The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has recognized some of its legendary coaches in unique ways, keeping their names and accomplishments alive for future classes.
Kevin Borseth has a street sign named after him on campus after leading the women’s basketball team for 21 seasons. A practice facility at the Kress Center is named after former men’s basketball coach Dick Bennett. The soccer stadium honors legendary coach Aldo Santaga.
As for longtime men’s and women’s cross-country coach Mike Kline, who is preparing for his 40th season this fall?
He’s got no signs. No stadiums. No courts. Not even a dirt trail.
What he does have is a crazy amount of love from the people he interacts with each day. Take a vote among those in the school’s athletic office, and Kline will come away as winner of best human.
“Coach Kline embodies everything that is good,” said UWGB compliance director Kassie Wagner, whose husband, Steven, is a former runner for Kline. “He cares for the whole person and genuinely wants everyone to succeed in all aspects of life. He’ll go above and beyond for anyone, always with a smile, and in such a way that makes you feel like you’re the one doing him a favor.
“His passion for our department, the community and the university is unmatched. But his love for our student-athletes runs even deeper. It’s the unconditional love of a parent. When student-athletes return to say hi, they make sure to say hi to two people: Their coach and Coach Kline. There’s no recognition that could capture the direct impact he has had on every member of our athletic teams over the past 30-plus years.”
Seriously, he can’t be that great, can he?
“Coach Kline is the kind of guy that would give you the shirt off his back,” UWGB communications director Dylan Derousseau said. “In the five years I’ve known him, I’ve never caught him on a bad day.”
The only person who doesn’t believe he’s worthy of recognition is Kline.
In his words, he’s boring and predictable.
He forgot to add interesting. Really, really interesting.
His corner office at the Kress is a cross between an antique store and a place to stage an intervention for a hoarder. It’s as if he hasn’t thrown away a single piece of anything since he was hired as cross-country coach in 1987 while still a student-athlete at UWGB.
That spring day 39 years ago when former UWGB athletic director Dan Spielmann asked to speak with him changed his life forever.
Spielmann offered Kline the cross-country gig before his senior year, which at the time was only a men’s team. He told him to think about it.
One of the first people Kline approached after the meeting was Bennett, who had been at UWGB a couple of years.
He asked the legendary basketball coach how to know when it was the right time. Bennett reminded Kline it’s never the right time, that a person can always have an excuse not to take a job. You just have to do it.
Best advice ever.
“I am so lucky and blessed that I said yes,” said Kline, who formed a women’s team his first year on the job. “Thirty-nine years later, I didn’t think I’d be in this messy office.”
Mike Kline started running as a high school junior
Kline entered the running world relatively late.
The 1976 Luxemburg-Casco graduate started high school wanting to be a football player like Bart Starr.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but the kid weighed 88 pounds as a freshman. He took so many beatings he quit.
Kline golfed as a sophomore. He was so bad he still holds the record for highest score on a par-3.
That’s when Russell Fameree stepped in. He was a teacher and coach at the school, including cross-country, and turned out to be a pivotal figure in Kline’s life.
He introduced Kline to the sport, and although Kline was certain it wasn’t for him, he joined the team before his junior year after secretly spending the summer running the school’s course every day.
Kline ranked 41 out of 44 runners his first year. He moved up to 27 as a senior.
“The thing I always respected about Mr. Fameree, everybody was important to him,” Kline said. “It didn’t matter if you were the top runner or you were the Mike Kline runner. If you had a good practice, he made sure you knew it. If you didn’t, he made sure to talk to you about it.”
Fameree, who died at 92 in 2022, encouraged Kline to keep doing what he was doing. He might turn out to be a great runner or he might not, but he’d have satisfaction he did his best.
Kline didn’t attend or run in college right after high school. His father and uncle owned a Phillips 66 gas station in Luxemburg and expanded their business to deliver fuel oil and fuel to farmers.
He did mechanical work for his father and, for a short time, attended Northeast Wisconsin Technical College for auto mechanics.
Kline worked at the station for about eight years before developing Raynaud’s disease, a condition that causes fingers and toes to have a bad reaction to cold weather and leads to numbness and tingling.
Unless the business relocated to Arizona, Kline was out of a job.
That’s when UWGB entered the picture, where he earned a degree in Psychology and Philosophy and competed on the cross-country team against runners several years younger.
