After
one of the biggest games in Simley High School football history, a victory on
Nov. 17 that moved the Spartans into the Prep Bowl state championship game this
week, head coach Chris Mensen was standing in a quiet hallway inside U.S. Bank
Stadium and talking about Kim Madigan.
Kim
was 59 years old when she died on January 20, 2020. Her husband Mark is an
assistant football coach at Simley and Kim was the administrative assistant in
the athletic department at the school in Inver Grove Heights. Her memorial
service was held in the school gymnasium. Mark and their children, Melissa and Sarah, have established the
Kim Madigan Memorial Scholarship to assist Simley graduates.
As
Mensen talked about Kim, he touched a rubber wristband he wears in her memory. The
Spartans had just defeated Rocori 17-16 in the Class 4A state semifinals; they
will face Hutchinson in the Prep Bowl on Friday afternoon. The coach’s thoughts
were focused on the team and the day, but when asked if his school raises money
in support of Tackle Cancer, his focus shifted.
Kim
Madigan died after a battle with cancer.
“I still wear her bracelet because she
means the world to this program and this community,” Mensen said. Simley’s
Tackle Cancer activities include T-shirt sales and free-will donations during one
designated week and home game each fall.
“And we try to honor someone, a part
of the Simley family, who’s suffering from cancer,” he said.
Tackle Cancer began 10 years ago,
and by the time all the participating high schools and colleges in Minnesota send
in the funds they have collected, the 2022 total will exceed $400,000. In the
decade that Tackle Cancer has existed, nearly $3 million has been raised to
fight cancer.
There may be no other charitable
effort like Tackle Cancer in the country. The Minnesota Football Coaches
Association (MFCA) leads the efforts, which provide funding for research, prevention, treatment and other programs
relating to the needs of the cancer community.
THE BEGINNING WAS SIMPLE, and no
one could have imagined 10 years ago what was to come. It started with two
friends: a television veteran and a football coaching veteran.
Randy Shaver, news anchor at KARE TV, is a cancer survivor. He
and his wife Roseanne started the Randy Shaver Cancer Research & Community
Fund after his experience with the disease. Dave Nelson, now retired as a
football coach, was the head coach at Minnetonka High School when he was
treated for prostate cancer in 2011. Shaver invited Nelson to one of his fund’s
charity
events.
“I
asked Dave to just come see it, as a friend,” Shaver said. “I told him, ‘Come
see what we do, meet some people, have some fun.’ He took that moment and
turned it into something that was totally unexpected on my part. It was his
initiative to try and do something with the MFCA to benefit something we all
deal with in one way or another.”
Nelson
and his wife Maureen found the evening to be life-changing, hearing inspirational
stories of what people were doing to support Shaver’s foundation. As the
Nelsons drove home, Dave began pondering ways to help. “I was thinking, there’s
got to be something we can do,” he said.
At
a construction project near Minnetonka High School, rocks needed to be removed
from the site. The Skippers football team pitched in, spending three days
shoveling rocks into wheelbarrows, with Shaver stopping by to show support and
take photos with the kids. They dubbed their effort “Rock Cancer” and were paid
several thousand dollars, which they donated to Shaver’s cancer fund.
Nelson
met with fellow officers from the Minnesota Football Coaches Association, asking
if such efforts might be something that other teams would be interested in.
That’s when the partnership between Shaver’s foundation and the MFCA began
rolling.
“I
asked our executive committee, ‘How about if a bunch of teams did this?,’ ” Nelson
said. “We got Randy’s blessing and everybody thought it was great.”
The
coaches committee met with Randy and Roseanne (she dubbed the project Tackle
Cancer) and they decided it would be fantastic if they could raise $5,000
during the 2012 football season. The total? $120,000.
Shaver
said, “My first concern was I didn’t want to inconvenience coaches. I didn’t
want them to feel obligated. Dave said, ‘They’re all going to be on board.’ They
took it and ran with it.”
THEY’VE
BEEN RUNNING FASTER AND FARTHER each year as Tackle
Cancer efforts have spread around the state. This year, 182 high schools and 18
colleges, including the University of Minnesota, have taken part. The small community
of Randolph, which has a well-deserved reputation for charitable giving, led
the way by raising $49,000 this fall in their Tackle Cancer efforts.
Stillwater High
School raised $26,000 and St. Thomas Academy provided $25,000 to Shaver’s fund.
The St. Thomas Academy head football coach is Dan O’Brien, whose
son Casey is a well-known cancer survivor. Casey, who played football at
Cretin-Derham Hall and was a holder for kicks at the University of Minnesota, was
diagnosed with
osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, at age 13 and has had multiple cancer fights
since. Casey has undergone 25 surgical procedures
and has spent 300 nights in hospitals.
“Cancer
has touched everybody in our community,” Dan O’Brien said. “Everybody knows
somebody and you think about it every single day. The coaching community is a
tight-knit deal. People go through stuff they shouldn’t have to go through. It
rips your guts out and you want to support them.”
During
this year’s Tackle Cancer events at St. Thomas Academy, the Cadets had donation
buckets at the gates, also selling wristbands, headbands and other items.
