New Southeast football coach Tom Matukewicz spent more than two decades working his way through coaching ranks

Tom Matukewicz is unusual.

The first-year Southeast Missouri State football coach desired to become a head football coach more than an NFL player when he was growing up -- something he admits is unusual.

He had an ability to read the opposing offense's plays with ease in high school -- something his high school defensive coordinator Tom Michael used to his team's advantage but considered unusual for a kid.

He bided his time as an assistant coach, soaking in the knowledge it takes to be a head coach, and worked his way up from a student coach at a community college all the way to a defensive coordinator at a Football Bowl Subdivision school -- something University of Minnesota head football coach Jerry Kill, who Matukewicz worked alongside as an assistant for several years, believes is unusual.

Everything that has made Matukewicz different has also shaped him into the coach that will be leading the Redhawks from the sidelines of Houck Stadium on Thursday when the "Coach Tuke Era" will officially begin with the team's season opener against Missouri Baptist.

Matukewicz was born in St. Joseph, Missouri, on August 5, 1973, into a family that placed little to no emphasis on playing sports.

His parents divorced when he was a baby, and he lived with his dad and stepmom in Cassville, Missouri, until midway through eighth grade.

Matukewicz attributes playing football in seventh grade to his passion for the sport.

His dad's friend from work ran a football league and thought Matukewicz should play.

It took some begging and pleading, but eventually Matukewicz was signed up, drafted by a team and quickly saw success.

"What I liked about it was I was good at it," Matukewicz said. "There's a lot in my life that wasn't good and you get made fun of and stuff like that. But I was good at football, so I think that's what kind of made me initially fall in love with the sport."

Matukewicz struggled in school. He was in learning disability classes and was held back a grade in elementary school. He had a stuttering problem, and said that when people would make fun of him he "would just go pound them."

"But really what I had, I had the worst learning disability you could have: I didn't care," Matukewicz said. "Obviously I wasn't a dumb guy, I just had a lot of people fooled and kind of got away with not doing a lot. And, you know, I didn't want to be a businessman, I didn't want to do any of that -- I wanted to coach, and as far as I understood I was like, 'Why do I need to take algebra?' You know, all I need to do is count to 22."

He moved with his mom to Topeka, Kansas, in the middle of the eighth grade and the family moved to Silver Lake, Kansas, the following summer.

Around the same time, the Michaels moved to Silver Lake.

Tom Michael, who would later be Matukewicz's defensive coordinator at Silver Lake, recalled the first time he met him -- when he took his freshman son to the school's summer weight program.

Tom Michael, left, and Southeast Missouri State University head football coach Tom Matukewicz stand together on the field earlier this summer at Houck Stadium. (Laura Simon)

"Tom was the first one that greeted us and met us, and we thought he was a senior, but he was a freshman just like our son," Michael said with a laugh, noting that Matukewicz had an outgoing personality that could make anyone comfortable.

That's one of the qualities that Michael believes made Matukewicz a good leader, a leader he called the "quarterback of the defense."

"I just think as a football player he was just unbelievable," Michael said. "I would ask him questions on how he read what that play was going to be and he would say that in his mind the game was just kind of in slow motion as he was playing, so he could process that play really easy in his mind. Where most kids, instead of the play going at full speed and it going about five times faster than full speed [in their mind], to him the play was slowed down and he could see and read his keys with ease.

"Matter of fact, I would ask him what he saw so that it would help me be a better coach because he could just explain from the center to the guards, to the quarterback, to the fullback, to the tailback -- he could just see all that. And that's so, so unusual for a kid. Most of the time you try to teach them that, but he just was able to do that on his own. And like I said, his freshman year he was a leader. I mean, he just made us think that he was older and had been there forever, and he hadn't been. His leadership ability is kind of a natural thing."

Matukewicz lived with the Michael family during his junior and senior years.

"I have a great relationship with my parents now, but he's the only one that I'd listen to," Matukewicz said, "and so he was the one that kind of got me kind of straightened out there a little bit."

