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Jan. 4, 2006 Tatum rounds out football staff Bart Tatum has been a busy man since coming to campus on Dec. 13. Tatum, the new head football coach at Missouri Southern State University, now has his coaching staff set for the 2006 season. Tatum has named Daryl Daye, a former head coach at Nichols (La.) State as the defensive coordinator. Other defensive coaches include Brian Ward, who coached on the Lions staff in 2005, and Tatum s older brother, John Tatum. New offensive coaches are Matt Karleskint, Casey Meile and Matt Plunkett. Karleskint and Meile will serve as co-offensive coordinators. I don t know how things could ve gone much better, Bart Tatum said. I identified a group of people that I knew would be cohesive and that would be a good working team, a productive team that could work together. With one exception, it was a seamless process. That one exception was Daryl, and I knew with his position, it would be something that we would advertise nationally on. We brought three guys in and interviewed them, but then it became clear that Daryl was the guy we needed. Daye comes to MSSU after serving in 2005 as special teams coordinator at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. He was previously the head football coach from 1999-2003 at Nicholls (La.) State, where he was named the 2002 Southland Conference Coach of the Year. Daye, a former linebacker at Louisiana State under then-coach Bill Arnsparger, began his coaching career under Arnsparger with the Tigers in 1986. At LSU, Daye helped the team to several bowl berths, both as a player and as a coach, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships in 1986 and 1988. Daye s father, Donnie, was a fullback on the 1958 national championship LSU squad. Daye later coached at Southern Mississippi in 1989-90, where the Golden Eagles roster included current Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre. He moved on to coach for eight seasons (1991-98) under Sam Rutigliano at Liberty (Va.) University. He was the team s defensive coordinator the last two seasons of his stay, leading the Flames to a nation-leading 41 turnovers forced in 1997. Ward, the lone holdover from the staff of the late John Ware, was co-defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator at MSSU in 2005. On Tatum s staff, Ward will lead the Lions linebackers and head up the special teams. Ward joined the Missouri Southern staff in 2005 after coaching on the Wabash (Ind.) football staff for four seasons. At NCAA Division III Wabash, Ward was assistant head coach, special teams coordinator, secondary coach and strength & conditioning coordinator. In 2002, he was a national assistant coach of the year for Division III by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA). John Tatum comes to Missouri Southern after most recently serving for three years (2003-05) as defensive backs coach at Upper Iowa University. He started his career in the state of Texas coaching various high school sports at Roxton and Caddo Mills before earning his master s degree in 2002 while coaching wide receivers at Northwest Missouri State. Tatum, a former quarterback and defensive back at Cooper (Texas) High School, earned a bachelor s degree in 1997 from Texas A&M University-Commerce. Karleskint, who will coach Missouri Southern s offensive backfield, comes to MSSU from Northwest Missouri State, where he was a graduate assistant and running backs coach for the last two seasons. After a collegiate playing career at Fort Scott (Kan.) Community College and Kansas Wesleyan University, Karleskint coached quarterbacks and wide receivers at Ottawa (Kan.) for two seasons prior to joining the NWMSU staff. Karleskint, a Fort Scott, Kan. native who earned a bachelor s degree in 2001 from Kansas Wesleyan and a master s in 2005 from Northwest, was a two-time all-conference quarterback at KWU. Meile also coached with Bart Tatum for two seasons at NWMSU and he joins the Lions after one year as running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at Augustana (S.D.) College. Meile will coach the Southern offensive line and also serves as the staff s recruiting coordinator. After a playing career as a tight end at Augustana, where he caught 52 passes for 665 yards and six touchdowns, Meile earned a master s degree in 2004 from Northwest Missouri State. There, he coached tight ends and offensive linemen in 2003-04 as the Bearcats went 19-5, shared one MIAA crown and made an NCAA-II playoff appearance. A native of Sioux Falls, S.D., Meile earned a bachelor s degree in 2002 from Augustana. Another new face on the offensive side is wide receivers coach Matt Plunkett, who coached tight ends at NCAA Division II power Carson-Newman (Tenn.) in 2005. Plunkett was formerly a graduate assistant coach at Pittsburg State, where he earned a master s while coaching outside linebackers in the spring of 2005. He played collegiately in 2001 at the University of North Alabama, another NCAA-II stalwart, before graduating from the University of Alabama in the spring of 2004 with a bachelor s degree. Plunkett, a native of Arab, Ala., was also a student assistant with the football team at UNA and with the Crimson Tide. The new staff has hit the ground running, Bart Tatum said. They re in here hammering the phones, getting rental cars, contacting coaches and burning the midnight oil, he said. We ve got a lot of evaluating to catch up on. It s endless right now. I believe that things happen for a reason, and I think this staff is the right group of guys for us here at Missouri Southern. Two graduate assistants from the 2005 season, Craig Knoth and Nick Williams, are continuing in their roles with the Lions.
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