Augsburg College - Athletics

Augsburg College Athletics Staff -- Frank Haege

Frank Haege Football Head Coach
Instructor, Health and Physical Education
Contact Frank -- 612-330-1433, haege@augsburg.edu

Frank Haege (Wisconsin-Stout '92) was named the 14th head coach in the history of Augsburg football on Jan. 17, 2005. Haege also serves as defensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In addition to his football coaching duties, Haege also is an instructor in Augsburg's health and physical education department.

Haege served on the Augsburg staff as wide receivers coach in 1996 and offensive coordinator from 1997-98 for former head coach Jack Osberg. Osberg retired at the end of the 2004 season after winning the most games in school history (62-79) in his 14 seasons.

"Ever since I started coaching with Jack in 1996, I fell in love with Augsburg," said Haege, 39. "It is a great atmosphere in which to coach and teach. People work hard, have fun and always look out for the student-athletes."

Haege compiled a 64-24 record as a professional football head coach. Most recently, Haege spent three seasons as head coach of the Arena Football League's Las Vegas Gladiators, posting a 25-23 record (including playoffs).

At Augsburg, Haege developed a dynamic passing offense. During the Auggies' Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship season of 1997, his Auggies averaged 424.3 yards of total offense per game and outscored their opponents 293-160 in the regular season, setting virtually every team and individual total offense and passing record, while advancing to the NCAA Division III national playoffs for the first time in school history.

In 1998, Haege's offense helped produce an NCAA career record for Augsburg receiver Scott Hvistendahl, who surpassed football legend Jerry Rice for the NCAA all-divisions record for career receiving yardage (4,696 yards, 1995-98), a record since broken. The 1998 Auggies averaged 394.8 yards of total offense per game.

As head coach, Haege has returned the Auggies to their high-flying offensive ways. In 2007, Augsburg had one of the top offensive attacks in all of NCAA Division III football last season, with its spread-formation offense connecting at a 424.8 yards-per-game rate. Augsburg's passing offense was ranked No. 4 nationally, with a 358.4 passing yards-per-game average.

Haege served as a coach in Arena Football for a decade, following in the footsteps of his father, Art Haege, one of the legendary coaches in the early years of the sport with the Iowa Barnstormers. Haege was a head coach in arena leagues for five years, with four of his teams making league playoffs. He was an assistant coach for three Arena Football League franchises -- the Milwaukee Mustangs (1994), Minnesota Fighting Pike (1996) and New Jersey Red Dogs (1997-99) -- in his early coaching years.

In 2000, Haege joined the new AF2 (Arena Football 2) league, an affiliate league of Arena Football, with the Quad Cities (Iowa-Illinois) Steamwheelers. While there, with Hvistendahl as one of his receivers, the Steamwheelers set several professional football records, winning the first two AF2 championships (2000, 2001). His Steamwheelers went 37-1, including a professional-record 28-game winning streak and a record 19-0 campaign in 2000. His Steamwheelers also set a professional football record for most points in a game, with a 103-point effort in a 2000 contest.

Haege returned to the AFL in 2002, being named head coach of the New Jersey Gladiators. His first season produced another milestone, as the Gladiators set a league record for the greatest single-season team turnaround, as his squad finished 9-5 to make the league playoffs, after compiling a 2-12 mark the previous year. The Gladiators moved from New Jersey to Las Vegas in 2003.

Haege played collegiately at Wisconsin-Stout as a tight end, earning conference all-academic awards three times and leading the team in receiving his senior season. He earned his bachelor's degree in marketing education in 1992.

Haege earned his master's degree in physical education/coaching from Bemidji State (Minn.), where he served as a football assistant coach from 1992-95. A native of Virginia, Minn., Haege and his wife, Michele, have one son, Frank Jr. The family resides in south Minneapolis.

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Augsburg College, a college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is a member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III.

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