John’s Journal: Fifty Years Ago, St. James Reigned Supreme

 This is a special edition of John’s Journal. The story below is being published with permission of the Fairmont Sentinel and the author of the article, Joel Rippel.

ST. JAMES — The 1971-72 school year started out on a positive note for St. James High School athletic teams.

The Saints’ football team went 7-2 – with the only losses coming to Fairmont by eight points and Blue Earth by two points.

The boys cross-country team won the District 6 Meet and finished second at the Region 2 Meet to qualify for the state meet.

That early success was a harbinger of the most memorable year in school history, which was highlighted by two state championships. This year marks the 50th anniversary of those titles.

On Feb. 26, 1972, the Saints wrestling team capped the three-day state meet at Williams Arena on the University of Minnesota campus with a first-place finish.

The state title was the first for a St. James team since 1954, when the Saints won the boys tennis state title. The unbeaten Saints football team in 1953 was named the “mythical” state champion by the Minneapolis Tribune.

After capturing the wrestling title, St. James would only have to wait a month for its next state title.

On March 25, at Williams Arena, the Saints defeated Melrose in the Class 1A championship basketball game. Two nights later, the Saints wrapped up a record-setting unbeaten season with a victory in a playoff game with Mounds View, which had won the Class 2A title.

Jim Augustin and Jeff Nessler, who were starters on the Saints football team, played key roles in the two state titles.

Augustin reached the 112-pound championship match at the state meet, while Nessler led the basketball team in scoring and made the game-winning basket in the victory over Melrose.

“Before the year began we knew we were going to have a good season,” said Augustin. “But we didn’t know how special it was going to be.”

The Saints wrestlers, coached by Paul Krueger, were the Region 2 runner-up the previous two seasons. They finished the regular season unbeaten in dual meets while winning two invitationals before outdistancing Blue Earth to win the South Central Conference Meet. The Saints had 141 points, while the runner-up Buccaneeers had 92.

The Saints then won the District 6 Meet and the Region 2 Meet. At the regional meet in Worthington, the Saints had six champions – Jake Hodgkinson (105 pounds), Augustin (112), Jeff Nelson (119, Kevin Kuehl (132), Tom Knickrehm (155) and Dave Johnson (167). Nate Winkelman, the runner-up at 98 pounds, gave the Saints seven individuals in the state meet. The seven state qualifiers were the most by any school in 1972.

Sherburn’s Dave Cain (145 champion) and Rick Kempert (132 runner-up) and Jackson’s Randy Baker (126 champion) also advanced to the state meet.

At the state meet, Hodgkinson, Augustin and Kuehl advanced to championship matches. In the semifinals, Augustin defeated Janesville’s Jack Eustice, 4-0. Hodgkinson got a takedown with 20 seconds to defeat Herb Pellinen of Hutchinson, 6-4 and Kuehl pinned his opponent.

Nelson took third place and Knickrehm took fifth. Cain was the runner-up at 145.

The Saints didn’t have an individual champion, but six of the seven wrestlers scored points as the Saints finished with 59 points to win the state title – the state meet didn’t begin the current dual-meet format until 1975. Osseo, which had three individual state champions, was second with 49 points and defending state champion Albert Lea was third with 39.

“Everything has to click to have a season like that,” said Augustin. “As the season went along, we started putting everything together. After we won our own tournament and the Robbinsdale tournament, we knew we had a good team. We really had a good bunch of guys.”

Nessler and his basketball teammates were optimistic going into their season.

“We had a lot of people back,” said Nessler, “and we thought we had a good team. We had good depth and everyone knew their roles. And it all fell into place.”

The Saints, the Region 2 runner-up in 1971, started their season with six consecutive victories before defeating Worthington and Renville in their own holiday tournament.

The Saints then closed out the regular season with a 57-45 victory over unbeaten Wells.

The Saints, coached by Arnold Veglahn, won the District 6 title – defeating unbeaten Mapleton in the championship game.

At the Region 2 tournament, the Saints defeated Luverne, which had defeated them in the 1971 region championship game, in the semifinals and then defeated Windom for their first trip to the state tournament since 1954.

Nessler said the Saints were inspired by the wrestling team.

“(All season) we had rooted for each other,” said Nessler. “After the wrestling team won the title, we said let’s go up there and give it a shot.”

The Saints opened Class 1A state tournament play with a six-point victory over St. Paul Murray. The Saints followed that with an 82-57 victory over Red Wing, which was the Class 1A runner-up in 1971, in the semifinals.