Kline never stopped running after high school, even getting obsessed with marathons. He got so good he qualified for the Boston Marathon in 1983 when he was 25, although he ran the event in shoes one size too small that left his feet in considerable pain the following morning.
Had it not been for the lure of the event, the great runners and the crowd – not to mention being the same city his basketball idol Bill Russell used to call home – he wouldn’t have gone.
If it’s not with his teams, Kline hates to travel. He’s been on a plane only three times in his 68 years.
Kline also had a notable streak he started in the early 1980s in which he would run at least 2.5 miles every day. Any little mishap – including the time he fell on ice – required him to start the run over. He did it for 11 years, eight months, six days until double hernia surgery ended the streak.
“It was sort of beyond my control, but I still wish I could have got home,” said Kline, who was forced to stay a night in the hospital in part because his doctor knew he’d attempt to run. “I think I might have, could have, managed it. But, then, maybe it’s good you didn’t.”
Mike Kline helps build cross-country programs at UWGB
Kline had a different cross-country coach each year during his collegiate career before becoming the program’s leader.
His hire stopped a revolving door and offered stability to the program.
UWGB has never won a men’s or women’s Horizon League championship, although the men matched their best finish in program history last season by placing fourth.
The Phoenix appears to be at a disadvantage against other conference schools that offer track and field in the spring, including in-state rival UW-Milwaukee.
Many top high school athletes want to compete in both cross-country and track, sometimes eliminating UWGB from getting them.
It makes winning a conference championship more difficult, even when UWGB lands the best in the league like it had last season when former West De Pere standout Noah Jahnke became the first Phoenix runner to win the men’s individual Horizon championship.
Kline doesn’t agree.
People laugh when he insists his teams aren’t at a disadvantage, but he believes his runners do have a track season. They just get to pick what events they compete in, like the 8K road race in Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day this year.
“When our teams come in the fall, they are rested, they are hungry and they are ready to go,” Kline said. “We compete in spring, but you don’t have to put up with what indoor and outdoor track do.”
Kline’s role at UWGB goes far beyond how the cross-county teams finish. He has been the academic coordinator for Phoenix athletics since 1999. He earned the title of assistant athletic director of compliance, student welfare and student services in 2014.
For more than 50 consecutive semesters, UWGB student-athletes have recorded a grade-point average above 3.0.
“When you see Coach Kline, you can’t help but smile and feel an immediate sense of ease,” Wagner said. “In a constantly changing environment, he has always been our steady guidepost, keeping us focused on what truly matters in athletics: the student-athlete. From knowing every student-athlete by name to showing up at virtually any athletic or campus event he can, his warm presence is something we’ve all come to count on.”
Mike Kline finds his home at UWGB
Kline often is at UWGB from early morning until late at night, especially during the season.
His alarm is set for 4:26 a.m. His garage door opens between 4:37 and 4:39. He arrives at his office between 4:55 and 5, just in case something comes up before morning practice.
He still is at school at 8:30 p.m. for the final study table. He returns to his office at 9 and arrives home an hour later.
He makes sure his two beloved cats are happy, eats and goes to bed to do it again the next day.
There isn’t much to do at his home in Luxemburg, which is how he likes it but would be a nightmare for people who enjoy technology. Kline loves his quiet time, except for the disco music playing in the background.
He hasn’t had internet since his two children grew up and moved out. Netflix and chill are not in his vocabulary. Neither is hotspot.
It’s not like Kline doesn’t have hobbies. He loves to work in his garden. One of his neighbors is Wagner, whose family receives items from his garden every week from spring to fall.
He also times himself when he cuts his grass, keeping stats on an Excel spreadsheet for almost 20 years.
Kline doesn’t plan to stop coaching. As a deeply religious man, he has no fear of death, but retirement is another story. It’s stressful just imagining being fired or having a retirement age enacted.
After all, he pointed out, what would he do between 4:26 a.m. and 9 p.m. every day?
Kline considers himself the luckiest man in the world. He has a dream job and is surrounded by great colleagues, including his trusty sidekick in assistant coach Nate Vandervest.
“Our athletic staff, the professors, the faculty and staff, they help me love my job,” Kline said. “I do love it. When my alarm goes off at 4:26, I can say I look forward to coming to my job.
“Work is something you don’t like to do. I haven’t worked a day in my life.”
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Longtime UWGB cross-country coach Mike Kline’s passion is ‘unmatched’
Reporting by Scott Venci, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
