For the past 45 years, Hedberg has been patrolling the sidelines as a coach in some form or fashion, whether it be an assistant coach, a position coach or the head coach. And before that, one could find Hedberg on the field under center leading his team down the field.

Hedberg has lived and breathed football his entire life and not only has the game been good to him, he’s been good for the game, finding success wherever the sport took him, whether it was in North Dakota or elsewhere.

“I like the competition,” Hedberg said. “It’s 45 years of coaching college. It’s the competition of playing. It’s the competition of recruiting. Those were things that drew me and excited me every year. I miss that part of it. What I don’t miss is going in after practice and watching 180 clips of practice. But I do miss being around the quarterbacks and being in the meetings with those guys, not necessarily always talking football but talking about other things that are going on in their lives. Those are things that I miss.”

Hedberg only just recently hung up the coaching cap, announcing his retirement from the sport on Jan. 29, after helping to guide North Dakota State to its seventh FCS national championship as the associate head coach and quarterbacks coach. Hedberg joined the Bison staff as the quarterbacks coach in 2014 and earned the associate head coaching designation beginning in 2019. Along with the seven national championships, NDSU also claimed eight Missouri Valley Conference championships during his time with the program.

But well before his coaching days, Hedberg was the quarterback at Parshall High School, a field that now bears his name, before making the 60-mile journey to Minot State to play college football for the Beavers. Despite being recruited by bigger schools around the area, Hedberg ultimately chose MSU because it was the one school that would allow him to play multiple sports. He ended up playing four sports in total – football, basketball, baseball and threw the javelin for the track and field team. Originally, Hedberg’s aspirations were not in football, but rather basketball.

“I went (to MSU) because coming out of high school, basketball was a big thing for me and I went there thinking I was going to be a big basketball player until I found out that wasn’t going to happen after a couple years and that football was going to be the sport.”

Hedberg was a four-year letter winner in football, basketball and baseball and was the starting quarterback as a freshman in 1974. By the time he graduated, Hedberg was the program’s all-time leader in passing yards (5,737) and touchdowns (49). His favorite memories as a member of the MSU football team were all the games against rival Dickinson State, which he went 2-2 in four years against, claiming victories in his freshman and junior campaigns.

Hedberg never gave much thought to the NFL when he first arrived on campus, but he started realizing it might be a possibility around his junior season when scouts and agents started calling. This predated the NFL Combine, with the first iteration of the event beginning in 1982, meaning the evaluation process looked much different during Hedberg’s playing days. In his specific case, it was rather unusual.

“My NFL combine was I pitched the first game of a doubleheader in Iowa and in between the games I threw for a scout in the parking lot and took the Wonderlic Test in the back of his car,” Hedberg said. “That was probably one of my pro days right there going back to my senior year of college.”

Randy Hedberg

It led to Hedberg being drafted in the eighth round (196th overall) by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was the 11th quarterback selected. Missouri’s Steve Pisarkiewicz was the first quarterback taken, selected 19th overall by the St. Louis Cardinals. That draft featured two hall of fame members in Tony Dorsett and Joe Klecko, as well as Super Bowl-winning Ravens coach Brian Billick.

Hedberg appeared in seven games as a rookie, starting four, including the season opener. He would be traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1979 before landing in Green Bay in 1980 but was cut soon after.

His time playing the sport may have come to an end, but a new chapter was just beginning, and it began right away, joining Minot State’s coaching staff as an assistant straight out of the NFL. He served that position from 1979-1981 before taking over as head coach of the Beavers in 1982, where he would spend the next eight seasons. During his tenure, he led the Beavers to a 45-32-2 record, winning two North Dakota Athletic Conference championships. Hedberg was 30-14 in NDCAC contests.

Hedberg was still the MSU head coach when he was inducted into the program’s athletic hall of fame in 1985. That day, Hedberg spent the afternoon coaching in the homecoming game and spent the night delivering a speech and being forever immortalized into the hall of fame.

Hedberg departed his alma mater in 1990 to become the assistant head coach as well as the offensive coordinator and the quarterbacks coach at Central Missouri. He returned to the state of North Dakota in 1996 to join the staff at the University of North Dakota as its offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and wide receivers coach. Hedberg received his second head coaching gig with St. Cloud State beginning in 1999 and held that position until 2007. He compiled a 47-51 record. His best season came in 2004 when SCSU finished 8-3 and advanced to the NCAA Division II tournament. Hedberg made one final stop at Southern Illinois from 2008-13 to be the Salukis’ quarterback coach before finding his home at NDSU for the final 11 years of his coaching career.