The championship game, against defending Class 1A champion Melrose, provided one of the most memorable shots in the history of the state tournament.

With the Saints and Melrose tied in the final 10 seconds, Saints guard Jeff Nessler got the ball near midcourt and lofted a shot from about 40 to 45 feet. The shot was good and lifted the Saints to a 57-55 victory over Melrose. The Saints then defeated Mounds View, 60-52.

The Saints’ 29 victories were a state record as St. James became the first school in state history to win a basketball and wrestling title in the same year.

“At a small school like St. James,” said Nessler, “you think a good year is if you win the district title. Anything after that is great. You don’t think about going 29-0.”

Augustin said “the most amazing thing is that both teams went unbeaten, 18-0 and 29-0. Three-hundred-thirty-six wrestling teams in the state started the season. They all had a shot.”

Augustin credited the Saints’ coaches.

“We were so fortunate,” said Augustin. “We got great coaching from Paul (Krueger), (assistant coach) Bill Mohr and (junior high coach) Al Adams. They were great communicators and coordinated the program.”

Nessler agreed, “Paul was a social studies teacher. He was really supportive. Our coaches really supported us and we have memories that have stayed with us.”

 

John’s Journal: The Payoff From 50 Years Of Title IX

When I think of Title IX and how far athletics for girls and women have advanced in my lifetime, I think of some names that are familiar to most Minnesota sports fans and some that are not.

Names like Jeanette Olson and Denise Long. Names like Krissy Wendell and Natalie Darwitz, Dorothy McIntyre and Elissa Reinsma.

Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 became law that year, now 50 years ago. It states: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

I was a kid in 1972, a kid who never knew that girls didn’t have equal opportunities in high school sports. My female friends were on our school’s basketball, softball, track and golf teams and that’s how the world was. But this world was small-town Iowa, where Title IX wasn't needed to bring the massive changes to high school sports that it did in Minnesota and most other states.

Iowa girls began playing high school basketball in the 1920s and never stopped, even when most of the country (meaning men making the decisions) decided it was unseemly or unhealthy for females to exert themselves. So I grew up in a time and place where girls had every opportunity that boys had. The annual Iowa girls state basketball tournament was one of the state’s mainstays, with big crowds at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in downtown Des Moines and TV coverage that blanketed the state. Iowa girls played six-on-six basketball in those days, a strange game in which no player crossed the center line. But that game produced plenty of superstars, with Jeanette Olson and Denise Long among the greatest.

Olson was from the small town of Everly, which was in the same conference as my hometown school in Graettinger. The Everly Cattlefeederettes met Denise Long and the Union-Whitten Cobras in the 1968 single-class state championship game, and it was epic. Olson scored 76 points and Long had 64 as Union-Whitten won 113-107 in overtime in what’s been called the Game of the Century.

Olson and Long would have loved to play college basketball at the University of Iowa or Iowa State, but those schools did not yet have the women’s game. Title IX changed that.

I HAVE STRONG MEMORIES of those Iowa girls state basketball tournaments, as will fans and participants in the 2022 Minnesota girls state tournaments held during this 50^th anniversary of Title IX.

“I feel like my generation was kind of the first wave for people to take very seriously; before that were the pioneers,” Northfield girls hockey coach Paige Haley, a 2013 graduate of Red Wing High School and one of eight female head coaches in the 16-team tournament, said during this week’s event at Xcel Energy Center. “They paved the way, they showed what women can do.”

Much of the growth of sports for high school girls in Minnesota can be attributed to the work of Dorothy McIntyre, an Iowa native who oversaw the addition of girls programs as an MSHSL staff member for more than three decades before retiring in 2002.  

Most sports for high school girls in Minnesota began in the 1970s. The first MSHSL state championship in girls track and field took place in 1972, followed by basketball, volleyball and tennis in 1974, gymnastics, dance and cross-country in 1975, Alpine and Nordic skiing in 1976, softball and golf in 1977. Soccer held its first state tournament in 1980, girls hockey did the same in 1995 and lacrosse in 2007.

One outlier is girls swimming and diving. The MSHSL held state championship events from 1924 to 1942, at which point they were stopped until resuming in 1975.

ON A MID-NOVEMBER EVENING in 1999 the future of girls hockey in Minnesota was on display at Eagan Civic Arena. The teams from Eagan and Park Center opened the season before a full house of fans who witnessed history.

Park Center’s star was senior Krissy Wendell, who scored seven goals in a 10-4 win for the Pirates. Eagan sophomore Natalie Darwitz, hampered by an injury, scored twice for the Wildcats.

