By BSU Alumni & Foundation
Published 10:00 am on September 27, 2025
Beaver Football has a Homecoming tradition like no other: After a Homecoming victory each year at picturesque Chet Anderson Stadium, Bemidji State players and coaches celebrate by jumping into the neighboring Lake Bemidji — gear and all — to splash around and sing the school song.
The iconic jump first happened in 1995, although proof of the origin largely relied on eyewitness accounts and school lore in the decades that followed. But now, thanks to program alums Kyle Christianson and John Neis, video footage of the original lake jump has recently been recovered and digitized.
Here's the full tale of how it all began:
During the 1993 season, the Beavers were off to an 0-4 start. In an attempt to motivate the team and the campus for Homecoming, graduate assistant coach Frank Haege wrote a faux postgame recap of the upcoming game between Bemidji State and Southwest State. The article included accounts of how the defense dammed the Mustangs and how the offense executed with precision. Haege also added that, after the victory, the Beavers jumped into Lake Bemidji in a fit of jubilation! Haege and others posted the article around campus during the week leading up to Homecoming.
As it happened, the Beavers went on to lose that Homecoming game 35-8 and never did win a game that season, finishing 0-10. There were further threats of jumping into the lake if the Beavers won Homecoming the following year, but BSU lost to Moorhead 33-6 in 1994.
Finally, in perhaps Bemidji State’s best effort during the Kris Diaz era, the Beavers beat defending conference champion Winona State 24-14 on Homecoming in 1995. Off went the helmets, and into Lake Bemidji went the players and coaches. Everything went in — shoes, equipment, jerseys and all. A tradition was born.
Before that jump in the lake, Bemidji State was just 1-26 in their past 27 games. But after that victory over Winona State, the Beavers went on to beat Minnesota Morris and Northern State for their first three-game winning streak in over a decade.
Since 1995, BSU has been celebrating victories in its annual Homecoming football game with a postgame lake jump into the waters of Lake Bemidji, which borders Chet Anderson Stadium on the east.
