Success breeds success and the Pierre Governor football has seen that success for the near last decade as the Governors have won eight of the last nine Class 11AA State Championships. It also puts the Governors on the map in terms of college football recruiting.
Since Steve Steele took over as the head coach in Pierre for the 2016 season, he seen 36 players sign to play college football across all levels and one guy who made the NFL and is now a Super Bowl champion in Grey Zabel. You go back even farther and there’s more guys who have gone to play college football under previous head coaches for the Governors. And as the success continues, the bigger schools have started to take note of what the Governors have been able to do and the talent in which the players have and the recruitment level has increased. Zabel went to the FCS level signing for the Class of 2020 before Lincoln Kienholz and Jason Maciejczak signing with Ohio State and Nebraska before transferring to Louisville and Wyoming in 2023 and then most recently for Jett Zabel signing for North Dakota in 2024 who will be competing in the FBS starting this fall. Now, most recently, Cooper Terwilliger has verbally committed to Penn State in April. Steele has been able to be a part of all of these recruitments and says it’s always exciting especially with the latest one with Terwilliger…
These guys who have been recruited in the past have helped paved the way for the younger guys to get better exposure which then leads to more guys get exposure and Steele says it’s a blast to see it expand in Pierre…
As far as the future goes for Pierre, the community and the Governors would love to see more power four athletes and more athletes compete at the college football level regardless of division. Steele says the hardest part is where their bodies will be at when they’re juniors and seniors…
No matter the outcome, the Pierre Governors continue to put the community on the map in a big way and the upcoming players in the future have the benefit of having some high quality role models to look up to.





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