John's Journal: July 2022

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

John’s Journal: The Pride Of Russell-Tyler-Ruthton

Todd Bouman had a long career as an NFL quarterback, playing for the Vikings, Saints, Packers, Jaguars, Rams and Ravens between 1997 and 2010. He played in 44 NFL games, starting seven. But ask him about his favorite football memory and he immediately goes back to his high school days.

He was a senior at Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in the fall of 1990. The RTR Knights met Minneota with a section title and trip to the state playoffs on the line.

“We had never beat them before,” Bouman said. “The game went into overtime, we threw for a touchdown at the end of the game and our fans rushed the field. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.”

Bouman was back in his hometown on a recent Saturday, holding a clinic for young football players in southwest Minnesota. At 49 years old he remains a strong, fit athlete, running around the field with enthusiasm and teaching the skills that took him to the game’s highest level.

“It was awesome,” he said. “It’s something I’ve wanted to do, get home and host a camp. All the feedback was positive, they loved it.”

The three-hour session focused on the passing game, with two dozen quarterbacks and receivers taking part. Bouman and his son Aidan, who began his college career at Iowa State and is a recent transfer to the University of South Dakota, worked with the quarterbacks. The father-son combination has spent many years together on the football field; Todd is the former head coach at Buffalo High School, where Aidan was the starting quarterback. During his NFL career, Todd worked as an assistant football coach at Pipestone (his brother Troy was head coach) and Buffalo High School, serving in both capacities before departing when NFL teams called.

Everything began for Todd at his hometown, where he was an all-state athlete in football and basketball and went to state in track and field. He was a three-year starting quarterback at St. Cloud State.

The clinic on RTR’s year-old turf field was crisp, with quarterbacks and receivers working separately on techniques at times and coming together to work on timing and passing routes. Water breaks were frequent on a warm July morning.

“I told him how appreciative we are,” said RTR head coach Joshua Fredrickson. “We don’t get into the kind of detail that he’s working with. A guy like that with his experiences, working with our guys for three hours, it’s definitely going to pay off. It was a lot of fun.”

Bouman, who stays busy with football camps and clinics, had not previously held an event in his hometown. The kids paid 60 dollars for the three-hour session.

“A lot of high schools, especially small schools, don’t throw the ball much, they don’t have the skill set of how to run a route, how to get open,” said Bouman, who hopes to expand into similar events at several more southwest Minnesota locations next summer.

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton’s new stadium sits next to a world-class K-12 school, which also opened a year ago on the western edge of Tyler, a town of 1,289.

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton is one of more than 100 Minnesota high schools that have turf fields; with a 9-12 MSHSL enrollment of 177, RTR is the third-smallest. Mountain Iron-Buhl has 136 students and Lakeview has 148.

Bouman’s first game on turf came during his sophomore season in college when St. Cloud State played Mankato State at the Metrodome.

“It’s awesome,” he said of his hometown’s turf field. “There’s still nothing like playing on grass, but the beauty of turf is you can use it all the time.”

Bouman’s legend is strong in his hometown. He was the varsity football team’s long-snapper as an eighth-grader before becoming a star quarterback. Local fans still talk about a legendary dunk he threw down in the state basketball tournament.

Thirty-two years removed from his final season as a high school football player, his hometown memories remain strong.

“I remember the games,” he said. “At lunch time, people were backing their trucks in behind the end zone, picking their spot. There was a wire cable around the field and people were lined up five, six deep. There’s nothing better.”

--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

Friday, July 15, 2022

The Best Of John’s Journal From 2021-22/ No. 1: A Coach, A Mom And A Kidney

Here we are, with the announcement of my favorite John’s Journal story from the 2021-22 school year. This was one of the first stories of the year, after folks from St. Michael-Albertville High School reached out to me with the news of what had taken place.

It is, quite simply, a remarkable tale of selflessness, heart and joy, centered around a mother’s dangerous health condition and a coach’s immediate, unquestionable and unwavering desire to help.

Here’s the story, originally posted on Aug. 12 …

The whole thing, the whole unbelievable and wholly and very possibly Holy endeavor – a straight-up miracle, perhaps – began simply enough, with a high school soccer coach looking for video of a goal scored by a member of her team.

It ended with the coach donating a vital organ to the mother of three of her players.

This is a good time to share this story, as a new year of Minnesota high school activities opens Monday with the start of fall sports practices. Keith Cornell, activities director at St. Michael-Albertville, phrased it perfectly when he said, “This just shows once again that there is so much more to education-based activities than going out and playing games.”