Hedberg’s impact on the Bison offense was immediate and consistent. During his tenure with the green and gold, NDSU had the top total offense in the FCS in 10 of the 11 years, the most coming in 2019 (7,512 yards).

“There’s been two losing seasons since 1965,” Hedberg said. “It’s pretty remarkable of what’s transpired during that time. I think the biggest thing is the expectations are always to win national championships and that’s how the coaches present it, that’s how the community and the fanbase do and the state of North Dakota. They look at the Bison as a championship program. That’s where the players come in. NDSU is a developmental program. We’ve been able to develop players through the years and it’s a testament when you have 20 guys that are on NFL rosters right now. That’s pretty impressive.”

Under Hedberg’s guidance, the Bison sent four quarterbacks to the NFL, two of which went on to be drafted in the first round. Bismarck’s own Carson Wentz was the first, drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles with the second overall pick in the 2016 draft. He won five FCS championships with the Bison – two as the team’s starter – and owns a Super Bowl ring after the Eagles defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII. He’s also played for the Indianapolis Colts, Washington Commanders, Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs before being traded this offseason to the Minnesota Vikings. Wentz is 47-46-1 as a starter, throwing for 22,410 yards and 153 touchdowns.

Wentz has had the most NFL success among the four quarterbacks, as Trey Lance – the No. 3 overall pick by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2021 draft – saw a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2 of 2022 after winning the starting job essentially end his time in San Francisco. He was traded to the Dallas Cowboys in 2023 and signed with the Los Angeles Chargers during the offseason. He threw two touchdown passes in the Chargers’ preseason hall of fame game.

Easton Stick has served as a quality backup in the NFL after being selected in the fifth round of the 2019 draft by the Chargers. He was 49-3 as a starter for the Bison. In six years with the Chargers, Stick appeared in six games, starting four. He’s thrown for 1,133 yards and three touchdowns. He was recently cut by the Chargers in the offseason, but signed with the Atlanta Falcons.

Randy Hedberg

NDSU’s most recent starting quarterback – Cam Miller – went in the sixth round of this year’s draft, selected by the Las Vegas Raiders. He was waived on Aug. 26, but signed to the practice squad the following day.

“The attention to detail was very prevalent in all four of them,” Hedberg said. “Whether they are working on their footwork or preparing for our game. Our quarterbacks prepare well during the course of the week. We have a pretty structured program for them starting on Monday or game week and it goes through Friday in preparation for Saturday’s game.”

Hedberg said he prefers to see quarterbacks throw in person when making an evaluation, rather than relying primarily on tape. When he would bring a potential recruit in for a visit, he would give them a list of plays and then would quiz them on the material later to see how well they are able to maintain what sometimes can feel like an overload of information.

Quarterbacks can make it look easy when watching them perform on television, but having played the position, Hedberg knows just how difficult playing quarterback at any level can be.

“It’s extremely hard because there is so much processing that has to happen at the line of scrimmage,” Hedberg said. “In my time I like to get the quarterbacks to the line of scrimmage with 15 seconds left on the play clock so they have within the time to set protections and get the snap count and the motions. Those are the important things about quarterback play is getting them to process quickly and react to it. That takes the longest to develop and that’s why I think it’s hard to play quarterback as a first-year guy or even a second-year guy.

But now Hedberg moves on to the next chapter of his life: retirement. While others use retirement as a chance to pick up a new hobby, do some work around the house, do some bucket-list traveling, or simply laze around and binge television and movies, Hedberg has something else in mind: football.

Already this summer, Hedberg and his wife went out to Las Vegas to watch Miller play in a preseason game against the 49ers. Miller was 2-for-6 for 25 yards and an interception. He was in Lawrence, Kan., on Aug. 23, to watch former NDSU head coach Matt Entz and Fresno State play. The Bulldogs lost that contest, but bounced back the last two weeks with a victory over Georgia Southern and Oregon State. Entz coached NDSU from 2019-23 before spending a year at USC as the assistant head coach for defense and linebackers before accepting the head coaching position at Fresno State. Hedberg said he spent a week with the Bulldogs earlier in the month, spending time with the offensive unit. He does the same when he’s in Fargo to watch the Bison play. He intends to catch a number of their home games this season.

Also on the schedule are trips to the Twin Cities as well as right here in Minot. Hedberg will be in attendance for the Beavers’ homecoming game.