Wendell and Darwitz are among the early superstars of girls high school hockey. They grew up playing with boys, became teammates at the University of Minnesota, own Olympic medals and have been inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

“I remember going to the U and watching Krissy Wendell and Natalie Darwin,” said Haley, who went on to play for the Gophers. “Little did I know that's where I would end up in college. You're watching them and you're like, ‘Oh, OK, we can be legit like that.’ ”

Another layer of legitimacy for girls sports will be added during next week’s state wrestling tournament at Xcel Energy Center. For the first time, there will be girls-only competition.  

Two girls have qualified for state wrestling in past years, competing against boys. The first was sophomore Elissa Reinsma of Fulda/Murray County Central in 2009. She returned again in 2011 (she was injured in 2010). Emily Shilson, wrestling for Centennial and Mounds View, went to state three times and now is a member of the women’s wrestling team at Augsburg University.

During this week’s hockey tournament, Edina coach Sami Reber was asked about how far girls sports have come.

“It's so special,” she said. “And I'm so glad that the game has grown to what it is because it gives these girls the opportunities that they have always deserved.”

As these tournaments continue, here’s a suggestion: Come to the games, bring your young daughters and sons. Give them the opportunity to see these athletes, especially these female athletes, and let them dream.

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org  

John’s Journal: Searching For The Owner Of A 1967 MSHSL Medal

One year ago almost to the day, a circle of gold was completed when I handed a very special item to Phill Drobnick of Eveleth. Phill, coach of the Olympic men’s curling team, is the grandson of the goaltender on Eveleth’s 1945 boys hockey team, which won the first high school state championship.

I had come into possession of a gold medal from that 1945 tournament, and the medal that had once belonged to Phill’s late grandfather was nowhere to be found. Through happenstance and plain old good luck, Phill and I connected and the medal went to his family. (You can read that story here: https://www.mshsl.org/about/news/johns-journal/johns-journal-circle-gold-complete)

Well, we have another mystery medal. This one is from the 1967 MSHSL state speech tournament. It was made by Jostens and that’s about all we know for sure.

It came to the attention of the MSHSL through someone who is originally from St. Paul and now lives in Colorado. The medal was found on the 11^th green at Heather Ridge Country Club in Aurora, Colorado.

It was placed in the club’s lost and found and sat there for a couple years. The speculation is that someone had been using it as a ball marker.

The original owner -- whoever it was that competed in the 1967 state speech tournament -- would now be in their 70s. Heather Ridge is an over 50s semi-retirement community. 

So there’s the latest mystery medal. Let’s see if we can find the owner. Spread the word.

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org 

 

John’s Journal: Kassandra Fontaine Is One Of The Guys

The biggest event of the Minnesota high school girls hockey season, the 2022 state tournament, will be held Wednesday through Saturday at Xcel Energy Center in downtown St. Paul. One female hockey player, however, is just beginning the tournament season.

Kassandra Fontaine, a junior at Bagley High School, is the starting (and only) goaltender on the Bagley-Fosston boys hockey team. She has played every minute of every game and will be in net when the Flyers play at Park Rapids on Tuesday in the opening round of the boys Section 8A playoffs. Bagley-Fosston doesn’t have a girls hockey team.

“I enjoy my teammates,” Kassandra said after the Flyers defeated Becker/Big Lake 6-1 on Thursday night at Princeton Ice Arena, Becker/Big Lake’s home rink. “They're all my big brothers out there and they all protect me. I enjoy being able to make saves coming at me 80 miles an hour and I love getting the bruises. It just feels great.”

She has played hockey since was three and a half years old. She also plays on the high school volleyball and golf teams while taking college-level classes with dreams of possibly becoming a surgeon. On the hockey team, she’s just like everybody else.

“She kind of is one of the guys,” said Bagley-Fosston coach Alex Jesness. “She sits with the guys on the bus and there are never any issues. We don’t think about it twice.”

Kassandra uses a separate dressing room before and after practices and games, but otherwise she’s in the thick of things.

“It's really great how she plays and how she has helped us throughout the season,” said teammate Logan Merschman. “It's been a great season having her out there and I'm really happy she's been here.”

Kassandra was one of three goalies on the team last season, finishing with a 2-1 record as the Flyers went 8-11-1. She made 30 saves in Thursday’s victory and ended the regular season with a save percentage of .883 and goals-against average of 3.46.

