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Mike Sertich was genuinely surprised when informed that he had been selected for the Duluth-area sports hall of fame, known officially as the “DECC Hall of Fame,” but when Sertie was inducted Wednesday night it was significant that it all went down comparatively without drama.

Sertich, who played on Ralph Romano’s early teams after he had led the Bulldogs to Division I hockey, is from Virginia, Minnesota, and he is best known for coaching the Bulldogs for 19 years. He joined former UMD football star Ted McKnight, former University of Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi, ex Gopher athlete Debbie Hunter, and the late Bob and Ruby Maxson, brother and sister figure skating trailblazers at the induction ceremonies at the DECC.

The best-known drama Sertie will be remembered for the incredible game his UMD team had after winning the WCHA title and reaching the Final Four championship game at Lake Placid in 1984. Loaded, and at the top of their game, the Bulldogs gave up a bad-bounce goal in the closing minutes and wound up losing to Bowling Green in four overtimes.  

That 1983-84 team is generally remembered as UMD’s most-skilled ever. Yet, a year later, at the Detroit Olympia, the Bulldogs made another run at the Final Four (later called the Frozen Four), and were knocked out in a triple-overtime semifinal by RPI.

Those two excruciating games are riveted into the memories of UMD fans everywhere, but they were nothing compared to how Sertie started and ended his UMD coaching career. 

He finished playing at UMD and became an assistant coach to Gus Hendrickson at Grand Rapids High School. They formed a dynamic duo and led the Grand Rapids Indians -- the Halloween Machine -- to the 1975 state high school title. At the time, Gus Hendrickson was one of the more creative minds in the game, and UMD was still in struggling mode to become properly competitive at the Division I level. Romano made the big move and decided to take a chance on the ultra-successful high school coach.

Gus Hendrickson was always an imaginative tactician, just like his brother, Dave, who coached Sertich’s high school teams in Virginia.  When Hendrickson was hired at UMD, he brought Sertich along as his trusted aide. Hendrickson succeeded in converting UMD from basically a Canadian-import college with a few Minnesotans to more of a Northern Minnesota college team augmented with a few Canadians.

But climbing the rugged WCHA standings was not an easy task, which frustrated Hendrickson as the years passed. Hendrickson also realized UMD was in arrears in proper support from the school. It reached the point in the middle of the 1981-82 season that Hendrickson went into Romano’s office and said he was going to resign. Romano rejected that notion, and when they talked about the team, Romano suggested Hendrickson should fire Sertich, who Romano saw as a liability.

Gus refused and said he trusted Sertich totally and they were also very good friends. He went back to work, but a short time later, Sertich approached Gus and said he thought the strain was adversely affecting their relationship and that he was going to resign. Hendrickson was startled, but, knowing that was also what Romano also had suggested, he agreed to go along with it.

Sertich left in midseason, and Hendrickson persevered. At the time, Cloquet had a standout named Corey Millen, who was being intensely recruited by both Minnesota and UMD. As the season ended, Millen chose Minnesota. Romano summoned Hendrickson and told him he would accept Hendrickson’s resignation at that time. Hendrickson said no way, he had wanted to resign earlier, but by then he had put together a thorough and extensive procedural plan for how to lift UMD to elite status, so he was not interested in quitting at that time. So Romano fired Hendrickson.

All three of those men -- Romano, Hendrickson and Sertich -- were close friends of mine, while I was covering hockey for the Duluth News-Tribune and later the Minneapolis Tribune. After the firing, I reached Sertich and urged him to apply for the open job. He said he wouldn’t consider it, because of his friendship for Gus, and he figured Gus would think he had undermined him.

I was aware that Romano had two top choices for coach. One was John MacInnes, the legendary coach at Michigan Tech, and a man Romano always mistakenly thought he could lure to move from Houghton to Duluth. The other was Glenn (Chico) Resch, former UMD star goaltender who had gone on to a great career with the New York Islanders and had retained a close relationship with Romano. But Resch decided to stay and play one more season in the NHL.

Romano needed someone. A “disposable” coach he could hire for one season, on an interim basis, and then bring Resch in. Sertich didn’t know all that, but I did, and it was why I urged Sertie to apply. “Gus is a great guy, and he will land on his feet,” I told Sertich. “What are you going to be doing one year from now?” I added that I would call Hendrickson, and I was sure he would urge Sertie to do the same thing.

But Gus had gone underground and I couldn’t locate him. The rest of the scenario played out exactly the way I had envisioned, and Romano hired Sertich on a one-year contract, as interim hockey coach at UMD. Unfortunately, Hendrickson and Sertich have never been as close as they once were, and I feel sad about that.

But Romano’s scenario didn’t quite work out, either. Sertich, who always gives full credit to all he learned from Gus Hendrickson, did a lot of the same things, tactically, and a few of his own wrinkles. Perhaps the biggest thing was that it was a new voice, from someone the players felt close to, and they responded. The Bulldogs jumped up into contention, and Mike Sertich was named WCHA Coach of the Year.

Romano had no choice but to bring him back for the next season. That was 1983-84, and Sertich led the Tom Kurvers, Norm Maciver, Bill Watson, Mark Odnokon team to the WCHA title and the incredible NCAA title game at Lake Placid. Sertich was named WCHA Coach of the Year for the second straight year, and earned another one-year contract. 

One year later, they went to the tournament semifinals in Detroit after winning yet another WCHA title, and Sertich became the only three-time winner of Coach of the Year.

By then, he was solidly in place, and he had taken a UMD program that was a good Division I program and raised it to the level of a Division I Elite team.

He remained solidly in place, even after Ralph Romano died. The program owes Romano an enormous debt for taking on the challenge of making UMD a Division I program. He also deserves something of an award for giving Mike Sertich the chance to be a head coach, albeit in a position where the word “Interim” preceded his name.

Sertich even won a fourth Coach of the Year award later, and while the same level of success couldn’t be guaranteed every year, all went smoothly through the rest of the ‘80s and the 1990s and into the new century. It lasted 18 seasons, until he was talked into an arranged resignation by then-athletic director Bob Corran. Sertich was told if he resigned, he would get paid the remaining two years of his contract, but if he didn’t resign, he would get fired and not collect any of his salary.

Easy decision, so Sertich spoke at his own press conference and said he had reached the point where he’d had enough. Corran hired Scott Sandelin. 

 In retrospect, if a coach is fired he must be paid what he is owed; if he resigns, legally he doesn’t have to be paid anything. After UMD balked at paying, Sertich had to hire an attorney to get the money he had coming.

A couple months into the following season, Sertich, who had obviously had enough coaching, accepted the offer to coach Michigan Tech!

As a coach, Sertich got used to the gut-wrenching game action. But it was nothing like what engulfed Mike Sertich when he was hired by UMD, and again when he departed. When I congratulated him on being inducted into the DECC Hall of Fame, I also suggested that Mike Sertich might be the first and only Interim Coach ever inducted into the Hall of Fame. Wonder if that would fit on the plaque