alignment to replace a 4-3 that didn’t fit the personnel he had. It would get more speed on the field to better combat attacks that were wearing out the Wildcatz.

“In a physical conference like the NUIC, we probably weren’t going to get anywhere if we didn’t start playing better defense,” Asche said. “I’m a defensive guy, and at that point, my philosophy was if we get a safety and we win 2-0, I don’t care. We had to play better defense. We had to become better tacklers.

“That changed our practice structure. We had to start giving defense and special teams equal time.”

The most seismic change, however, came on the offensive side. EPC had been one of the first teams in the area to embrace a wide-open, four-receiver offense that was occasionally spectacular, but would sometimes bog down. After spending time with his peers at the 2009 Illinois Football Coaches Association clinic in Champaign, Asche decided to scrap the aerial attack the Wildcatz had become known for in favor of a ground-based system.

“I didn’t know if I believed in it as much that we could execute it, because I didn’t know enough about it,” Asche said of a pass-first attack, “and I didn’t know if I liked it well enough to really want to learn it. I liked the idea of a guy rolling his shoulders forward, getting 4 yards, punishing a team and wearing them out.”

Four assistant coaches quit in protest over the change in offensive philosophy, but there was a light at the end of the tunnel with the 2009 team. For the first time, Asche had a team, instead of a few individuals, that was willing to put in necessary time in the weight room, both in and out of season.

“We had a junior class that started bringing it,” Asche said.

The Wildcatz went 8-3 in 2009, then brought that up to 9-2 in 2010, and won a conference championship.

The true measure of building a program in Asche’s image came in 2011, when EPC posted a 7-4 mark. Asche got emotional when talking about that team.

“They did not have a lot of talent,” Asche said, “but they just worked their butts off every night. They killed themselves in the weight room. They were a two-win team as a fresh-soph team.”

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Asche was making headway with the program, but that was tested after a 9-1 campaign in 2012. Some in the EPC community wanted a change in coaches, but that died down when a group of players made it clear they wanted Asche as their coach at a packed, clear-the-air meeting at Eastland.

Chase Giedd, an all-state linebacker this past season, was a sophomore then.

“A lot of us younger kids were crying because we didn’t want to lose him,” Giedd said. “We didn’t even get to play a full varsity year under him. It was a rough time, but we’re just really glad he stayed, because we didn’t know what we would have done without him.”

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The 2013 Wildcatz were 10-0 heading into a second-round playoff game against Newman. It did not go well in a 35-12 loss to the eventual state champion Comets.

EPC had a history of playoff struggles against Three Rivers opponents Morrison, Newman, and Amboy, but for Asche, it wasn’t so much the conference affiliation as much as the prowess of those particular clubs.

“We knew we weren’t on that level,” Asche said, “so how do you get to that level? When you’re at a public school, you take what walks through the door, and you work with them.”

For Asche, that meant getting into the weight room and getting better. This year’s team embraced it as much as any other had, and was as prepared as possible for the 2014 season.

“You don’t really build a team without getting to know each other,” senior Donny Groezinger said, “and lifting is a big part of that. It’s about being with the guys. We encourage each other, give each other a hard time – it’s a brotherhood in there, and we love it.”

Asche is part of that experience. He lifts with his players, though that has been somewhat limited since rupturing a pectoral tendon while lifting in 2012. The injury required surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and laid him up for 3 months.

“I’ve always loved being in the weight room, from back when I was in high school and college,” Asche said. “I’ve always believed that’s where you build a football team. We understand that now.”

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When asked what the key was to being a successful coach, Asche cited many reasons.

He spoke about making tough, if not controversial, decisions, and sticking by them.

He spoke about having administrative, community, and parental support.

He spoke about having quality assistant coaches.

He spoke about having players committed to the weight room.

But mostly, he talked about making football an enjoyable experience, hopefully for everybody involved. If that could be accomplished, good things will follow.

“It’s high school football,” Asche said. “If we can’t have fun doing it, then what are we doing it for? Why ask these kids to do all this if it’s not fun, it’s a chore, it’s a job.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by his players.

“It’s always fun with Coach Asche,” senior quarterback Devin Heeren said. “He always gets us riled up and excited for every game, no matter what the game is or how big the situation is. He’s a really exciting coach to be coached by.”

“Coach always told us our job is to play football,” senior lineman Jared Gaughan added, “and we have to have fun doing it. Right before the state game, he told us one of our goals was to obviously stop the other team from doing a bunch of things. Our main goal, though, was just to have fun together.”

Asche file

High school: Pearl City (1987)

College: Loras (1991)

Resides: Pearl City

Family: Wife, Melissa; children, Riley, 22; Peyton, 14

Occupation: Customer service manager at VitaPlus, a livestock feed company in Lanark

FYI: Head football coach at Eastland-Pearl City from 2007-present, with 69-19 record. ... Guided Wildcatz to 14-0 mark and 2A state title this past season. ... 4-year starter at defensive back at Loras College. ... Ended college career with 16 interceptions and 184 tackles, third and fifth, respectively, in school history at the time. ... Dairy farmer outside Pearl City from 1991-2010.