Steve Heimann and his staff took over a rebuild with the Presentation (NAIA - SD) program back in 2019 as they were coming off a 5-5 year.
Heimann and his guys led the program to a one-win season that first year, before the strange COVID season seemed to stall any sense of progress being made, and they went 0-10 that year and 0-11 in 2021.
This fall, after dropping their first game, Heimann and his guys helped the program snap a 22-game losing streak with a convincing 29-6 win on the road against Luther College (D-III - IA).
They would go on to collect two more wins against conference opponents with victories over Dakota State (21-19) and Mayville State (21-0).
With three wins this fall, Heimann and the Presentation staff could show marked progress in their build of the program.
However, the school unfortunately recently announced that operations at the Aberdeen campus will cease following spring and summer sessions in 2023.
That's difficult news for Heimann and the staff he's put together.
No chance for another to prove their model and system was working at Presentation, and now coaches and players are forced to leave a place they chose for someplace new and unknown.
In these types of unfortunate situations, we like to shine a light on the staffs that will be on the hunt for new positions, both within football and - in some cases - outside of the game.
If there is any silver lining to be seen here, it's that this news is coming out now, as opposed to near the summer, when college staffs are filled out as they march toward their fall seasons. That may be the singular upside of learning of the the school's fate in mid-January.
Presentation is just the latest college to announce that they're shutting their doors since the pandemic. Urbana (D-II - OH) announced a similar decision back in April of 2020, and a handful of schools have sacrificed athletics to save money as well.
With the college shutting down, the school does have in place Teach-Out agreements with a handful of other colleges and universities as path for students to get their respective degrees. See Aberdeen News for more information.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.