If there was any indication that coaching was a promising path for Matukewicz, it came prior to the first game of his senior season.

Silver Lake was opening the season against Sabetha High School and Michael felt sure that they would run a veer offense based on his familiarity with the coach, so when Matukewicz asked if they could go watch Sabetha scrimmage, Michael didn't see the need.

"Well, he just kept bugging me and bugging me until finally I said, 'OK, let's go,'" Michael said with a laugh.

"Tom wanted to go and I didn't even want to go at that time, so that was kind of a first time that you really knew that that's what he wanted to do for life because he just had to go up and see what they were going to run," Michael said.

Michael noted that Matukewicz's "natural knowledge" of football was beneficial to him as a player as well as a coach.

"Once I got to know him as a coach, I really kind of stayed out of his way and allowed him to just play football because he just had the instinct on defense to just know where the ball was going, which is very unusual," Michael said. "I have never had a kid that had that kind of instinct before. He just understands the game of football."

Matukewicz went on to Butler County Community College in El Dorado, Kansas, one of the only schools he was academically eligible for.

He was planning to continue his football career at the college, but that would not last long.

Matukewicz was sidelined after he tore his ACL during preseason camp. While he was rehabbing his knee, he was in a fight that involved pool sticks, which left him with a jaw broken in eight places, a re-injured knee and an ended playing career before it had even truly began.

Tom Saia, then head coach at Butler County Community College and Southeast defensive coordinator Bryce Saia's father, offered Matukewicz a spot as a student coach for the team.

A dark time in Matukewicz's life suddenly propelled him into his first coaching position.

"Obviously God had a different plan for me and set me on this path sooner than later, which was very beneficial," Matukewicz said.

After high school he turned himself around from an academic standpoint.

He remembers being told that if he wanted to be a head coach someday he'd have to earn a bachelor's degree and get his master's, which helped set him on the right path.

"And I wanted to be a coach bad enough that it kind of flipped for me," Matukewicz said. "But really it was just kind of some seeds sown early on from my high school coach. And when I went to college you'd hear a lot of people say, 'He'll never make it.' ... So I think maybe that could've fueled the fire a little bit."

He also is able to control his temper better than he did prior to becoming a coach, but considers himself a passionate person whose "motor runs hot a lot."

He eventually received his bachelor's degree from Fort Hays State in 1997 and completed his master's degree in athletic administration at Pittsburg State.

He coached at both before his first full-time position at Coffeyville Community College.

Matukewicz was hired by Kill as defensive line coach at Emporia State for the 2000-2001 season and followed Kill to Southern Illinois University, where he served as a linebackers coach and run-game coordinator from 2001-07.

He continued on to Northern Illinois with Kill, where he was the run-game coordinator from 2008-2010.

"I think what describes Tom is he's relentless, and he's talented at many things," Kill said. "When I first hired him at Emporia State and then Southern Illinois and as we traveled to Northern Illinois, [I saw] his willingness. There was no job that he couldn't take on or that he couldn't do, and I think that's why he'll be a great head coach because he kind of came up from the ground roots and he's coached at several levels and he's paid his dues. Sometimes if you become a head coach too quick you're not prepared, and he's certainly prepared for it. He's paid his dues and is ready to be a great head football coach."

Matukewicz got a glimpse into what it would be like to coach his own team when he was named the interim coach for NIU's 2010 Humanitarian Bowl game after Kill accepted his current position at Minnesota.

"Just to see the looks on those kids' faces, and kind of get to see the looks on their hearts, really, when they knew that coach Tuke was going to stick around and get them to and through that bowl game when they had a really big coaching change going on was amazing," Tom's wife, Lenna Matukewicz, said. "Just to see that team and that team of coaches come together and make that victory happen in such a short amount of days was so fun and so exciting. It was great for Tom, but really just great for the Huskie community for sure."

Matukewicz stayed on at NIU the following season as the linebackers coach before departing for the University of Toledo, where he was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.