The story began after a late-September soccer game in 2020. Senior Rheana Zerna scored an improbable goal from midfield as she and her St. Michael-Albertville teammates forged a 1-1 tie at Eden Prairie. Her coach, Megan Johnson, knew that Rheana’s father, Julius, often shot video of the games and she asked Rheana if her dad had taped the big goal. Rheana responded that Megan should become Facebook friends with her mom, Cleofe, because the video was posted on Cleofe’s Facebook page.

“That’s not something I usually do, but I wanted to see the goal,” Megan said.

The two indeed became friends on Facebook, where Cleofe (pronounced Cleo-fay) posted an important message in February: she was suffering from kidney failure and was asking friends to spread the word that she was seeking a donor. After a lengthy battle with kidney disease, her kidneys were functioning at 11 percent of normal capacity. Cleofe, 49, was looking at a future filled with kidney dialysis if no donor could be found.

Her Facebook post read in part, “I realize that as much as I want to fight the good fight on my own, it’s no longer realistic without the help of others. I am currently on the Mayo Clinic kidney transplant waiting list for a non-living donor, but the wait is long, it takes roughly 4-7 years.

“My goal is to have a kidney transplant and not go through dialysis. For the sake of my loving family, particularly my awesome husband of 24 years and our 3 wonderful daughters, I am reaching out for your help.

“I don’t make these requests lightheartedly. I simply just want to extend my life here on earth. I want to grow old with my loving husband and see my wonderful children grow, finish college, get a job, and as they promise they will send me and my husband on vacations. That will be a day to look forward too! And of course, I want to see my future adorable grandchildren.”

The post included a link to Mayo Clinic’s Transplant Center and a questionnaire for prospective donors. Megan clicked the link, kicking off an unlikely journey tying her for a lifetime with the mother of three of her soccer players: Jucel Zerna graduated from St. Michael-Albertville in 2018 and played soccer at Augsburg before graduating this spring; Rheana graduated this year and is now playing soccer at St. Cloud State; and Juliana is a soccer player who will be in 10^th grade when school resumes.

Megan, 41, is a third-grade teacher who has coached the Knights for 17 years. Her husband Jerremiah is a sixth-grade teacher and head coach of the Knights boys hockey team. Like Cleofe and Julius, they have three children.

"My wife is a person who exemplifies all the great things about education and activities," Jerremiah said. "She cares so much about her athletes. Every year she’s s emotional when the season ends because of how much she cares about them."

Shortly after filling out the online donation questionnaire, Megan received a phone call from Mayo Clinic. That was followed by more phone calls and a day filled with video visits. In the meantime, Cleofe had learned from Mayo that they were in discussions with a potential donor, but she didn’t know it was her daughters’ soccer coach.

Cleofe posted the news of a possible donor on Facebook. When Megan saw the post, she thought, “ ‘Oh my gosh, that’s me!’ It started to get real.”

In mid-March – still unbeknownst to Cleofe -- Megan spent two days at Mayo Clinic in Rochester undergoing what she called “virtually every kind of test you can imagine.”

Finally, in May, Megan got a phone call with the news that she was a match. Cleofe still wasn’t aware of Megan’s role. So the coach texted Rheana and asked for Cleofe’s cell phone number. She sent a text to Cleofe, asking if she could stop by the Zerna’s home after school.

“The text from coach Megan said, ‘I have something to give you,’ Cleofe said. “I thought it was something to do with soccer. She came over and had a red gift basket with a letter sticking out.

“I started reading the letter and said, ‘Oh my gosh! You’re my match!’ ”

The two moms hugged each other and wept.

“I was told it would take time to find a donor, it was one in a million,” Cleofe said. “And my gosh, my one in a million is right here, coaching my girls! I had goosebumps.”

The kidney donor and recipient met in Rochester the day before their dual surgeries on July 9. Megan and Jerremiah had dinner with Cleofe and Julius, learning that the Zernas had come from the Philippines; Cleofe was 16 at that time. She has worked as a registered nurse at North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale for 22 years, but her kidney issues had been taking a toll and Julius, who works as a mechanical engineer, had been driving her to and from work.

“A lot of people didn’t know I had a failing kidney,” Cleofe said. “I looked healthy. But I felt tired all the time, easily fatigued. I’d work eight hours and couldn’t even drive home.”

According to the National Kidney Foundation, approximately 100,000 Americans are waiting for a kidney transplant, with 6,442 patients receiving a living kidney in 2018.

During the surgical procedures, one of Megan’s kidneys was removed and then received by Cleofe in a four-hour operation. It sounds odd, but the result is Megan has one kidney and Cleofe has three; it’s common for surgeons to leave a failing kidney in place if there are no complications.

Megan stayed in the hospital for two days before returning home. Cleofe was only hospitalized for three days, but she remained in Rochester for several weeks for tests and lab work in order to make sure her new kidney and anti-rejection medications were working properly.

