Five years ago the North Platte St. Pat’s Fighting Irish knocked off Stanton at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln to claim the class C-2 state football championship.

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A headline in the November 17, 2004 (the week before the title game) edition of the Bulletin read, “Taste of success not new at St. Pat’s, but it’s been awhile.”

Indeed, the win represented the third pigskin championship in school history, but the first since back-to-back titles in 1984 and 1985.

Coach Kevin Dodson inherited a program that had suffered four consecutive losing seasons when he took over the Irish football head coaching position in 1999.

“The biggest concern when I took over was the number of kids participating,” Dodson said. Much of his early effort was focused on getting kids out for football.

Dodson and his coaching staff also worked to change the mental attitude of the program. He wanted his players to start believing they could win.

“The physical aspect is the easy part,” he said. “You get in the weight room and work hard at practice. We needed to get the kids believing in themselves.”

In 2000 the Irish returned to the playoffs for the first time since 1994, and by 2004 they were poised to claim another championship.

Dodson said that a very strong senior class partnered with talented underclassmen to lead the Irish to Lincoln and the big win.

As is often the case, the team’s lowest point paved the way for the success to come. The Irish lost to Hershey 20-13 at Knights of Columbus Field in the second week of the season.

The loss tested the team’s resolve. “We took a long, hard look at everything,” Defensive Coordinator Brent Aufdenkamp told the Bulletin in 2004. “That was a long weekend.”

Dodson said that after the Hershey game his players began to work harder in practice, and were able to overcome that adversity. The Irish won 11 consecutive games after that to finish 12-1.

As the Irish prepared to take the field at Memorial Stadium for the first time since 1987, Dodson and his assistant coaches stressed to the team that it was business as usual. “We told them to approach it like they would any other game,” Dodson said.

The Irish found themselves trailing Stanton 6-0 at the conclusion of the first half.

Dodson told the Bulletin in 2004, “We felt lucky to be down only 6-0 at halftime, but we felt that if we kept it close, we could win it in the fourth quarter. We felt like we’d played a lot more fourth-quarter ballgames than they had.”

A decided advantage in field position and limiting Stanton to only 40 yards in the final two quarters gave the Irish a 21-6 victory.

When asked what he will always remember about the 2004 state champion Irish, Dodson said, “It’s not wins and losses that mean a lot. What I cherish are the relationships I formed with the kids and the other coaches, and the memories we developed.”

As he prepares to begin his eleventh season as the Irish head coach, Dodson said that looking back is not something he often engages in. He does make exceptions, however.

“I tell people I don’t want to talk about last year’s team because it doesn’t have anything to do with what we’re doing now,” he said, before adding, “unless you want to talk about ’04.”