Cramer coordinates Hall of Fame coaching career

A former high school football player asked Scott Cramer to be the officiant at his wedding.

Cramer wasn’t even ordained.

Other former players have asked him to meet their newborn children. He has sat with some through their chemotherapy sessions.

“That’s why you do it,” Cramer said of coaching.

He has done it well, so much so that a couple of weeks ago the Grafton native got the call. He is going to be inducted into the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

Cramer’s notification came out of the blue. He was in a meeting at his civil engineering firm and missed a call from WFCA Hall of Fame Committee member John Hoch.

“I saw his name pop up on my phone and I thought he was trying to get ahold of my dad,” he said.

That was logical. Kip Cramer is a WFCA Hall of Fame member and a Grafton football coaching legend.

But this time it was about his son.

“It was a great surprise. Something I didn’t expect,” Scott Cramer said.

Cramer’s resume shows he earned it.

This is his 30th year of coaching, all as an assistant. He has more than 200 victories, nearly 25 playoff appearances, double-digit conference titles and one state runner-up finish between three different schools, most recently at Verona.

Cramer’s football journey started in Grafton when he played outside linebacker for his father in high school.

“My time at Grafton was my formative years. Woodview (Elementary), John Long (Middle) and the high school. There are a lot of wonderful people there who shaped our lives. You don’t forget your roots,” he said.

Cramer went on to play at Western Michigan for Jack Harbaugh, whose sons Jim and Jack went on to win college and NFL championships as coaches.

Cramer met his future wife Joan in college, and the two moved to the Milwaukee area.

“Once I was able to get settled in my job, my dad was like, ‘You want to try it?’” he said of coaching.

It didn’t take long to get hooked on his hometown field.

“I was on the practice field for about 20 minutes and thought, OK, this is where I’m supposed to be. That was 1994,” Cramer said.

Cramer has always coached defense, serving as defensive coordinator.

“I’ve always just been really fascinated by the combination of the science and the art and the psychology of defense,” he said. “There’s a lot to it. Football can be a pretty complex game when you get into the layers of the onion.”

Cramer has had multiple calls to be a head coach, including after Verona’s longtime coach Dave Richardson retired, but he doesn’t think it would be a good fit since he isn’t a high school teacher.

“Dave, like my dad, was so woven into the fabric of the high school. To do it would have been selfish, a disservice to the school. You need the head coach to be in the high school. It would have served my ego but not the program,” he said.

Cramer has been offered college-level jobs as well, but “that’s a whole other ball game,” he said.

As a coordinator, Cramer still makes a lasting impact in students’ lives.

“Where Scott always has made his biggest difference is in the lifelong relationships he has built with his student-athletes,” Verona head coach Andrew Riley wrote in a Hall of Fame nomination letter for Cramer. “He is the definition of a coach ‘trying to make young people into good people.’”

Fellow Verona assistant coach Brad Rupnow wrote, “Scott has always maintained the perspective that what is most important is not just the W’s but rather the lessons our players learn along the way about dedication, integrity and ‘always doing what is right, even when no one is looking.’”

Cramer said victories on the field provide short-term satisfaction, but his highlights are “affirmations or evidence that what you said or what you did, those kids carried with them.”

From 1994 to 1998 in Grafton, Cramer and his father led the team to a 28-21 record, three playoff appearances and one conference title.

After his father retired, Cramer coached for one year in Whitefish Bay before coming to Verona. He took a year off to settle into a new community when Richardson, who coached against Kramer at Dominican two years prior, took the Verona job and asked Cramer to join him.

“‘If you want a project, we’ve got to rebuild it,’” Richardson told him.

“I don’t think they’d won a game in three years,” Cramer said. “The first year we didn’t even have away jerseys.”

But the Wildcats’ got going. During the first year under Richardson and Cramer, the team advanced to the state quarterfinals. The next year they made it to the semifinals.

“We were rolling pretty quick. Then we were just kind of able to keep things going with some continued success. We just caught lightning in a bottle,” Cramer said.

The coaching staff, then in their early 30s, had no problems watching film into the wee hours of the night and became close friends. Cramer claims that wasn’t the change agent.

“It wasn’t us; it was the kids,” he said.

Cramer also credits his mentors for his success.

Greg Mattison recruited Cramer at Western Michigan. Mattison went on to coach under John Harbaugh for the Baltimore Ravens and found success as defensive coordinator for Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame, where he helped the Fighting Irish win a national title.

“He’s been great. I texted him the other day. He and my dad were great friends,” Cramer said.

Former Western Michigan defensive coordinators Larry Edlund and Jim Knowles, the latter the defensive coordinator on Ohio State’s national title-winning team last year — Kip and Scott went to the championship game — also have been mentors. Cramer still texts Knowles for advice, and he is quick to respond.

“The coaching web is pretty tight. You kind of connect all these dots,” Cramer said.

And, of course, Cramer said, “certainly my dad was a mentor.”

He also praises his wife Joan for tolerating the football schedule.

“She is Wonder Woman,” he said.

Cramer’s defensive philosophy is simple despite coaching a complex game in formations of 3-4 and 4-2-5.

“We get after people pretty good. We treat the ball as ours even though we’re on defense,” he said. “Our goal is not to stop the other team. Our goal is to take our ball back.”

Cramer said he is happy to see the success Jim Norris is having at Grafton, qualifying for the playoffs every year since taking over in 2018 and finishing as state runner-up once.

“They’re doing a great job there. He’s been great making my dad feel part of the program,” Cramer said.

To continue what is becoming a family tradition, Cramer’s sons Ben and Matt played for their father, and Ben coached under him for a year at Verona.

Cramer left after Richardson retired and took 2022 off, but Ben, then attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, could fit coaching into his schedule and wanted to give it a shot.

“Well shoot, if he’s going back I’m going to jump on this thing,” Cramer said.

Now, Cramer is playing the role of mentor. Nearly 10 assistant coaches at Verona used to play for him.

They can watch their mentor earn the state’s highest honor in April in Madison when Cramer joins his father and other coaching elite in the hall of fame.