Cleofe came home for good a few days ago, and everything is wonderful. The Zernas visited the Johnsons on Wednesday, and everyone shed tears of love and gratitude on their one-month transplant anniversary.

“I’m just really blessed and lucky,” Cleofe said. “I believe that God will not give me a mountain that I cannot climb. I believe he will provide at the right time, and he sure did.”

Soccer practice will begin Monday. Megan will be on the field with her team even though she remains under some post-surgery restrictions, including no lifting of heavy objects.

“I’m feeling really good,” she said. “I spent the first two weeks pretty much on the couch or in bed. I kept increasing my walking every day and I feel like I’m ready for next week.”

The news was shared far and wide with another post on Cleofe’s Facebook page. On April 28, she wrote in part, “God answers prayers to those who ask and believe. THANK YOU GOD. To those who’ve been following my progress in regards to my kidneys, meet my living DONOR, Megan Johnson, my girls High School Soccer Coach.

“Coach Megan came this evening and told me the greatest news that my family and I have been praying for: she’s my match! My living Donor! Coach, What a Blessing you are to me and my family!!!! We were both in tears as I was reading her letter, and as she informed me on how she made the decision to fill out the application: all the circumstances that lead to it.

“As Coach said, ‘It was meant to be.’ It was just the two of us in our kitchen crying and hugging each other. Julius and the kids were not home at that time, and they were sooooo happy to hear the good news.”

“The whole experience was really emotional and incredible,” Megan said. “For me, everything fell into place like it was meant to be, it was supposed to happen.

“I never thought twice. Jerr said, ‘Are you really doing this?’ And I never thought about not doing it. We’ve both shed a ton of tears, lots of emotion.”

It’s going to be a great year.

Thursday, July 14, 2022

The Best Of John’s Journal From 2021-22/ No. 2: Speaking Out, Sparking Conversations

I often tell people that we don’t need to worry about the next generation. I know this because I spend so much time with high school kids. Today’s story is a perfect example of that. After a racist social media message was sent to a player from Minneapolis North during the state tournament, Lakia Manska reacted with grace, heart and fearlessness.

Here's the story, originally posted on April 17 …

Lakia Manska is a busy senior at Morris Area High School. She’s a three-sport athlete, a member of the National Honor Society, a two-time qualifier for the MSHSL state speech tournament, a dancer and more. She’s also fearless.

At this week’s Class A state speech tournament, Lakia (pronounced “lu-KY-uh”) will compete in Original Oratory. The state meet will be held at Eastview High School, with Class AA competition on Friday and Class A on Saturday.

Lakia is one of seven Morris Area students who qualified for state. The others are Aarav Devkota, Alexis Lhotka and Zachary Dietz in Discussion, Samuel Jordan in Extemporary Speaking and Hailey Lesmeister and Emily Hamm in Duo Interpretation. Lakia and Aarav are team captains.

Lakia’s skills as a writer, a thinker and a force for good reached a wide audience recently after she wrote an editorial that was published by the Stevens County Times in Morris. It spread very quickly online throughout Minnesota and beyond. You can read it here: https://www.stevenscountytimes.com/opinion/time-to-change/

Her essay was in response to an ugly incident during the boys state basketball tournament. After Minneapolis North defeated Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta in the state semifinals, a student from Chokio-Alberta sent a vile, racist social media message to one of the North players. (https://www.mshsl.org/about/news/johns-journal/johns-journal-i-worry-these-are-my-kids-these-are-my-kids )

“It just broke my heart,” she said. “It’s horrible.”

Lakia, who is Black, was adopted by Stacie and John Manska when she was three weeks old. She has two older brothers: Lukus, 22, is in the Army in South Carolina and Logan, 26, is a teacher and head boys basketball coach at Lake Crystal Wellcome Memorial.

The social media message was sent late on Friday night of the state tournament, and by Saturday morning it had been publicized. Lakia said gathering with her friends to cheer for the Morris Area/Chokio-Alberta Tigers in Saturday’s third-place game at Concordia University in St. Paul was difficult.

“The whole year we’ve been watching this boys basketball team and the energy has been so explosive and crazy,” she said. “But you could tell we were all thinking about, ‘How excited should we be today without it being insensitive?’ It was a whole different atmosphere there.”

As she has gotten older, Lakia learned that she felt better if she wrote about things that were emotional for her. So after returning home from the state tournament, that’s what she did.

“I needed to vent,” she said. “And I was so upset and confused and sad. I ended up writing this paper. I read it to my mom one night and thought that would be the end of it, or maybe I would send it to a couple teachers and see if they wanted to talk about it at school.”