“I thought we played really well as a team and we worked the puck a lot,” she said after the game. “I thought our team did well, defensively and offensively. We got a lot of pucks to the net. And they helped me out, clearing the pucks in front when I couldn't control the rebound.”

Referees have complimented her after games on how well she played, and similar sentiments have come from opposing players and coaches, with a few exceptions.

“I get teased about it sometimes from other teams,” Kassandra said. “They're surprised that they can't score on me and they're always super mad like, ‘I can't score on this girl.’ ”

If fans are not paying attention, they may never know the Flyers’ goaltender is a female. She removed her mask, of course, during Thursday’s national anthem, and when she put it back on a small shock of hair poked out the back. After the game, she was the last member of her team to exit the ice. A young boy leaning over a railing from the bleachers above shouted, “Hey! That’s a girl!”

“She’s a competitor, that’s for sure,” Jesness said. “She’s a good kid but she’s really hard on herself. At times you’ve got to pick her up. She can let a goal in and she can get frustrated. She’s a really good goalie but there are times when there’s nothing you can do. She’s been getting better about that. And she doesn’t let it bother her in the long term. She’s a really nice kid, a pleasure to have on the team.”

One of Kassandra’s role models is Maddie Rooney, who was the goaltender on the boys team at Andover High School, played at Minnesota Duluth and in the Olympics. She watched Rooney play in high school and would love to follow her career path.

“I want to be like her someday, I want to make it as far as she did,” Fontaine said. “And honestly, seeing her makes me work so hard.”

Like Rooney, Kassandra would love to play on the women’s hockey team at Minnesota Duluth.

“I would really love to go DI, and the one school that I really hope to go to is UMD,” she said. “We’ve emailed a few schools but they've all not gotten back to me because I play on the guys team, so it's hard for me to get noticed.”

She has certainly proven her toughness while fighting bumps, bruises and illness to be on the ice for every game this season. It's a good thing she stayed healthy.

“I don’t really know how that would work," Jesness said. "I think we have one other kid who has played goalie before.”

Kassandra is already thinking about next season, when she will be a senior. She works on her hockey skills throughout the year.

“I think my biggest strength out there is my angles,” she said. “I work on it so much year-round. I'm working on having that best angle and coming out as far as I need to, to have that perfect angle to have as much as I can cover for that shot. And I'm pretty good at rebound control and communicating.”

Her teammates need no convincing.

“She's good for the team,” said Markus Olson. “She really helps us stay in games and helps us win a lot of games.”

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org  

John’s Journal: Life On The Road Is Every Day Up North

MOORHEAD -- Tuesday was a busy evening at Moorhead High School. The Spuds boys basketball team played a 6 p.m. home game against Bemidji, and next door at Moorhead Sports Center, the Spuds girls hockey team met Roseau in a 7 p.m. Class 2A Section 8 playoff semifinal.

If you have a map of Minnesota handy, look at those three locations: Moorhead, Bemidji and Roseau. Eyeball those distances. The visiting teams from Bemidji and Roseau drove more than 600 combined bus miles – lasting more than five and a half hours -- to get to Moorhead and back home on a school night.

And nobody batted an eye. Because long road trips are standard for teams in northern Minnesota, especially those from large schools that need to pack a lunch -- and a dinner -- in order to travel to schools of similar size.

Bemidji senior basketball player Gavin Luksik laid it out perfectly after the Lumberjacks defeated the Spuds 62-60.

“It's funny because teams will come up to our place on a weeknight and they'll be like, ‘Man, it stinks driving up here. We have to go to school in the morning.’ That's an everyday thing for us. We're driving two and a half hours every night.”

That’s correct. Bemidji’s one-way drive of nearly two and a half hours to Moorhead is standard for Lumberjacks teams. The Bemidji boys basketball team is in Class 4A Section 8, where the closest opponent is Brainerd … which is nearly two hours (and 100 miles) away. The section extends south to Twin Cities suburban schools such as Elk River (187 miles from Bemidji), Rogers (194) and St. Michael-Albertville (184).

The miles add up for northern Minnesota schools, but the teams take pride in their ability to make good use of the time.

“When you're in Moorhead, it starts when you're young,” said Spuds activities director Dean Haugo. “It starts when kids are typically in J.O. volleyball or youth soccer or youth basketball or hockey. So for us, it's ingrained. It’s part of the experience.

“If we have an in-town game or something that's close, that's the abnormal part of our schedule. Look at our speech team; I think they're in the metro area eight or nine weekends in a row.”

