Richard `Dick` Gisel

Richard ‘Dick’ Gisel
HCC Quarterback Club Hall of Fame 2015 Inductee
Gisel had Blue Dragons at the top as player and coach
Richard “Dick”
Gisel truly knows
what it means to be a
Blue Dragon.
Growing up just
north of Hutchinson,
Gisel went to Blue
Dragon games as a
youngster.
He played both basketball and football for
the Blue Dragons.
He was an assistant
coach for Quarterback
Club Hall of Famer Gene
Keady.
He was the head coach
of the storied Blue
Dragon program, taking
HCC to No. 1 in the NJCAA
polls in 1975 and to an
eighth-place NJCAA Tournament finish.
And now, Dick Gisel is a
member of the HCC Quarterback Club Hall of Fame Class of 2015.
“It started off pretty naïve back in 1956,” Gisel recalled.
“There was a lot of history there and he gave me a chance to
play and I wanted to play pretty badly.
“As you go on along on your lifetime, you look for ways to
better yourself. Those two years coming out of high school,
it was a good training ground for me. I got to explore things I
never got to before.”
After graduating from Buhler High School in 1956, Gisel
was offered to walk on to the Blue Dragon men’s basketball
team by Hall of Fame coach Charles Sesher. The 1957 Blue
Dragons didn’t win Region VI, but were a special invitee to the
NJCAA Tournament. Gisel helped Sesher’s final Hutchinson
team finish 21-7 and finish fifth in the 1957 NJCAA Tournament.
Playing for another Hall of Famer, Sam Butterfield, in 1958,
Gisel led Hutchinson to a three-way conference championship
and a Region VI title. That Blue Dragon team finished eighth
in the national tournament and Gisel was named to the AllTournament team.
“We won the region at Dodge City,” Gisel said. “We were
down three points with 30 seconds to go and we came back
and won by one. We were a team that ran a lot and scored a
lot of points. I never thought I would be named to the alltournament team.”
While at HCC, Gisel joined the Blue Dragon football team
and played defensive back in 1957.
Gisel went onto the University of Kansas to play for the
Jayhawks and started the final 12 games of his KU career.
With his playing days over, Gisel turned to teaching and
coaching, a path that eventually led him back to Reno County.
First to Buhler High School and then back to the Sports Arena
as a Blue Dragon assistant coach starting in 1966.
As an assistant under Keady, Gisel coached some of the
greatest Blue Dragons of all time – Stan Blackmon, Richard
Morsden, Teko Wynder and Rudy Jackson just to name a few.
HCC was enjoying unprecedented success under Keady and
Gisel, winning six Jayhawk Conference titles, five Region VI
championships and a total of 235 games in an eight-year span.
Before the 1974-75 season, Keady moved on and Gisel was
promoted to become the fifth head coach in Blue Dragon
men’s basketball history. Gisel posted a four-year record
of 84-38, winning three Jayhawk Conference titles and one
Region VI crown.
Gisel’s best team was his first in the 1974-75 season. The
season started with a 24-game winning streak – still a Blue
Dragon men’s basketball record – and along the way Hutchinson climbed to No. 1 in the NJCAA poll. That team finished 32-3,
won the Jayhawk Conference and Region VI, but was upset in
the opening round of the national tournameant and finished
eighth.
“Keady left a pretty good nucleus for that first team I
coached,” Gisel said. “I was proud of that team. They did a lot
of things well and we scored a lot of points.”
Gisel retired in 1994 after 32 years in education.
Story by Steve Carpenter, Hutchinson CC Sports Information Director