At the same time, one of the editors at the newspaper was searching for a way to begin a discussion of what had taken place and asked if Lakia would like to write something. It was already written.

Lakia’s words are powerful.

Wearing “Morris Tigers” across my chest felt like a betrayal. Some of my closest friends were on the team, yet I felt a pang in my heart each time I clapped. My body was in the gym, but my mind wandered. I felt nauseous.

John Kleinwolterink, who is a music teacher and head speech coach at Morris, has a son on the basketball team. After the social media message was made public, his first reaction was, “ ‘What are we going to do about this?’ Then we have kids like Lakia who say, ‘This is what needs to be done, this is what I’ve experienced, and we need to address it.’ ”

Lakia had emailed her essay to Kleinwolterink, and he broke down in tears while reading it.

“I didn’t know all the things she had been through because of who she is,” he said. “If I could have, right then I would have grabbed her and hugged her.

“We need to do better. Our community needs to hear these things. It starts the conversations that have to happen and the change that has to go with it.”

I have been called a monkey. People have used the n-word to devalue me as a human being. My successes have been taken away because how can a black girl truly be successful? I understood what those boys were going through. Those boys fought their way to the state championship, yet they were made to feel they did not deserve it.

Lakia, who plans to study English education at Minnesota State University Moorhead, said the reaction to what she wrote has been nothing but positive.

“I was surprised at how many people reached out and asked questions,” she said. “People from the Morris area asked how they can fix things around here. It’s crazy seeing how many people I know and people I don’t know talking about it. It’s cool to know it started a conversation.”

Before writing, Lakis reached out on social media to Minneapolis North assistant coach Trent Witz. She sent him a private message that read in part, “I am from Morris and just wanted to apologize and say I am absolutely disgusted by the message your team received.”

Lakia has had many wonderful moments during her high school career. She was a member of the girls tennis team that was the first in school history to play at state last fall. Her first year on the team was in eighth grade, when the team consisted of just a few girls and they lost every competition. But the girls worked hard in the following years, capped by their trip to state.

“That was definitely the highlight of my high school career,” she said. “That is probably the closest I’ve ever been with anybody, and we still talk every single day.”

Lakia and her speech teammates are focusing on Saturday’s state tournament. She has been a member of the speech program since eighth grade; last year she placed fourth at state in Original Oratory. Just like with the tennis team, the friendships made in speech are special.

“I really like the group of friends that I’ve made there,” she said. “There are about 16 of us on the team, and we talked about it on the bus ride home from (section speech in) Albany. It’s such a fun environment. I can tell my confidence speaking and writing has gotten so much better over the last five years.”

Kleinwolterink said, “I don’t think anybody could write as clear of a storyline as she does and explain to others what she wants to say. She is a smart kid and she’s talented. She’s involved, she knows what she wants to do and she’s driven, that’s for sure.”

Her Original Oratory presentation this year is titled “Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable.”

“I’m talking about uncomfortable conversations and why we don’t like to have them but why we need to,” she said. “Mental health, race, politics, all these different things. I struggled coming up with a topic but I talked about it one day in one of my classes, the importance of having discussions even when they’re not comfortable.

“I was definitely not a confident kid, not for a long time,” she said. “Now I’m pretty fearless.”

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

The Best Of John’s Journal From 2021-22/ No. 3: Every Day Is A Good Day For Waseca’s Wendland

On the night that Brad Wendland’s heart stopped on the football sideline, I had a late-night phone conversation with Waseca High School activities director Joe Hedervare. Joe was in his car outside a hospital in Mankato, where Brad had been taken by ambulance. At that point, no one knew how Brad was doing. What happened that night and beyond is remarkable.

Here’s the story, originally posted on Sept. 15 …

Brad Wendland wants you to do something, no matter who you are, where you live or where you work or go to school. Wendland, the head football coach at Waseca High School, knows he is lucky to be alive and he wants others to have the second chance he’s getting.

His heart stopped beating during a game two weeks ago. Wendland collapsed on the sideline and athletic trainers from Waseca and St. Peter (the visiting team), joined by a nurse who was in the stands and others, absolutely saved his life. They maintained his airway, they did chest compressions, they used an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) to shock his heart.

Wendland was fortunate. When he was struck by sudden cardiac arrest, he was surrounded by people who were trained in life-saving skills, at a school that had implemented plans to handle such a crisis.

“You’d better put in (this story) the importance of CPR training and having AEDs available,” Brad told me as we talked this week. “If one person hears it and does it, or one person in the crowd that night gets a checkup or asks at work, ‘Where’s our AED,’ or gets trained in CPR, it will be worth it.”

