iStockphoto / Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
North Dakota State football coach Tim Polasek holding a driver
Twenty years before Tim Polasek became the man responsible for guiding one of college football’s greatest dynasties into the FBS, he was working a logging job in Wisconsin and trying to figure out how to afford a trip to Fargo. His solution was wonderfully simple: sell his TaylorMade driver and hope this whole football-coaching thing worked out.
It worked out pretty well. Polasek is now the head coach of the North Dakota State Bison, who officially joined the Mountain West as a football-only member this summer and will play their first FBS season in 2026 after winning 10 FCS national championships.
Tim Polasek Literally Sold His Driver To Chase A Coaching Job
Polasek’s origin story sounds like something a screenwriter would get told to tone down.
In 2006, he was an assistant at Division III Wisconsin-Stevens Point while also working a logging job. According to a recent profile, Polasek finished work around 5 p.m. on a Friday in temperatures around 10 degrees below zero when his old yellow Nokia rang.
On the other end was NDSU coach Craig Bohl.
Bohl wanted him in Fargo for an interview on Monday. Slight problem: Polasek did not have enough money to make the trip.
So he sold his TaylorMade driver.
The superintendent at the school knew Polasek was scrambling for cash and bought the club from him, providing the money he needed to get to Fargo. Polasek made the trip, landed the graduate assistant job, and eventually got the driver back.
Twenty Years Later, NDSU Is Finally Going FBS
Polasek stuck around Fargo from 2006 through 2012, eventually coaching running backs, tight ends and fullbacks. He later returned as offensive coordinator from 2014 through 2016 before stops at Iowa and Wyoming eventually brought him all the way back to NDSU as head coach in December 2023.
His first season ended with a 14-2 record and the program’s 10th FCS national championship.
Because apparently selling the golf club was a decent career investment.
North Dakota State has spent the past decade-plus functioning like the final boss of the FCS. The Bison won those 10 national titles beginning with the 2011 season and built enough of a reputation that their eventual move up became one of college football’s longest-running “when, not if” conversations.
The “when” has finally arrived.
NDSU’s Mountain West membership became official July 1, and the Bison will open their first FBS season against Jacksonville State on Aug. 29 before playing an eight-game conference schedule.
There will be bigger stadiums, more scholarships, and a considerably different weekly challenge than the one North Dakota State spent years bullying its way through at the FCS level.
Polasek probably will not be intimidated.
This is a guy who worked third shift inside a 130-degree steel mill, hauled trees in subzero weather, and once sold one of his possessions because he believed a graduate assistant interview might lead somewhere.
It led right back to Fargo.
Only this time, North Dakota State is climbing with him.