BOX ELDER - Dave Broadie's influence on football in the Black Hills and the surrounding area reaches far and wide.

From high schools to colleges to arena teams, the man who has run the football program at Douglas High School in Box Elder has developed college standouts, head coaches and men who have become successful in all walks of life.

Broadie, a 1976 graduate of Black Hills State University, is stepping down from the helm of a ship that he guided to an undefeated season in 1978 and a fairly unexpected Class 11A state title in 1994.

"It's just time," Broadie said. "I still want to stay around the program, but it's time for somebody else to take over."

Broadie's influence on the players that have come through the program is undeniable. The success he's had in molding college talent from 1977-2010 speaks for itself.

"Any time you're at a place this long you're going to have a lot of kids go through and we've had some great athletes," Broadie said. "Like you said, Dan Maciejczak played for me, went down to Chadron and was an All-American there, got drafted and played some arena football and is the head coach at Casper now. Chad Kendall, who's on our staff, went to Chadron and started four years down there, went to Denver after that and coached a (Class) 5A school down there before coming back. John Humpke, also on my staff, played for me and went up to Black Hills and played for four years before coming back. You talk about some of the kids that we've put out there, and I think it's safe to say that we've helped out a lot of college teams, and not just around the area."

One of his former players who didn't play college football, but is currently one of the area's most successful coaches, is St. Thomas More's Wayne Sullivan, who played for Broadie in the mid-80s.

"I played for Broadie and have coached against Broadie," Sullivan said. "Broadie is a player's coach. He knows his boys and does a great job with them. He always gets the most out of them. I took a lot from Coach Broadie, a lot of his drills and a lot of the attitude that he brings to the field and to practice."

The Boise (Idaho) High School product made his way to the Black Hills through a connection between Gene Schlekeway, then the head football coach at Black Hills State and the coaching staff at Boise High. After graduating from Black Hills and going back home to Boise, Broadie found out that Douglas was looking for a coach.

"I kind of slipped through the back door," he said. "The coach who was here quit, and I was fresh out of Black Hills. I went back home and they asked if I'd come up and interview. I said that I didn't really want to drive 1,000 miles unless I at least have a shot. They didn't really have anyone else lined up."

He was promised either the head coaching spot or an assistant's job, and he got the head position in 1977. He was hired in mid-August, three days after the first official day of practice.

"A lot of people don't realize that that was one of my most memorable teams," Broadie said. "They hadn't had a winning season around here in a long time and we went 5-3 that year. I wasn't real well liked that year because we had a bunch of kids that all thought they were running backs and I moved some of them to positions that they'd never played before. But it worked out and we ended up with a winning record."

Things got really good the next season as Broadie's Patriots went undefeated in 1978 and finished the season ranked No. 1 in the polls. The playoff system wasn't implemented in South Dakota until 1981.

"That 1978 team was probably the most aggressive team I ever had," Broadie said. "They weren't very big, but they were the kinds of kids that would really hit you."

Broadie also remembers two teams that made it to the DakotaDome in Vermillion for state title games - one loser and one winner - as highlights in his career.

The 1988 team, led by running back Mike Vivens, was beaten by Brandon Valley in the Class 11A title game, one year before the Lynx would move up to Class 11AA and win that title. The 1994 Douglas team lost four games that season to bigger schools - all by less than a touchdown - and went into the playoffs a little under the radar.

"West Central was undefeated and we had four losses, so nobody gave us much of a shot," Broadie said. "That worked out pretty well for us."

The 1994 team was junior-dominated, and Broadie and most everyone else expected another run to the Dome in 1995. But that was when the realities of being the coach at an Air Force base hit hard.

"We lost eight players that year whose parents were transferred," Broadie said. "But, in all honesty, it's worked the other way too. That 1988 team was pretty good, but when Vivens transferred in, he made us a Dome team."

Broadie doesn't just remember the great teams, either. That's not the kind of coach he was.

"We went 1-8 one year and it was hard to believe that was a special team, but it was," he said. "We had zero talent, but we had a ton of kids who worked their tails off. They weren't very talented, but they never complained. Even though they didn't win a lot of games, you had to respect what they did in making it through that season."

Broadie retires with one state title, one state runner-up, three Class 11A region titles and six Black Hills Conference titles in his 33 years.

"Douglas is losing a class coach," Sullivan said.