Van Diest announces retirement as Carroll College head football coach

HELENA - In an early morning press conference on Monday, Mike Van Diest announced he will be retiring and ending his 20-year coaching career at Carroll College.  The famed Frontier Conference coach ends his impressive career after leading the Fighting Saints to 6 National Championships and 14 Frontier Conference Championships. Their most impressive run came from 2000-2011 where Van Diest led them to 12 straight conference titles.  The same can’t be said for his last year ending 2018 with a 5-6 record, the fourth straight losing season by the Saints. During his coaching tenure, Van Diest was honored with multiple honors, including NAIA National Coach of the year in 2003, 2007 and 2010. His peers across the nation voted him into the NAIA Football Hall of Fame Class of 2018. “The football part of it was great. The relationships were better. The scoreboard only tells half the story. … Those are the things that you can’t plan out. God has a plan for all of us. It’s not the blueprint that I would have had but it’s the blueprint that he had and it was awesome,” said Van Diest on Monday. Van Diest says retirement means that he finally has more time to spend with his family, including a new granddaughter, after 43 years of coaching. “I can’t turn the clock back on what I’ve missed but I can certainly go forward and help and support them in their life. And I’ll always be a Carroll College Fighting Saint,” said he said.