Setter retiring, but still ready to contribute

Recently, Sandra Setter walked through the halls at Eagan High School for one of the final times as an employee.

“Beautiful place to have a career,” she said.

From 1990, when the school opened, to July 31, when she retired, Setter has been a presence at the school, serving in a variety of ways. First it was as a teacher and coach, and for the last 16 years it was as activities director.

She has watched high school sports undergo massive changes. Activities were added, facilities were upgraded and the method of funding activities evolved.

Setter spent the last few weeks helping her successor, Jason Elias, prepare for what’s coming his way.

“We’ve talked a lot about the management pieces – just, how do you do certain things?” she said. “We’ve been creating a one-stop shop for coaches because everything’s been in my head for the past 16 years, and we’re trying to put it on paper for the coaches, and for him.

“Jason is a super-bright guy. He gets sports. He just needs to go through it once. And I’ve given him an open door in the sense that I’m going to be pretty much in the area for the next month and a half and he can call me anytime.”

Setter does not plan to leave the high school activities scene entirely, but she said she is ready for a break. She and her husband Wally – an on-call event worker at Eagan and sports official – have a cabin, and they expect a lot of fishing and golf in their future. Setter added that she’s always wanted to learn fly fishing, which probably will necessitate a trip to Montana someday.

Still planning to serve

The word “serve” often comes up when school administrators talk about their jobs. Although Setter won’t be on a campus full-time, she said she’s not done serving. She intends to continue as manager of the Class 4A, Section 3 girls volleyball tournament and possibly take on a boys volleyball section tournament when that sport comes under the Minnesota State High School League umbrella in 2024-25.

“I’d also like to find other ways to serve,” she said. “In our world, a lot of people leave the business. We have a turnover of 25-plus percent every year. So I would like to perhaps help with mentoring our younger (activities directors) through a new program that the Minnesota interscholastic athletic administrators are putting together to mentor those young ADs to help them survive longer.”

How it began

Setter competed in volleyball, basketball and track and field at Hopkins Eisenhower High School and was in the school’s final graduating class. She went on to play volleyball and basketball at Gustavus Adolphus College, where she also spent some time on the women’s basketball coaching staff before graduating.

“I think I always knew I wanted to be involved in coaching,” she said. At Hopkins Eisenhower “we had a great athletic director, a guy named George Reynolds, who just really cared about sports and kids. But we also had great coaches who provided me with some life lessons that I think mattered in my growth and where I wanted to be later.

“For a long time I thought I’d be a head basketball coach. Then I met Walt Weaver and Sam McCreedy at Apple Valley, and that led me down the volleyball road.”

After a couple of years teaching in Shakopee, Setter applied for a job at the soon-to-open Eagan High School. She was hired as a social studies teacher and basketball assistant coach, and also started a long tenure as an assistant coach for a Wildcats volleyball program that soon became a powerhouse.

In 1997, when athletic director Scott Larson left for the same position at Apple Valley, Setter and Dave Fritze – the Wildcats’ head football coach at the time – served as co-interim athletic directors. Setter began to think she could have a future as an administrator but wasn’t ready to make the jump.

“When the hiring process (for the permanent position) occurred, I was not ready to be out of the classroom,” Setter said. “I really enjoyed teaching the classes I was teaching. And I enjoyed coaching, so I wasn’t ready to be done.”

She did have her administrative license so she would be ready if the activities director job opened later. When Jim Boche left in 2008 to be a school administrator in Wisconsin, Setter decided it was time to pursue the job.

“I thought, well, it’s probably now or never because I wanted to be here. I didn’t want to be the activities director somewhere else,” Setter said. “I love Eagan. This is where my people are. I wanted to stay here. And I felt like I had a good vision because I had been in the office and had the experience to really understand what the position was.”

Leaving her mark

There are only two current head coaches at Eagan that Setter didn’t hire. Rob Graham (girls track and field) and Shelly Eklund (gymnastics) were already in their positions when Setter became activities director. She also can say she hired Kathy Gillen and Gillen’s daughter McKenna Melville to be Eagan’s head volleyball coach. Gillen took a few years off while her children were in athletics, then returned when the volleyball position opened again. Melville is entering her second season as head coach with her mother as an assistant.

Setter had a number of objectives upon taking the job, but they all came down to one thing: healthy growth.

“I wanted to help our programs continue to grow in good ways, and by growth, I mean better and stronger,” she said. “Wins and losses are part of the game, but I also wanted to help coaches stick around because it’s usually better when they’re around longer.

“Hopefully, kids felt there was value in our programs. We’re not always perfect at that, but we work at it. And I wanted to make sure the community felt like part of it and felt welcome.”