Wendland, 48, is a Blue Earth native who teaches U.S. history and psychology in Waseca. He has been the Bluejays head football coach for 16 years. He was hospitalized in Mankato from Friday night until going home on Wednesday. He’s tired, he’s getting lots of rest, reading get-well cards and writing thank you notes, grateful to be with his wife Kim and their three children. (In this photo, Wendland talks to the team after the final game of the 2020 season.)

He felt lightheaded during the final minute of Waseca’s 21-13 Week 1 victory. He was thinking of taking a knee and wait until his head cleared, but he went down in a heap. Troy Hoehn, the athletic trainer at Waseca High School, ran to Wendland and started yelling his name. There was no response. St. Peter athletic trainer Leah Rutz sprinted across the field. Krystal Malis, who works as an emergency room nurse at Mayo Clinic Health System Hospital in Waseca and has two sons who play football, ran down from the stands and leaped over the fence that surrounds the field. Waseca activities director Joe Hedervare, who was in the press box, rushed to the field while dialing 911.

“He wasn’t responding to me,” Hoehn said. “I’m checking on him, trying to see what’s going on to get an assessment. Leah had grabbed the AED, the nurse was doing chest compressions and it seemed like it all happened at once.”

Rutz and Malis switched positions between compressions and the AED. In the midst of stunned silence at the football field, they heard the siren of the approaching ambulance.

After the AED shock, Rutz resumed chest compressions. “I could feel his heart beating again,” she said. “ ‘Oh, there’s a pulse! I can feel it!’ We knew he was beating on his own again. He started moving a little. Then he was awake. He said, ‘I want to get up, my chest hurts, can I get up?’

“That’s when it really started to kick in, what we were doing. This is not a mannequin, this is a real human.”

Malis didn’t realize the person they were treating was Wendland until he woke up.

“Somebody said, ‘Brad, you’re going to be all right.’ He was the last person I would have imagined,” she said. “He’s been instrumental with my kids. He’s talked to them about making good choices and things like that, and I know he’s done that wiyh all the kids. He’s a blessing.”

None of the three medical professionals had ever done this before. They had trained, of course, in all manner of live-saving skills. And the training paid off.

Hoehn and Rutz both work for Mayo Clinic Health System. Hoehn, who is Rutz’s supervisor, has been an athletic trainer for 23 years.

“I’ve seen a lot but I haven’t seen this,” he said. “You carry that AED with you all the time, and crutches and other things you may need. It’s better to be prepared.”

Indeed, preparation was key to saving the coach’s life. The MSHSL encourages schools to have AEDs readily available, along with Emergency Action Plans for all teams and activities.

Five years ago, Waseca didn’t have athletic trainers at most events.

“Mayo started ramping up athletic training services in our area, and that shouldn’t be overlooked,” Hedervare said. “Five years ago this story could have been completely different.

“I communicate what comes from the League,” he said. “We have to have emergency plans in place, we have to practice them, everybody has to be aware of what’s going on, especially at a practice situation. If it would have happened anywhere else, I’m not sure our response would have been good.

“We have Emergency Action Plans for all our teams. I have heard from people (at other schools), saying they’re going to take these things a lot more seriously. This drove the point home, that we were able to implement this at a home event and it went as well as it did. It’s humbling, it’s crazy. We’re so glad we have the plan in place and everything worked out as it did.”

As Wendland woke up, he wondered where Kim was. She was waiting for him at the ambulance. As the ambulance began pulling away, Wendland heard a noise he recognized: The crowd was cheering. For him.

“That’s one of the things that’s been so overwhelming about this whole thing,” he said. “This happened in front of a thousand people, most of whom I know. To put that big of a scare into people that are that important to me, it was really hard to wrap my head around.”

The Bluejays played without their head coach at Marshall last week, coming home with a 19-7 win. The evening before, the team maintained tradition and held a pasta feed at school. Kim drove Brad to the gathering, which was emotional.

“I got to talk to them, I got to hug them,” Wendland said. “It was good therapy for me and I think it was good for them. The last time they saw me it wasn’t good.”

Before and after the game in Marshall, the players wore blue t-shirts with the word “Coach” on the front and “Waseca Strong” on the back. Wendland watched the game online, stayed in contact with Hedervare via text and talked on the phone at halftime with the coaches. Immediately after the game, he and the team reunited via FaceTime.

Wendland will have his first post-incident medical appointment on Monday. Right now there is no timetable for returning to teaching or coaching.

“I feel fine, I’m strong mentally, I feel like I have been since I came to,” he said. “I’m groggy, I’m tired, I don’t have the vigor I normally have. I’m trying to sleep as much as I can and hoping that gets a little bit better every day. I don’t like to sit around at home all day, but under the circumstances I’m OK with it.”