For Lenna Matukewicz, after having only known her husband as a coach since they met as graduate students at Pittsburg State, seeing him transition into a coordinator made her realize how close he was to seeing his dream come true.

"There's never a specific timeline that goes along with it, however, since we both started in this career together as young 20-somethings, we just sort of saw the progression that it would take and the experience that it would take," Lenna Matukewicz said. "So while we didn't have a specific date in mind we knew that he would need the experience of being a coordinator and doing some certain things before he could be a head coach, realistically.

"And we felt like it was pretty eminent when he got to be the coordinator at the University of Toledo because he knew that he would get some great experience there and that some athletic directors would probably be interested in that type of experience. That's when we knew that it was getting close when we got to the University of Toledo."

Lenna Matukewicz can't keep the excitement out of her voice when she talks about her husband receiving a call from Southeast athletic director Mark Alnutt in November.

She thought that Tom would "put out the feelers" with people connected to the program, but an unexpected phone call from Alnutt to let Tom know he was interested in him for the job made her realize that her husband was close to finally reaching his goal.

"I was just really thrilled for Tom because I knew that it was a serious thing," Lenna Matukewicz said. "It wasn't just a friend of a friend of a friend saying, 'Hey, you should call this guy.' It was actually Mark reaching out to Tom, so that was really exciting and it made me so happy and proud for Tom because I knew that someone that actually knew what he was looking for, like Mark Alnutt, was interested in my husband and the great experience that he has. I was thrilled."

Tom Matukewicz considers himself a "late bloomer" when it comes to coaching. He may have thought that he wanted this job as quickly as possible when he was younger, but now that's he in the position, he feels the time is right because everything else he's done has prepared him for his current role.

"It's very hard to become a head coach at the college level in Division I. It's just not an easy road," Kill said. "And you know, most people start off at that level or played at that level, start off in Division I or I-AA. There's not many that get the opportunity to work through it. Tom took that path where he was going to go work through it instead of like go be a graduate assistant at Oklahoma University. He started off at the lower levels and worked his way up. And again, if you look through the history of time, not very many people have done it the way he's doing it."

"That's something that you have to overcome because from a small town in Kansas you don't have this big, gigantic name coming out that some places do," Kill added. "You've got to work and build your name and your reputation. So I think the biggest thing that he overcame was getting those opportunities to move up the ladder where he wanted to go. He chose his own path. He got there because of what he wanted to do and the hard work that he's done."

Lenna Matukewicz has been there throughout all the long hours her husband put into the job and working his way through the coaching ranks, and he hasn't changed.

"His mentality has always been the same," Lenna Matukewicz said. "Work, work, work, and just really enjoy it. And when I say work, work, work -- he doesn't really feel like he's worked a day in his life. The man loves football, so he's working a lot but it doesn't feel like work."

Matukewicz is serious on the football field, but he also knows how to keep the team and fans interested.

That much has become clear when he's had dance-offs or Easter egg hunts to end practice, or driven a Kona Ice truck onto the field for an end-of-practice treat.

"It's just his passion, his aura," Reggie Jennings said. "He wants to do for us. When someone wants to do for you, you want to give back and do for them. He's done so much for us in these past few months he's been here, since January. And I know personally, for me, if somebody continues to do and do and do for me, I've got to do something in return.

"It's just a blessing. It kind of feels like he's a father-figure, you know, and you don't want to let your father down. Your father does [things for you], gives for you, provides for you, and I've got to make sure my father's proud. He's being that father-figure to us, and it's just all love. We just really love coach and all the things he's done for us."

Kill called him "a great communicator" and "a great motivator" whose players will always try hard for him.

"You know, he just has the qualities of a great leader," Kill said. "People are going to follow him, and he's enthusiastic. He can get people to kind of rally up and go for that cause. Not everybody's blessed with that. He's got a natural ability to do that."

That natural ability has helped him along the way, but Matukewicz feels his biggest help was to slowly achieve that unusual dream he's had since he was a child.

"I feel like every move I had there was a reason," Matukewicz said. "And it helped me take that next step in order to get something like this."