Munz talks secrets of Pioneer football success with Sauk County leaders

UW-Platteville Head Football Coach Ryan Munz's guiding principle is both counterintuitive and simple: Leaders let others lead. 

That was the cornerstone of the keynote speech Munz delivered Thursday to a rapt audience at a Sauk County Institute of Leadership luncheon in Lake Delton. The organization, sponsored in part by the University of Wisconsin-Extension, offers leadership workshops throughout the year. Thursday's agenda: figure out how Munz and his staff transformed the Pioneers into a national contender in two years.

Munz took over a program in 2022 that hadn't made a playoff appearance in six seasons and hadn't won a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Conference championship since 1980. Munz has gone 30-14 overall in four seasons at the helm, leading the Pioneers to a WIAC championship and a playoff berth in 2024. Last season UW-Platteville earned a first-round playoff bye and defeated Alma in the second round before falling to Bethel, one win short of gaining a berth in the NCAA Division III national quarterfinals.

"It's football," Munz said as he began his remarks Thursday. "We play the game and it's cool, but you have to have a structured organization. You have to have a plan."

That plan was to treat the team as a venture startup that would eventually benefit the entire campus, the Platteville-area community, alumni, recruits and parents, he said. 

On his first day, he met with his assistants in a meeting "that was way too long," he joked. He ranked all the players on a four-tier system: a great leader, capable of leading the entire team; good leaders; followers, which he compared to employees who show up every day but clock out at 4:56 p.m. when their shifts end at 5 p.m.; and "bad apples."

From there the staff set the team culture and expectations. They defined acceptable performances clearly and concisely, leaving no question as to whether the standard was met, the coach said.

"Growth is hard and uncomfortable," Munz said.

The coaches then selected four players to serve as the team's key leaders, asking them to attend leadership classes and choose another player to mentor and eat lunch with their mentee at least once a semester because "they let their guard down when they're eating," Munz said. 

The staff began their second year by developing a leadership council made up of five offensive players, five defensive players and a kicker. Their tasks included sending out players to, as Munz put it, win the pregame coin toss, pick uniform combinations, choose a victory song and clean up the locker room after each game.

Heading into year three, Munz and his staff launched a leadership development course for about 50 players, asking them to meet every Wednesday at 7 a.m. to talk about the team's core values—brotherhood, toughness, discipline and greatness. Eleven months later the Pioneers won their first WIAC championship in 44 years. 

As the 2025 offseason began, the coaching staff chose leaders of each position group, asking them to do at least eight hours of community service, maintain a minimum 3.0 grade point average and set expectations that meeting rooms were clean. It wasn't all work, though; each unit had to come up with a nickname for itself. The quarterbacks were the Time Keepers. The kickers called themselves the Strike Crew.

"It gives kids an identity," Munz said.

The plan was an extension of his leadership philosophy, the coach told the audience. Leaders aren't born. They're not always vocal and don't seek the role, but they'll be there "when things suck," Munz said. And leaders have to accept that they're going to be lonely, he said.

"As an assistant coach, everyone loves you," Munz said. "As a head coach, nobody invites you out for dinner. You're the rule-maker now."

And everything circles back to that core tenet: Leaders let others lead.

"I don't want it to be my show," Munz said. "It's all for the brand. It's UW-Platteville, which is one of the coolest things."