Zier says farewell

After 21 seasons, 11 playoff games, many wins and loses and countless memories spent with the Beach Buccaneers, Beach High School’s head football coach, Mike Zier, is stepping down from his head coaching position.
Zier first became involved with the Beach Buccaneer football team after moving to Beach in 2000. Before coming to Beach, he was the freshman football coach in Grafton, ND. He decided to apply to Beach after his football coaching position in Grafton was reconfigured. He settled on Beach since it’s closer to his home state, Montana.
“Didn’t know anybody, didn’t know anything about Beach,” he said. “All I wanted to do was come here and coach football and teach social studies.”
Zier wasn’t always the head coach of the Bucs. For six years prior to becoming head coach, Zier was the assistant coach to the Buccaneers under Head Coach Jeremy Duttenhefer, who had only been with the Bucs for one year when Zier moved to Beach. After Duttenhefer moved on to another job, Zier filled his shoes.
In the 27 years that Zier has been with the Buccaneers, he says the main thing that he has learned over the years has been to show consistency, regardless of how the standings or the team looks.
“Maybe you are a little bit lighter in talent or you have a lot of talent, you still have to have expectations and the kids respect that and follow that,” Zier said. “We may be one and three or three and one, but the expectations are the same.”
Under Zier’s leadership, the Beach Buccaneers have won 6 or 7 playoff games. Before then, Beach had only been to the playoffs three times with zero wins. Zier shared that he is fortunate to have helped solidify the football program in being more recognizable and known throughout the state.
One of his fondest memories coaching the Buccaneers involve the playoff games hosted on the Beach field, where Beach has unexpectedly won. In 2007, Beach played Grant County/Flasher in the playoffs, winning 9-8 at home. They also won against North Star (co-op of Cando, Bisbee, Egeland) and TGU at Beach. Zier shared that those games were pretty special to him, since Beach doesn’t host playoffs very often.
This season, the Bucs charged their way into the playoffs after defeating the Hettinger/Scranton Night Hawks 36-26 on Oct. 9. However, in the first round, they lost to the Alexander Comets 16-38.
When asked how he felt after the Alexander game, knowing that game was his final time coaching the Bucs, Zier said he was actually more emotional during their Oct. 16 senior night game, when they faced the Standing Rock Warriors. That game marked the last time he walked off the Buccaneer field as head coach.
“I’ve been a part of a football team since 1983, either as a player or a coach. I went to junior high, high school, college... I was a student coach in college and then I got that job in Grafton and then Beach,” Zier said. “So when it’ll probably hit me is in August when I’m not getting ready for a football season.”
Originally, Zier wasn’t going to announce his resignation until the end of the football season, but the word spread quickly and reached coaches from other areas who began contacting him about what they heard.
Zier told the football team about his resignation from the head coach position before the Standing Rock game. He said the boys took it well, adding that the reason they play football is for the love of the sport, not whoever is coaching them.
Zier shared his thanks to the former players who have been emailing him with congratulations on his time coaching. Some former players even greeted him after the Standing Rock game and wished him luck in this next phase of football coach retirement.
To share the big news with the larger masses, early morning Oct. 26, Zier posted a heartfelt message to X (formerly known as Twitter), announcing his retirement from coaching the Beach Bucs. In the post, he thanked his wife, Susan, for being with him every step of the way; the volunteer coaches who help with the Bucs; the admins, staff, parents and fans for supporting him; and the players and team managers for “making Buccaneer football what it is today.” He urged the students to “play with pride” and to “do what’s right all the time, not just when someone is looking.”
His retirement from head football coach is not a total retirement from Beach School District. He will still coach track (one year at a time) and teach at the high school. Lastly, Zier will still be cheering for the Bucs from the audience at the home games.
Now that his Friday nights aren’t spent on the field, one of the first things he’ll be doing is taking Susan out to eat on a date.
“We haven’t had a date night on a Friday night in the fall and August and September pretty much ever since we’ve been married,” he said. “So that’ll probably be the first thing we’ll do and she’ll probably try to talk me into dancing, but that won’t happen.”
As for who will be head coach for the Bucs next football season, Zier shared that he knows longtime assistant, Mark Golberg, is going to apply for the position once his resignation is fully processed.
“I never cared where kids are now... I care where they are in 20 years. I want them to be better fathers, better husbands, better citizens,” Zier said about the boys he’s coached. “You know, we’re not going to the NFL here, but football could be used as a tool to learn about life, because if football’s too tough for you, what’s it going to be like when your wife needs you and it’s in the middle of the night?...That’s where football becomes valuable.”