PLATTE — Frank Cutler is calling it a career.

After 36 years as head coach for the Platte and Platte-Geddes boys basketball team, Cutler says it was finally time to step away from coaching.

“The last few years basically, I knew I was getting close,” Cutler said. “This year just felt like the right time.”

Cutler amassed a 546-264 record during his time coaching the Black Panthers, ending his career with the sixth most wins in South Dakota boys basketball history.

“You don’t get to that number without having a lot of great kids go through your program, and that’s number one,” Cutler said. “We had a lot of great kids and a lot of great players with a lot of great attitudes that helped us get to that number. The other thing is you just need to stay in for a long time and I’ve been fortunate enough to hang in there and keep doing what I love to do.”

In his final season as high school boys basketball coach, Cutler led the Panthers to a 14-8 record and was the boys basketball recipient of the 2025 Larry Luitjens Coach of Influence Award, given in honor of the late Larry Luitjens, the all-time winningest boys basketball coach in state history.

“Anytime you can be associated with the Luitjens family and Larry Luitjens and all the good things he did in his coaching career at Custer for the majority of it,” Cutler said on receiving the award. “It’s just a neat thing that somebody out there thought that I deserved the award. It’s just a very neat award, to be associated with him.”

Cutler, native to Claremont, South Dakota, started his coaching career in Watertown, coaching the junior varsity team for one year and sophomore team for five years, which became a big part of his growth in coaching.

“It was just a great experience for me because I had them all by myself, " Cutler said. “I didn’t have an assistant with me and it was just a really good experience there.”

Platte-Geddes Black Panthers head coach Frank Cutler reacts to action on the court during the first half of a boys basketball game Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025 in Winner. (Rodney Haas / 605 Sports)

After six years in Watertown, Cutler moved to Platte to teach and become the head coach of the Black Panthers for the 1989-90 season. Thirty-six years later, Cutler ends his career as head coach in the same spot he started.

“It was just a great fit for our family,” said Cutler of Platte. “Loved the community and had great kids to work with and just made it easy to stay here.”

Cutler guided the Black Panthers to 13 state tournaments, taking three third-place finishes, a runner-up finish in 2009 and a state championship in 2008. With that much history embedded in the program, Cutler says it’s tough to point out a favorite memory.

“Just the association with all of the kids that I coached that now are adults. It’s fun to win one, but every time you get to the tournament is a neat accomplishment, but to say there’s a favorite would be pretty hard,” said Cutler. “Obviously it was very enjoyable I got to coach my son (Keith), but they all have their own special meaning.”

Cutler’s ties and relationships to Platte-Geddes have grown deep into the community as his coaching career went on, including the ability to coach multiple father-son duos.

“Those relationships are pretty special because we did get to coach a few fathers and sons, so it’s just a neat relationship you have with them. It was just fun to develop those relationships and then when they become adults, it’s neat to see them go on and succeed in what they’re doing also,” Cutler said. “I won’t take a lot of credit, but maybe just a little small piece of something that helped them along the way with the years they spent with me as their coach.”

As Cutler steps down as Platte-Geddes boys basketball coach, a new era of PG basketball begins. Carter Kemnitz, a PGHS alum, will take over the Black Panthers for the 2025-26 season.

“I got to coach him when he went through the system, and he came back and he’s teaching in the position I was teaching in,” said Cutler on Kemnitz. “He’s ready and he’s very knowledgeable about the game, and he’ll do a great job for the program here.”