Wendland has learned how lucky he is to have collapsed where and when he did. According to the Mayo Clinic, sudden cardiac arrest is the third-leading cause of death in the U.S, and nine out of 10 people who suffer sudden cardiac arrest away from a hospital do not survive. Had Westland collapsed while walking to his car later in the evening, for example, the outcome could have been much different.

“I feel blessed,” he said. “I’m in bonus time. That’s the term I’ve been using. I really like my life. Every day is a good day.”

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

The Best Of John’s Journal From 2021-22/ No. 4: Game Night At Roseau’s Hockey Cathedral

For any high school sports fan in Minnesota, attending a big rivalry hockey game on the northern border of our state is a bucket-list trip. I headed to Roseau for a boys hockey game between the Rams and the Warroad Warriors, and it was more than worth the lengthy drive.

I had been inside the Warroad arena a few years earlier but this was my first visit to Roseau Memorial Arena. It is glorious, as is the enthusiasm of the fans when these teams meet. It was a night I will never forget.

Here’s the story, originally posted on Jan. 6 …

ROSEAU – The chapel was quiet a couple hours before services began. A few older congregants had already gathered on a frigid January evening, sitting on wooden benches and chatting in a warm space above ice level, occasionally turning their heads to look through windows that offered a view of the frozen, reflective worship space.

As more and more folks arrived, a theme was clear. Some wore the green and white of the Roseau Rams, with others draped in Warroad Warriors black and gold. The towns are only 22 miles apart, within earshot of the Canadian border, and high school hockey is a binding agent, a cultural touchstone and darn near a religious experience.

On this Tuesday night, the most famous hockey rivalry in Minnesota was on center stage for the first time this season. Even though some fans live in one town and are employed in the other, hockey draws a clear line in the ice. That was evident as Warroad fans grimaced upon paying for admission and having a big green Roseau Ram stamped on the back of their hand.

“We’re small schools and we’ve had hockey forever,” said 81-year-old Bob Lund, father of Roseau head coach Greg Lund and assistant Bill Lund. “It’s our game.”

Bob was sitting on a folding chair that was placed against the boards near the entry, a high honor for someone who has seen it all through the years. Bob was a youngster when Roseau Memorial Arena was built in 1949; he remembers the days before plexiglass when the boards were topped with chicken wire, and when gravel, instead of concrete, provided the base for the bleachers.

The lobby areas of the arena are a Roseau hockey Hall of Fame. Walls are covered with framed photos of all the greats in Ram history who went on to play hockey in college, the NHL and the Olympics. Also displayed are team photos, state championship trophies and all manner of wonderful memorabilia.

The hockey rivalry between Warroad and Roseau is special. Boys in both towns have been smacking pucks with sticks for more than a century, and the first official high school game between the two was played in 1945, the same year as the inaugural MSHSL state tournament. On this glorious Tuesday evening in early 2022, the Rams and Warriors boys would meet for the 179^th time.

Both programs are familiar throughout Minnesota. Roseau has been to the state tournament a record 34 times, winning seven state titles between 1946 and 2007. Warroad has made 22 state appearances and has won four crowns, most recently in 2005.

In pregame discussions, one thing was clear: When Roseau and Warroad meet on the ice, you can throw out the records. Over the years, surprises have happened more times than anyone can remember.

“That's the thing, every year it doesn't matter what our records are,” said Warriors coach Jay Hardwick, a 1998 Warroad graduate. “It's still going to be a great hockey game.”

This was one of the biggest games in the state this season, and certainly the biggest in Roseau County, home of both towns. Warroad came in with a record of 11-0 and holding the No. 2 ranking in Class A. Roseau was 11-1 and ranked eighth in Class 2A.

Warroad had recorded one-goal victories over Mounds View, Bemidji and Grand Rapids, with its other eight wins coming by margins between two and 12 goals. Roseau lost to Andover 4-3 in its second game of the season before starting a 10-game winning streak. Among the teams the Rams defeated were Minnetonka, Moorhead, Grand Rapids, Rogers, Bemidji and Mahtomedi.

A good-sized crowd watched the junior varsity teams play before the Zamboni groomed the ice for the night’s main attraction. Hometown radio crews sat at a table a few rows behind the penalty boxes, Jon Michael from Warroad’s KQ92 next to Jason Merritt and Tracy (Bobcat) Ostby on Roseau’s WILD 102. The exquisite Roseau High School pep band, under the direction of Chris Barnes, pumped out great music. Among the orchestra members were a few junior varsity hockey players, hair still wet from showering, dressed in game-day suits and ties.

Game No. 179 in the series stayed true to the predictions. Surprises can indeed happen, and on this night good things happened for the visiting Warriors. The teams played a fast and scoreless opening period, and the first massive roar from the overflow crowd of more than 3,000 came with Roseau on a power play in the second period.