When Tuesday’s hockey game ended with the Spuds holding off Roseau 5-4, the Rams faced more than three hours on a charter bus to return home … where the Moorhead boys hockey team was coming the other direction after a 4-0 win at Roseau.

“The biggest part is we have an advantage in routine and our kids understand how to travel,” Haugo said. “They understand how to eat, how to pack, our coaches have places they like to stop. Each team is a little bit different. But rather than it being the anomaly it's the norm so for us, we don't really sweat it.”

Joel Hoover of KBUN radio in Bemidji is the play-by-play voice of Lumberjacks sports. He rode the bus with the team for Tuesday’s trip to Moorhead, which has become a luxury. Because of Covid protocols last year, he drove himself to games and covered 12,500 miles during the school year.

Haugo talked about a recent Moorhead graduate who was a multi-sport varsity athlete for five years and was aboard buses for 35,000 miles in that time.

But there are certain advantages to all that travel, including deals on hotel prices in the Twin Cities.

“We get a little fickle on hotels,” Haugo said. “We stay at the same hotel, they have to have certain things, there are certain breakfast expectations, and there are certain space expectations, beds need to be a certain size. We sound really finicky but on the hotel side, we're able to bring enough business where we get pretty good rates.”

With Moorhead located on the North Dakota border, Spuds teams are able to travel to schools in that state, but it’s not always simple.

“We do play in North Dakota, we play in South Dakota, our boys basketball team was just down at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls last week,” Haugo said. “One thing that's challenging for us is the North Dakota schools; in almost every sport they play far fewer games than we do, and they have heavy conference schedules. So we do play some but we would play more across the river if we could, just because it's the sensible thing to do. But the reality is we don't have that option in a lot of cases. So we embrace our opportunity and we embrace the travel.”

Northern schools are always thrilled when teams from the Twin Cities make the drive up north. But the reality in many cases is that the northern teams make the trek to the Twin Cities more often than the other way around.

“It can be difficult to get teams on our schedule,” said Lumberjacks boys basketball coach Steve Thompson. “So we're hoping that more teams will want to travel up to us and play in Bemidji.

“It's tough. A lot of teams travel to Bemidji and they say they can’t believe how far it is up here. But we put on so many miles from the time the boys are little. They start traveling from a young age. We drive to Moorhead and down to the Cities and it's a real commitment for a family in Bemidji.”

The Bemidji boys basketball players were glad that their game in Moorhead started at 6 p.m., an hour earlier than most games. They knew full well that the school day would start at 8:19 a.m. Wednesday.

“We got done early tonight and we’ll probably get home between 11 and midnight, which is about average,” said senior Caden Bolte. “And then we're expected to be in class the next day.”

There are routines aboard the buses. Kids play video games or cards or catch up on sleep. Teams usually order pizzas or sub sandwiches to be delivered at game’s end so dinner can be eaten on the road.

“A short trip for us is two hours,” Thompson said. “So we're two to four hours all the time, and it gives us plenty of time to bond as a team and the coaches get a chance to spend some time off the court together. So there are some positives, but there are some real challenges to it, as well.”

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org  

John’s Journal: Hockey And Mental Health In New Prague

NEW PRAGUE – After a hard-fought and disappointing loss in a jam-packed arena on a frigid winter night, some veteran members of the New Prague boys hockey team stood in a hallway outside their locker room for a postgame interview.

The discussion wasn’t centered on the Trojans’ 6-0 loss to Bloomington Jefferson in the Metro West Conference game. There were no mentions of the Jaguars’ four-goal second period, the Trojans’ inability to score on three power plays, or the fact that the same teams would meet the next evening in Bloomington.

The sole topic was mental health.

“Mental health is something that I know a lot of athletes, and hockey players especially, struggle with throughout the whole entire country,” said senior Charlie Turnberg. “And it's really easy just to get down in the dumps and it affects how you are as a person, what your mentality is.”

The hockey game had been designated as a time to talk about mental health and suicide awareness. It was “Shut Out The Stigma Night” as well as a fundraiser for the Duck Cup Memorial Fund (https://www.duckcupmemorial.org), a New Prague non-profit organization. The group was started by classmates of Dale “Duck” VonBank, who struggled with mental health and took his own life in 2001, the year after they graduated from New Prague High School.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Americans age 10-34, with one in six youth from 6 to 17 experiencing mental health disorders each year, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“In general, there can be a stigma around mental health and misunderstandings about what mental health is,” said New Prague boys hockey coach Brad Drazan, a 2008 Trojans graduate who teaches fifth grade in the district. “The assumption was that if there was a mental health issue you needed to be hospitalized or be out of school or whatever. What we try to get across to our players is that everyone experiences mental health and some of us are lucky enough to have a skill set to cope with it.”

