Longtime Rice Lake coach Jim Peterson to join Wisconsin Football Coaches Hall of Fame

How football is played and coached has changed a lot in the last four-plus decades, but in Rice Lake there’s been one constant.

For the last 45 years Jim Peterson has been a fixture on the coaching staff of the Rice Lake Warriors football teams. And for that reason Peterson is one of 12 who will be inducted into the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame for its 2025 class, the WFCA announced last week. The 2025 induction ceremony will be in April in Madison.

“It’s a reflection of the Rice Lake community, our football program and the school,” Peterson said.

Peterson spent two years coaching football in Barnum, Minnesota, before one season coaching basketball in Clayton. In 1977 he got a job teaching in Rice Lake and was an assistant girls basketball coach his first year. His late wife Sharon also got a teaching job in Rice Lake a year later. Then in 1979 Peterson joined the football program, where he’s been involved ever since.

The WIAA implemented the football playoffs in 1976 and Peterson has been associated with every playoff team Rice Lake has ever had, including state championship teams in 1979, 2017 and 2023. He’s been an assistant for six coaches, including Will Ferris, Ed Olund, Dennis Wee, Ernie Kolumbus, Vern Pottinger and now Dan Hill. Peterson will join Ferris, a 2003 inductee, and Pottinger, a 2012 inductee, in the WFCA Hall of Fame. In 2015 Peterson was named the WFCA Assistant Coach of the Year.

“I’m just very fortunate, and a lot of it has to do with Rice Lake winning,” Peterson said.

Peterson graduated from Morgan Park High School in Duluth, Minnesota, where he was a three-sport athlete in football, basketball and track. He credits his coaches in high school for being mentors and he’s tried to emulate the coaches he had in his youth. He ran track at UM-Duluth and UW-Superior before serving in the Army from 1969-72, and then he re-enrolled at UW-Superior where he played halfback for the Yellow Jackets.

At Rice Lake Peterson’s first role on the football staff was as the freshman coach and he also scouted for the varsity team. He’d travel to go watch the team’s next opponent and sketch out alignments and plays to deliver back to the varsity coaching staff. In later years he brought a cassette recorder to document his scouting report, a far different approach than the video technology teams have now.

Another big change over his coaching career has been the weight room. When Peterson first started, a limited number of weights were located near the back stairs, he said, which is now a part of classrooms. Having a team of strong athletes was dependent on having hardworking farm kids.

“We had hardly any weights and hardly any people lifted,” he said. “To get them to lift was something. We had farmers, that was a difference.”

Peterson had embraced being the underdog. In Duluth, Morgan Park was the small school in the city, and when moving from the Heart O’ North Conference to the Big Rivers, Rice Lake turned into the small school of the league. He even got his players at defensive end, now outside linebackers in the current defensive scheme, to adopt an underdog mentality. He coined his defensive group as the “Junk Yard Dogs” to bring some excitement to a less glamorous position.

While Rice Lake saw a championship season in Peterson’s first year on the staff, and in recent decades has achieved great success with multiple state titles and finals appearances, there were some ups and downs. It’s the growth both the football program and the student-athletes make that Peterson appreciates.

“I enjoy seeing success out of your team,” he said. “Seeing a person work hard and then see the benefits of it during a game, and you’re not going to win every game. It’s having the kids that were sometimes having difficulty in school and those kids grow up, seeing our kids grow up into men by the time they are seniors.”

In addition to football Peterson also coached a number of youth sports in Rice Lake as his children Steve and Kristie grew up. He spent more than 30 years teaching elementary and sixth grade before retiring in 2009. What has kept Peterson involved with the football all these years, even after his kids graduated and his retirement, has been the sense of family he’s felt within the coaching staff.

Peterson knows he doesn’t have “too many more” years coaching left in him as summer camp in preseason starts to wear on a veteran coach. One thing for sure is he’ll be back on the sideline this fall for his 46th season as the Warriors look for an encore to their 2023 state title team.

Peterson was a Rice Lake Sport Hall of Fame inductee in 2022, and as he adds another accolade next spring for his dedication to coaching kids in Rice Lake, he keeps a humble approach, being thankful to all the coaches he’s worked with and the kids who he’s gotten to coach.

“I was lucky enough to have many mentors and teachers and community members who have inspired the student-athletes,” Peterson said. “The kids that have come through, they were good students, and are well respected people in the community.”