When Warroad’s Ryan Lund swiped the puck, raced down the ice and scored a shorthanded goal, the Warriors student section waved black and gold pompoms and screamed, the sound reverberating off the ancient and arched and sacred wooden beams in the ceiling.

Matt Hard scored to make it 2-0 Warroad late in the second, and Murray Marvin-Cordes got two in the third period before Daimon Gardner closed out Warroad’s 5-0 victory. Warriors goaltender Hampton Slukynsky stopped 28 shots; Roseau goalie Carter Christianson had 22 saves.

The game showcased plenty of talent, including four of the state’s top scorers. Roseau’s Max Strand ranks third with 44 points, Warroad’s Gardner and Jayson Shaugabay are tied for seventh with 36, and the Rams’ Noah Urness (31) is tied for 10th.

Roseau had been shut out by Warroad only four times previously in all these years. Tuesday’s result made the all-time series standings look like this: 105 wins for Roseau and 69 for Warroad with five ties.

Despite the loss, Greg Lund appreciated the importance of the rivalry.

“This is what everybody looks forward to,” he said. “We saw what happened here, it was a huge, huge game for everybody and the fans love it.”

Before the teams took the ice, Hardwick had asked the Warriors if they were nervous. A few heads nodded affirmatively.

“I said, ‘You know what? It's OK to be nervous.’ I told them I've played in these games, a couple of them for section championships, and I've coached in 20-some of these and I still get nervous. But that's OK because it means you care and it means something to you.”

Roseau has an MSHSL enrollment of 348 high school students and Warroad has 295. With Roseau opting up from Class A to Class 2A, the two teams no longer play hammer-and-tong battles to decide which one wins the Section 8 title and goes to state; they faced off in Section 8 playoff games 23 times between 1947 and 1998.

“These are always great games, and there’s a lot of respect for each other,” Bob Lund said, sitting along the boards in the rink where he watched his kids and grandkids skate. “I wish we had 20 games like this every season.”

After graduating from Minnesota Duluth in 1966, Bob coached hockey in Silver Bay for two years before returning to his hometown. The family business is a furniture and carpet store … and hockey.

A newer rink, known as the North Rink, is attached to Roseau Memorial Arena. (There is a third rink in town, Roseau Sports Center.) Some of the locals joke about the North Rink being a de facto day care center, where kids can be dropped off at any time of day or night. Hockey is so big in Roseau that each youth team has its own locker room at the North Rink, meaning families don’t have to lug equipment back and forth from home. Kids also are allowed to run a tab at the well-stocked concession stand, with parental eyebrows sometimes rising when they stop in to pay off the balance.

During Tuesday night’s game, youth hockey players dressed in blue jerseys wandered through the crowd selling 50-50 raffle tickets. As is the custom, youth teams are not allowed to wear Roseau green and white … they earn that right when they reach high school hockey. A lot of cash was dropped into the 50-50 bucket, with the winner taking home more than a thousand dollars.

After the final horn, the Warroad fans celebrated and the Rams faithful shook their heads and reiterated that you just never know what might happen when these teams meet.

The 180^th game in the series is scheduled for Jan. 25 at the Warroad Gardens arena, built in 1993. There is talk of, at some point in time, having the teams from Roseau and Warroad schedule their two regular-season meetings on a back-to-back, home-and-home Friday and Saturday.

No matter the schedule, the Warriors and Rams will continue to skate under the historic wooden ceiling in Roseau, building memories and making history in one of Minnesota’s hockey cathedrals.

From his folding chair on the glass, Bob Lund looked around the arena and smiled at what has been built ... architecturally, athletically and spiritually.

“It just might last forever,” he said.

Monday, July 11, 2022

The Best Of John’s Journal From 2021-22/ No. 5: A Dream First Season For Girls Wrestling

Here we are, ready to unveil the No. 5 entry on the list of my Top 10 favorite stories from the 2021-22 MSHSL year. The wrestling season was historic, with competition dedicated to females held at the section and state tournament levels for the first time. This story, which centers on one wrestler and her family, was originally posted on March 6 …

Maddie Gallant grew up around wrestling. Her father, Wadena-Deer Creek activities director Norm Gallant, is a former long-time wrestling coach and Maddie was a scorekeeper for the Wolverines when she was in junior high.

This season was different, because Maddie became a wrestler for the first time as the only girl on the W-DC team. Her debut season ended Saturday at the state tournament in St. Paul. It was quite a ride for the junior.

“I’ve been going to the state tournament for a very long time to watch,” Maddie said Sunday. “It was very different to actually be in the tunnels and stuff.”