One of the Duck Cup’s major events is an annual golf outing that raises funds for the organization. A hockey game in February is the polar opposite of an outdoor summer gathering, but the theme was the same. There were public-address announcements about mental health, fans purchased hundreds of “Shut Out The Stigma” stocking caps, wrist bands and can holders, and made donations that went toward 250 small plastic ducks that were thrown from the bleachers toward center ice between the second and third periods in the aptly-named “Chuck-A-Duck” contest.

“I think (mental health awareness is) very important to society because obviously there's so many factors in our world today, especially in our age group,” said Trojans junior John Schmidt. “And I think Duck Cup does a really good job of seeing the need and doing something about it. Tonight was a very important night to spread the awareness, but I think it should be part of every night and every day.”

Duck Cup has grown steadily over the years, with speakers making presentations to student groups in New Prague and other area schools. They are working with 30 schools this year, extending their positive reach all over Minnesota and to several schools in Iowa. In the past year, Duck Cup has reached more than 30,000 people, promoting the message that “It’s OK to not be OK.”

“It's been amazing,” said Duck Cup executive director Sara Jutz. “We receive a lot of feedback from counselors and social workers, especially this year. And they have said that what Duck Cup has done for them is not only the power of storytelling, but it's given kids the tools to know what to do if they're in crisis, or if their friends are in crisis. It's very emotional.”

Duck Cup brought in a speaker for several days around the hockey game. Scott Prendergast, from an organization in Pennsylvania called Minding Your Mind (https://mindingyourmind.org), spoke separately with the New Prague girls and boys hockey teams. Between the junior varsity and varsity boys games against Bloomington Jefferson, he spent time with New Prague hockey parents in a private space.

“It's OK to reach out for the help that you need,” he said. Prendergast also talked about what he called “emergency joys,” small things that can be used to bring quiet joy. He said his emergency joys included watching Seinfeld reruns, listening to Frank Sinatra music (his mother’s favorite when he was young) and eating his favorite cereal, Honey Bunches of Oats.

He told the parents that the best thing they could do was talk with their children. “You can do it,” he told them.

After the game, in the hallway outside the locker room, Trojans senior Will Anderson was grateful for what had taken place but stressed the importance of making mental-health efforts a daily focus.

“It’s not just tonight that we should be worrying about it,” he said. “It's like, all the time. Tonight it was a big deal, so people know that mental health is actually important. It was great that the Duck Cup helped us. It was great.”

The New Prague High School boys hockey program has six coaches, and four of them are former Trojans captains, including Drazan.

“I feel good about what we’re doing,” he said. “I’ve been with a lot of these kids since they were in elementary school. And this is why you live in the community you do. The support was unbelievable.”

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org  

John’s Journal: The High School Athlete Who Owns A Construction Company

Caden Fritz is a busy young man. The senior at Edina High School is a center on the Hornets hockey team, and combining a varsity sport with schoolwork seems like enough to keep almost every day filled.

But not for Caden.

“I kind of have too many interests,” said the 18-year-old. “I'm always going somewhere, I'm not the kind of kid to sit at home.”

No kidding. He goes to school, he plays hockey for one of the state’s storied programs, and … there’s no way to explain it other than this: Caden owns a construction company that he built from scratch.

When he’s on the ice at Edina’s Braemar Arena and the student section chants “Fritz Construction!” it’s an ode to Caden’s focus away from school and hockey. He drives a truck to school with the Fritz Construction logo on the side, and he can also be seen wearing apparel with the same logo. His company (fritz-construction.com) is licensed, bonded and insured, and Caden is a licensed general contractor.

On the ice, he has played in all 21 games for the Hornets this season, with one goal and six assists. Off the ice, his work ethic is amazing. His first business venture was lemonade stands as a youngster, and later he built and sold a vending-machine business. He also made money as a hockey referee when he wasn’t playing, and sold referee apparel and equipment on the side.

In the summer of 2020 he started a pressure-washing business that specialized in cleaning decks. After customers asked if he could also sand and stain their decks, he created a company called Fritz Deck Restoration.

“I did that for that whole summer and made quite a bit of money, fixing decks, sanding and staining them,” he said.

He moved into construction in the fall of 2020, building new decks at first. Then came minor remodels, including laundry rooms, bathrooms and finishing basements.

“It started off small,” Caden said.