Students at the school wear uniforms, but if they bought a Tackle Cancer shirt
they could wear that instead of the uniform.
“For
us it’s a week-long deal, not just the day of the game,” Dan O’Brien said. “We
start preparing for it in the summer. Our community really rallies around it.”
After
10 years, students and families at high schools all over Minnesota are familiar
with Tackle Cancer efforts. The focus is on football games in the fall, but money
also is raised for Tackle Cancer during basketball games, wrestling meets and
other sports.
The
funds are distributed mainly to support cancer research in Minnesota; the
Shaver fund puts nearly 95 cents of every dollar into that support. The
organization is lean, with Roseanne Shaver serving as executive director and
Heather Austin as assistant executive director. Much of the work is done by volunteers.
“We
don’t pay (medical) salaries, we don’t pay for researchers or their assistants.
We pay for the things they need to do their research,” Randy Shaver said of
where the money goes. “It allows us to really dig down and support incredible
research projects with the Mayo Clinic, University of Minnesota, University of Minnesota
Duluth, all those great places.”
THIS
WAS A GRAND FOOTBALL SEASON at Wheaton/Herman-Norcross, with the
Warriors winning 12 consecutive games before losing to Mountain Iron-Buhl in
the Nine-Man state semifinals.
“Everyone's impacted by cancer
nowadays somewhere. We've had parents have it, we've had grandmas and grandpas,
it's just everywhere,” said Warriors coach James Paul.
“Tackle
Cancer is a way for us
to rally for a cause, and I think the kids enjoy it. We have great support with
it, too. We order T-shirts and this year I ordered pink team socks, so now we
can keep those and use those every year.”
The Warriors also hold an auction
with the winners taking possession of the seniors’ jerseys, among other fundraisers.
At Becker, everyone knows Dwight
Lundeen has completed 53 seasons as the only head football coach in school
history. Some also know that his wife Pam is a breast cancer survivor, his
sister Marlene has been declared cancer-free and his brother Dave is currently
receiving cancer treatment. Cancer indeed touches everyone.
During Becker’s 2021 efforts, the
players wore pink jerseys during warmups before their designated Tackle Cancer
game, with the jerseys being given to players’ family members and friends who
have been impacted by cancer. This fall, the Bulldogs were given pink
footballs, to be gifted to the person of their choosing. Dwight gave his pink
football to his brother Dave.
Barnesville and Hawley usually come
together on a Tackle Cancer game when they meet in a passionate rivalry with
large crowds. If it’s during Homecoming week at Barnesville, girls are not
allowed to wear the boys’ jerseys; instead, a silent auction allows girls to
get in bidding wars for the jersey they want to wear. The jersey auction alone raised
$1,000 last year.
“In our community, we lost a teacher
this past summer to cancer and I think everybody knows somebody that's affected
by it,” said Barnesville coach Bryan Strand, whose team will meet Chatfield in
the Class 1A Prep Bowl game on Friday.
Simley’s Tackle Cancer efforts
extend beyond the dollars raised. The football team talks about how cancer impacts
their community.
“We speak that week about the
importance of thinking about family members and everyone who has come into
combat with this awful disease,” Mensen said. “I don't think there's a person
out there who hasn't been touched by it. I know I have personally, good friends
of mine are currently battling cancer. Everything we can do to fight this
horrible disease, I'm in and the kids are in and we want to help serve. That's
a great thing.”
Ron Stolski, who retired at Brainerd
following the 2019 season after 58 years as a football coach, is executive
director of the Minnesota Football Coaches Association. He and other coaches among
MFCA leadership have been the driving force behind Tackle Cancer, but Stolski doesn’t
hesitate in calling Nelson “The wheelhorse behind this. He has driven
it, formed a committee of over a dozen reps responsible for certain sections of
the state and did all this work.”
Stolski,
who attends the American Football Coaches Association convention each year, said
he talks about Tackle Cancer with people from other states and basically sees
blank stares from coaches who are so wrapped up in the game that they have a difficult
time devoting so much time and effort to fundraising.
That’s
clearly not the story in Minnesota. Tackle Cancer is an incredible tale of selflessness
and commitment, with football coaches and football players, joined by their
communities, going above and beyond to help conquer cancer.
“It’s been so cool to watch it grow,” Nelson
said. “The coaches of Minnesota have been so awesome and so many good football
programs are behind it. This year our goal was $400,000, which would be a
record, and we’re going to breeze past that.”
What
does the future hold for Tackle Cancer?
“I
think the sky’s the limit, I really do,” said Nelson. “Next year our goal might
be $500,000, what the heck? To see what these schools do, it’s unbelievable.”
Shaver
thinks back to how Tackle Cancer started, how far it’s come and what could
happen in the years ahead.
“It’s
amazing,” he said. “It started with one guy who took it to the MFCA, who all
said, ‘Yes, let’s do this thing.’ I just kind of stand back in amazement and
watch what they’ve done.”
--For
more information on the Randy Shaver Cancer Research & Community Fund,
click here: https://randyshavercancerfund.org/
--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
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