The System Wins

I’ll never forget my final postgame interview with Chris Kielsmeier, on Monday at Arkansas State, if only for the simple reality that I put more than ten minutes of planning into it.

Let me explain. Every spring in the mid-major world is a white-knuckle trudge through a minefield, where programs can be blown to bits without warning, and at any moment, before the transfer portal is closed and every coaching vacancy is filled.

Well, almost without warning.

Astute observers might have foreseen Kielsmeier leaving Cleveland State as early as last summer, when he signed his last contract extension. His buyout in that document was just $25,000, after previous extensions attached a six-figure number to that clause, signaling that he soon might be ready to move on.

Some nine months later, in the buildup to the Vikings’ postseason run, the coach’s name was floated for jobs at Pitt, then at VCU. However, the most credible rumors involved Texas State, and by Monday, they had reached a wailing, impossible-to-ignore, crescendo.

So I took what I felt was the prudent course of action. I wrote a quick post on Monday afternoon, knowing that if CSU lost to the Red Wolves that night, the news would likely go down during my trip home the next day. Then I began to think about what I needed to say to the man who’s been at the center of most of what I’ve done with my life over the last five years.

I didn’t know everything, but I knew enough.

Several hours later, in a cramped hallway underneath the seating bowl of First National Bank Arena after A-State ended the Vikings’ season, I dutifully read through a handful of routine questions, like “What happened out there?” and “How would you sum up this team’s legacy?” I intentionally skipped anything forward-looking, like the “How busy do you expect to be in the transfer portal?” query I tossed him after last season’s WNIT Fab 4 loss at Buffalo.

Once I reached the end of my list, I held my voice recorder up and made sure he saw me very deliberately press the stop button. After cycling through the first four stages of grief over about a week, it was time for some acceptance.

“Hey Chris,” I began, “if this is indeed it, I just wanted to thank you for everything over the years. Win or lose, you’ve always been more than generous with yourself and your time, and I appreciate it.”

Perfect, just like I rehearsed.

Then, some unwelcome insecurity burst through a window: “I mean, I’m just some donkey with 1,000 followers and you don’t really have anything to gain from talking to me, so it says a lot that you do anyway.”

After that last bit, he looked a little like a guy who just watched a player in year three with his program make the wrong read.

One of Kielsmeier’s favorite stock replies, referring to his unique matchup zone, is “the system wins.” The system has won plenty, 594 times to be specific, but it depends on precise, repeated execution from those under his guidance.

Though I wasn’t playing basketball (and everyone reading this can be thankful for that), in that moment, I felt like I was late on a perimeter rotation and about to be pulled from a game. Kielsmeier had, after all, discussed this specific issue with me several times before, though in this instance, he quickly swallowed his instincts and instead gave a patient response that says a lot about who he is as a person and a coach.

“We all want lots of people to care, and it’s easy to get hung up on those numbers,” he related. “It never feels like enough, but I’ve always tried to make sure that the ones who do care know they’re appreciated.”

Ah yes, those numbers.

Cleveland State’s WNIT run ended in the Great 8 before 2,258 fans at Arkansas State, following a win witnessed by 3,986 at Middle Tennessee State. Both of those opponents play in mid-major circuits, the Sun Belt Conference and Conference USA, that aren’t substantially different in stature from the Horizon League. Meanwhile, the Vikings’ first game in the tournament, at home against Monmouth, drew a heavily-padded count of 484 (in reality, it was probably about half of that).

Attendance and mainstream media attention – also non-existent, more or less – never offer a complete story, of course. At the very least, though, they serve as avatars for behind-the-scenes realities concerning more crucial issues like donor rolls, finances, and NIL clout.

Kielsmeier and I have talked about a lot of things over the years, in and out of basketball, on and off the record. On top of that, I’m fairly certain that I’ve watched every interview he’s done conducted by others. I don’t remember him complaining about his program’s putrid outside support one single time.

What I do remember is a conversation I had with Omega (Harrington) Tandy last season. Tandy was in town for CSU’s alumni weekend, which was quite a nice bit of serendipity, given that I was working on a feature about Kielsmeier’s predecessor, Kate Peterson Abiad. Peterson Abiad was the mid-2000s guard’s head coach with the Vikings.

It was a pretty awkward interview, as I tried and mostly failed to draw out some fond memories of a team that won eight games during Tandy’s two seasons in green and white, after she began her career at Duquesne. Once we were done, she pulled me aside with the urgency of someone who felt something important was slipping through the cracks.

“This program is so lucky to have Coach K,” she said, looking me dead in the eyes. “I need you to understand that.”

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what Tandy meant, because it could have been a lot of things.

For one, Kielsmeier fought with everything he had to push women’s basketball towards equal stature with the men’s team at Cleveland State. Under his watch, the team’s broadcast presence was upgraded from occasional segments tacked on to the end of the weekly men’s radio show, to its own standalone companion program two years ago, while veteran play-by-play announcer Al Pawlowski now calls most games on ESPN+. The university also began ticketing women’s basketball for the first time which, as any business student can verify, uplifts the perceived value of the program.

He helped Vikings players find opportunities off the court, with one prominent example being a line of autographed NIL-driven trading cards produced by Greenie Sports Cards. Former CSU star Destiny Leo was the pilot athlete for the experiment back in 2023, and things have taken off sharply from there.

There’s still plenty to be done, particularly around outreach and promotion. However, athletic director Kelsie Gory Harkey’s statement in response to Kielsmeier’s departure said that “women’s basketball remains a cornerstone of Cleveland State Athletics,” a promise that the work is underway, and a notion that would have been laughable at the beginning of the coach’s tenure.

To some extent, Tandy’s opinion also had to do with the fact that more recent Cleveland State teams have generally exceeded her career victory total by New Year’s Day, but it felt far deeper than that. Even as a brief part of a pretty forgettable past, one that transpired more than a decade before Kielsmeier arrived in town, she felt valued by her alma mater.

So did Jon Durda, a Vikings fan who holds a pair of CSU degrees. Durda visited Northern Kentucky in January to witness a victory over the Norse, and became one of the last participants in a regular ritual: Kielsmeier inviting traveling fans back into the locker room to help celebrate big road wins.

Just about everyone adjacent to Cleveland State’s program over the last eight years, from average supporters, to the guy who runs the shot clock in the Wolstein Center, has a story or two like that. Without fail, Kielsmeier ushered them behind the velvet rope for a moment to connect with the team in ways both extraordinary and rare in a world where those privileges are typically reserved for mega-donors.

Numerous boosters and ancillary staffers own a ring or a piece of net from the three championships CSU has won since 2021, perhaps the most tangible reminder that Kielsmeier viewed success as something that reached beyond the active roster.

That includes me. It would belabor the point to cite every single time Kielsmeier brought me into a room where I probably didn’t belong, or talked me off of a ledge when I was upset about something, or fed me some random behind-the-scenes detail to make me feel included, but suffice it to say that I felt a connection to the program that I never expected when I signed up for this back in 2021. As many know, I haven’t missed a Vikings game, home or away, since December of 2023, and have witnessed 167 of the 175 contests played during my time on the beat. Believe me, that doesn’t happen by accident or without sacrifice. It only happens if you feel like the tradeoffs are worth it.

So no, Cleveland State doesn’t have the numbers. As much as Kielsmeier won, as much as he deserved better from an apathetic local community, that situation never really changed. What it does have, though, is a legacy of enhancing the lives of just about anyone who ever interacted with the program, in ways both large and small.

That’s part of his system too. And the system wins.