RAPID CITY - Six seasons after accepting the Black Hills State University head football coaching position in the hall of fame room on the Yellow Jacket campus, John Scott brought a close to one of the most successful Yellow Jacket tenures in the same room on Monday.

Scott officially resigned his position in a meeting with athletics director Jhett Albers on Wednesday but only made the announcement official Monday after meeting with his players and coaches.

"I met with the team at 7:30 this morning to let them know what was going, what is going to happen from here and as resilient as they are I think they took it well," Scott said.

Scott will begin a new position as a school and team representative with Universal Athletic in Western South Dakota in January. Universal Athletic is a sporting goods supplier that sells athletic equipment to schools, teams and individuals based in Montana and Wyoming.

"A year ago Universal Athletic approached me and asked if I might be interested if they got into the South Dakota market," Scott said of the opportunity. "We were coming off a tough playoff loss and we wanted to get moving on with football. I didn't want to be distracted … then they contacted me in July and wanted to visit me about a job opportunity.

"It could have got under way in the fall but I said I wouldn't visit with them because I was committed to the team. But at the conclusion of the season, I met with them and over the last few weeks we looked at the position and were presented a package that was a great opportunity for me."

Scott took over a Yellow Jacket team that had struggled for several years before he arrived and turned it into a winner through a lot of hard work from coaches and players. However, Scott he did not feel all the pieces were in place to continue that progress at the pace he wanted.

"As a coach coming in, I didn't look at the barriers … and we did things the way we needed them to be done and there got to be some frustrations that I encountered that got to be were I couldn't go through them, over them, couldn't go around them," Scott said. "We took a major cut in scholarships this year and some of the deficiencies really showed this year because of that.

"The thing is I wasn't satisfied getting the thing just here, but I wasn't convinced the resources to take it further as soon as I wanted it to go was there. It wasn't enough just to get there."

Scott talked during the season about the difficulty competing with some bigger schools in the NAIA with bigger athletic budgets. While he did not go into specifics about what things he would like to have seen changed, he said the number of scholarships and how they were proportioned was an issue.

He experienced success during his time as head coach with the Yellow Jackets compiling a record of 37-24 and winning back-to-back Dakota Athletic Conference titles in 2006 and 2007 before finishing the 2008 season with a 6-4 mark and a season-ending loss to rival South Dakota Mines.

When asked if changes were made would he still be coaching BHSU's football team, Scott had a short but precise answer.

"Nobody asked," he said.

Scott said when he took the job six years ago there seemed to be a message that the school would be happy with a few wins and keeping his kids out of trouble which would give him job security forever.

"When we started winning there were some who went 'Oh, God we don't know if we need that because that means they will want more.' That is kind of what I wanted," he said.

Scott has been coaching football for 27 years largely at the high school level, finding success at Silver Creek High School in Longmont, Colo., and Campbell County High School in Gillette, Wyo. While he is stepping away from the profession he is not completely closing the door to future coaching opportunities.

"I don't know but I know this opportunity I have with Universal Athletic feels good," he said.

A search for Scott's replacement is under way.