Things heated up in 2021 when he and his employees built more than 60 decks, as well as some large-scale home additions and renovations. As spring weather nears, Caden’s company is preparing for work that includes decks, homes, roofing and siding, and commercial and residential excavation.

Once again, he is only 18 years old.

“It’s pretty unbelievable,” said Ben Gross, 21, who is on track to graduate later this year with a degree in applied economics from the University of Minnesota. Caden calls Ben his right-hand man, because Gross handles much of the day-to-day business operations, including meeting with clients and managing projects.

Ben’s first contact with Caden came when his parents contacted Caden about building a deck after they saw an ad on Facebook Marketplace.

“He gave them an awesome quote and said he could have it done by the end of the month,” said Ben, a graduate of Orono High School. “They met, went over the quote, and my mom was a little skeptical. She said, ‘He’s in high school but it sounds like he knows what he’s doing.’ ”

Ben ended up helping out the crew that did the work, and he and Caden became friends. Before long, Ben was working for Fritz Construction.

“I kind of oversee all the projects,” Ben said. “He’ll get a quote and we’ll talk about what it would entail, the costs, the timeline. I try to handle applying for permits and help on the operations side of things.

“His buddies say he’s had a knack for this since he was a kid, doing carnivals for kids in the neighborhood. Then he sold his vending machine company for a fair chunk of change. His work ethic is tenacious, he’s a dynamo. He never stops. I played varsity lacrosse in high school and I can’t imagine doing what he’s doing.”

Caden is the oldest of three children of Rob and Stephanie Fritz. His parents work in the corporate world.

“We’re not in construction,” Stephanie said with a chuckle.  

In all of Caden’s business ventures, he has done everything on his own financially.

“We never gave him a dime,” said Stephanie. “I think back to his lemonade stands, when we made him pay for everything himself. He’s just wired that way.

“He doesn’t sleep. He loves life. Nobody has more fun than Caden. With a business comes pressure and issues, and he knows how to enjoy himself but he really works for it. He thinks big. He’s not afraid to try and fail.”

The Edina hockey team has a record of 13-8 with four games remaining in the regular season. This is Caden’s first year on the varsity and he’s having the time of his life.

“My line’s doing really well and I've been really focusing on hockey,” he said. “I’ve got my whole life to work and I enjoy it but you're never going to get to play hockey in Edina with a good team like this ever again.”

During peak times last summer, Fritz Construction employed more than 30 people on any given day. In the summer of 2022, Caden is hoping that number might increase to 55 or 60. But he also likes to have fun with his buddies, including those who work for him.

“I'm still in high school and I like hanging out with my friends every night,” he said. “So we'll start working around five in the morning and most days get done around two o'clock. And then we go to the lake (Minnetonka) pretty much every single day. A lot of times we go to my family’s cabin on weekends and have a lot of fun. We definitely work really hard but we have a lot of fun in the process.”

Deck construction has continued throughout this winter, with the boss swinging a hammer when he can.

“I'll get out there every once in a while on a Sunday and or after school for a few hours and help out, get my hands dirty,” he said.

Caden is hoping to buy his own cabin up north, either purchasing an empty lot and building a cabin or purchasing a fixer-upper. His story is even more remarkable when he tells you that he didn’t even know how to operate a drill four years ago. But he’s curious and never intimidated.

In 2018, using tools that had belonged to his late grandfather and watching instructional YouTube videos, he built a shed at the family cabin to store four-wheelers. It took him all summer.

“It wasn't stellar, but it still stands today,” he said. “Now I can do anything from painting a house to building a house.”

As if he isn’t busy enough, Caden is also training as an Emergency Medical Technician. He has spent time working in a hospital setting and is interested in possibly working with a fire department or law enforcement. He has interviewed with two sheriff’s departments for part-time EMT work.

He plans to attend the University of St. Thomas in the fall to study criminal justice, possibly becoming an attorney and/or going into law enforcement.

Asked what he will be doing in 10 years, he replied, “I guess if you asked me today and then tomorrow, I might have 10 different choices.”

And yes, he’s only 18 years old.

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org 

 

John’s Journal: New Coach, New Success For North Branch Basketball

Todd Dufault was done coaching basketball. When he stepped down as the head boys coach at Chisago Lakes in 2018, that was it. He had been an assistant coach at Owatonna from 2003-2011 before becoming head coach at his alma mater, Waseca High School, for five years. How he got from Waseca to Chisago Lakes is an interesting tale, as well, but let’s start with where he is today.