Not to mention on the mats. Wrestling at 138 pounds, Maddie lost in the semifinals to Eastview's Riley Myers and in the third-place match to Jadyn Kelly of Bemidji. Through section tournaments, four girls advanced to state in each of 10 weight classes. They wrestled right alongside three classes of boys at Xcel Energy Center, including in Saturday night’s championship round.

“I think it’s a great thing,” said Norm Gallant, who returned as a part-time coach this season to assist his daughter. “I was a wrestling coach for a long, long time. I think it’s changed so much over the years.”

Very small numbers of girls have been part of high school wrestling in Minnesota for more than 20 years. The first female to qualify for the state tournament was sophomore Elissa Reinsma of Murray County Central in 2009; she was honored with a standing ovation prior to Saturday’s championship match.

The only other girl to wrestle at state was Emily Shilson; competing for Centennial and Mounds View, she went to state in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and now is a member of the women’s wrestling team at Augsburg University.

To have 40 spots in the state tournament brackets reserved for girls this year was a giant step forward.

“It was definitely different to wrestle other girls when I’ve been wrestling mostly boys all season,” said Maddie. “I’m not exactly the strongest girl around, but it’s been much more competitive wrestling a girl than wrestling a guy.”

She said she had thought about joining the wrestling team prior to this season, and “There was just extra encouragement when they added it.”

She proved her mettle in the section tournament. After losing her first match, Maddie needed to win three matches in a row to secure a spot at state. She did so, with three pins.

Maddie has one sibling, Grace, a senior who just completed the basketball season. Grace couldn’t be more proud of Maddie.

“I think it’s pretty impressive that she got down there (to state),” Grace said. “Most of the other girls had done a lot more wrestling than Maddie. I kept getting more nervous because the wrestling was so intense, they were so tough. It’s really cool that she could be a pioneer in this.”

Mandy Gallant, Norm’s spouse and the girls’ mom, is a kindergarten teacher. The first tournament of the year for the Wolverines, and Maddie’s wresting debut, was at home. Some of Mandy’s female students were on hand to watch and afterwards they said things like, “Mom, I can do this.”

“They wanted to practice and learn about it,” Norm said. “It’s going to grow a lot.

“Once you’re a part of wrestling, it’s part of you for your whole life.”

Friday, July 8, 2022

The Best Of John’s Journal From 2021-22/ No. 6: Farmington Celebrates Victory Day

In high school sports and activities, the best stories often have nothing to do with the final score. A perfect example of this is the No. 6 story on the list of my favorites from 2021-22, from a very special event at Farmington High School.

Here’s the story, originally posted on Oct. 6 …

The band was there. The cheerleaders were there. The Farmington Tigers mascot was there. The entire student body filled the bleachers at Tiger Stadium near the end of the school day on Tuesday. Everybody smiled. Everybody had a great time.

The event was a first for Farmington: Victory Day. It’s an opportunity for cognitively and physically impaired children to play football or cheer and have their moment in the sun. It was spectacular.

The Victory Day All-Stars -- as they were introduced, running between two lines of cheerleaders and varsity football players – threw footballs into a target net, they kicked field goals, they played running back and took handoffs at the 40-yard line before running downfield, evading a whole bunch of poor tacklers and dashing into the end zone as the announcer screamed, the fans cheered and the band played the school song.

Jon Pieper, who is Farmington’s co-head football coach along with Rick Sutton, learned about Victory Day from Grand Rapids coach Greg Spahn; they were college teammates at Wisconsin-River Falls. Victory Day was created by a high school coach in Michigan and Spahn has made it an annual event in Grand Rapids.

“Greg spoke at a clinic and talked about doing this,” Pieper said. “I talked to our administration here and they wanted to give it a shot.”

Among those administrators is superintendent Jason Berg, a longtime MSHSL and NCAA football official who put on his uniform and signaled every touchdown with tremendous enthusiasm.

Students were allowed to leave their classes early and walk to the stadium. The front of the bleachers were adorned with signs carrying the names of all the Victory Day All-Stars. Those kids ran and kicked and threw, high-fived and hugged each other and the varsity players and had more fun than you can imagine.

As the event drew to a close, Pieper gathered the All-Stars around him. He told the kids that he wanted them to be a part of the football team. He wanted them to come to games and be on the sideline with the Tigers.

“We want to practice inclusive things and kind of demonstrate what that looks like to our players,” Pieper said. “They did a fantastic job to make everybody out here feel welcome, which is what we talk about all the time. This was one of those things that I think is kind of putting your money where your mouth is when it comes to that type of thing.”

Afterwards, a parent approached Pieper to thank him. She also had a question: Could her child really become part of the team?

Pieper’s reply came immediately: “Heck yeah!”