Dufault, who has worked in the corporate world for more than 20 years, is a nationally known speaker, founder of Todd Dufault Leadership (www.todddufaultleadership.com) and has worked with marching bands for nearly 40 years. He is the first-year head coach at North Branch, and the Vikings are turning heads. They begin this week with a record of 14-5 and are on track to finish with a winning record, which hasn’t happened for a North Branch boys basketball team since 2003-04.

“We definitely wanted to find a way to finish over .500,” he said. “We knew we had to be realistic, but we wanted to try and change the mindset and lift the expectations as much as we could.”

After his third season at Waseca – where he also worked as activities director -- he got married; his wife Michelle is a third-grade teacher at Sunrise Elementary in North Branch. Having your home life and work life separated by two hours on the highway is not optimal, but Dufault made it work as long as he could. He was living with Michelle in Lindstrom, staying with his mother in Waseca during the week, and “had to be creative in making it back and forth,” he said.

In his final season coaching the Bluejays, they went to the state tournament for the first time in 14 years. He stepped down after that and returned home to Michelle full-time. Coaching in nearby Chisago Lakes was an easy commute, and when he resigned from that job, he was ready for a life that was not centered on coaching.

“My passion for leadership and working with kids in general is pretty high,” he said. “I had myself convinced that I could stay away from basketball, but it’s difficult. You miss the relationships with the kids, you miss the relationships with the coaches and the people you get to deal with. I missed the challenge of building a team, the challenge of coming together and trying to achieve something that might be very difficult.”

He had been working as a part-time consultant with the North Branch basketball team. When Alex Kuhlman stepped down as coach last year, it seemed like a natural, albeit unplanned, fit

“This fell into my lap,” said Dufault, who played college basketball and baseball at Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato before transferring to Southwest Minnesota State. “My wife teaches in the school district, I had a great relationship with the former coach, I was around the team some last year, at games and looking at film, but I had no intention of being the next head coach. I really wanted to see Alex succeed and get this thing turned around. Being around the game and the kids, that was a lot of fun last year. It was unexpected. You never know sometimes.”

This season has been pretty special for everyone. The Vikings won 11 of their first 12 games. Now in the midst of rugged Mississippi 8 Conference play, they are 4-3 in league games. Defense has been North Branch’s calling card, with the Vikings giving up a league-low 63 points per game.

“Defense keeps you in games when your offense isn't going and that's kind of what we rest on,” said senior Trevor Johnson, who reached the 1,000-point career milestone this season.

The team is senior-heavy, and that has also been a major factor in its success.

“We’ve got a team full of guys who have been playing together forever,” said senior Adam Rehm. “We’ve always had confidence in each other and we knew we could have a special season. It's a really tight-knit group.”

Johnson added, “I thought we had a chance to be good with a lot of guys coming back and a pretty committed group of seniors.”

Playing in Class 3A Section 7, the Vikings could be challenged by teams including Hermantown, Hibbing and Cloquet (all with winning records) in the postseason. But they are taking it one game at a time.

“We talk about things that we can control and we’re trying to get better every day,” Dufault said. “We take a look at how we practice and how we approach things, because those are things we can control. We really don’t talk a whole lot about wins and losses. Getting better every day is something we can focus on.”

Rehm said of Dufault, “He brings a very businesslike approach to everything he does. And it's always very intentional, which is very nice to have. He preaches a defensive mentality, and that's something all of us need all the time.”

The Vikings are learning that their success this season means that every opponent is out to sink them. Friday night, for example, North Branch played at Cambridge-Isanti, which was 3-15, and lost to the Bluejackets 77-49 in Cambridge-Isanti coach Mike McDonald’s 500^th career victory.

“We wanted a target on our back,” Dufault said. “Now that we’ve accomplished that, we have to learn to embrace that pressure. When you’re in that position you have to work harder because you’re getting everybody’s best shot. … if you’re not ready, anybody can beat anybody.”

Dufault has never been a teacher, at least in the traditional sense. But leadership training, starting with marching bands, shepherded him into coaching.

“The leadership work started with marching bands 38 years ago and I never would have guessed that it would trickle over into basketball,” he said. “I didn’t have any interest in coaching basketball but I realized the principles I used in working in leadership with marching bands could work in other places.”

Now living in Wyoming, Minnesota, Dufault’s commute is about 17 minutes. That’s just one of the many things he likes about his current situation.

“It’s been really enjoyable,” he said. “Even though we’ve got a ways to go yet, it’s sure fun to work with these guys every day.”

--MSHSL media specialist John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at jmillea@mshsl.org