John’s Journal: A Special Day At The Brave Like Gabe Invitational

 

PERHAM – Behind his sunglasses, tears came to Kim Anderson’s eyes. This had been a special morning as dozens of high school cross-country teams and hundreds of runners had competed in honor of the daughters of Kim and his wife Laura.

Arvig Park in Perham was the site on Saturday of the fourth Brave Like Gabe Invitational, an event like no other. Competition was certainly part of it, but there was camaraderie, there was support, there was fundraising, there was remembrance, there was love, so much love.

Gabriele (Anderson) Grunewald, a 2004 Perham graduate, was a high school state track champion at 800 meters. She became an All-American runner at the University of Minnesota who went on to become a national champion as a professional runner. She continued her running career after being diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and was 32 when she died in June 2019. Her sister, Abby Anderson, was 29 when she was killed in 2021. She was walking in St. Paul when a vehicle driven by a drunk driver left the road and struck her.

“There’s a flood of emotions and it's gone by so quick, but it's absolutely wonderful to see how this has grown and the participation and everybody involved,” Kim said. “It’s just a wonderful, wonderful thing. We love it and we support it. We can't feel any better or more grateful.”

Kim wore a button with Abby’s photo, a memento from her high school running career.

The first Brave Like Gabe Invitational was held a few months after Gabe died. This year, nearly $2,500 in proceeds from concessions, t-shirt sales and donations from competing teams was given to the Brave Like Gabe Foundation. In the four years that the event has been held, approximately $10,000 has been donated to the foundation.

 

Another Brave Like Gabe fundraising event will be held Sept. 9, a 5K open to anyone anywhere. An in-person run will be held that morning at Como Regional Park in St. Paul, with others encouraged to run on their own. (Details here: https://runsignup.com/Race/MN/SaintPaul/BraveLikeGabe5K)

“This year we just had a lot of teams say, ‘We really want to be part of this event,’ ” said Jeff Morris, head coach of the Perham girls and boys cross-country teams and meet organizer.

“After Gabe passed away, I wanted to start a meet in her memory, having coached her in Perham ad having a strong relationship with her, and we stayed close to the family as she went through her cancer bouts.”

Signs in the park showed a silhouette of Gabe, arms outstretched. T-shirts reading Brave Like Gabe were worn by runners, coaches and fans. On the course, about 50 yards away from the start line on a slight grassy rise, “Brave Like Gabe” had been painted in giant letters. Every runner crossed that threshold as they began their race.

Gabe and Abby and their family were on everyone’s mind.

“I think it’s pretty cool for (Perham runners) to know that somebody like Gabe had such an impact, even globally, and not just in running, for something much greater than running and sports,” Morris said. “For our kids to see that, they can relate. She wore the same uniform, she ran the same trails.

“She didn’t let that small-town feel limit her dreams and her reach. I think it’s important for the kids to know that.”

Perham senior runner Mia Lung said Gabe’s impact remains strong in her hometown.

“I think it gives us a lot of purpose on the team, to be running for something so big and knowing how hard she fought every single time. I always know whenever we go out on a run we all have that motivation of, ‘If she can do it, we can be brave like she was and pursue our own struggles.’ ”

Saturday’s events included races for elementary kids, junior high runners, as well as combined junior varsity/varsity races for high school teams.

Perham won the girls and boys team titles. The Yellowjackets boys had a team score of 72, followed by Hopkins (96) and Moorhead (97). On the girls side, Perham’s 40 points led the field, followed by Hopkins (70) and Moorhead (91).

Hopkins junior Sydney Drevlow was the girls individual winner in 17 minutes, 35.8 seconds. Runner-up Mia Hoffman of Bemidji finished in 17:52.0. Bjorn Anderson of Perham was the boys champion with a narrow win over Eli Hall of Pequot Lakes. The winning time was 5:19.9.

The Hopkins runners left at 5:30 a.m. for the three-hour drive trip to Perham, showing the devotion that was evident everywhere among the 24 teams.

After the racing was complete and before the awards ceremony, teams were invited to take part in a cool-down Mile Memory Run in honor of Gabe and Abby.

Morris introduced Kim and Laura Anderson during the awards ceremony, and Kim spoke to the large crowd.

“I see a few parents from way back in the day,” he said with a smile. “It's unbelievable. It's awesome. I don't know where the time goes but we really do appreciate everybody's participation. … It’s so wonderful to see everybody here.”

--To learn more about the Brave Like Gabe Foundation and donate: click here: https://www.bravelikegabe.org/

--MSHSL senior content creator 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 Game’s The Same, No Matter The Location

 

Game night in Alden, Minnesota.

A few minutes before kickoff, Mike Mahlen was concerned. Not so much about his football team or the opponent, but about the grass. The surface at Mahlen Field in Verndale, 41 miles west of Brainerd, was in thick, lush, spectacular shape for the 2023 season opener. The coach, however, wasn’t exactly thrilled with the length of the grass as the first game of his 55^th season was about to start.

You don’t coach at the same place for that long and win more games than any football coach in Minnesota without worrying about the little things. The Verndale Pirates were about to meet the Sebeka Knights; Mahlen knew speed was a strength of his team and he wished the grass had been cut a little shorter. Such concerns quickly vanished once the game started and the Pirates began sprinting and scoring.

Twenty-four hours earlier and 254 miles south of Verndale, music from Kanye West, Fall Out Boy and Yeat filled the pregame air in the town of Alden, 12 miles west of Albert Lea and not far from the Iowa border. The Knights of Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons and the Houston Hurricanes were about to start their football season, too.

Both games were special, because the first game of any season in any sport is special. In Alden and Verndale, these games kicked off the high school football season in Minnesota; they were Zero Week contests in nine-player football, two of eight such games Thursday and Friday. The rest of the state’s 340 teams will open their seasons this week.

Alden-Conger/Glenville Emmons coach Brady Neel, a 2015 Alden-Conger grad, offered a pregame recommendation to a visitor: Buy a corn dog. “They’re big at the (Freeborn) county fair,” the coach said.

At both sites – Alden and Verndale – the crowds included coaches from other teams, given the rare chance to watch and scout on a night when their teams were idle. The coaches mingled, joked and enjoyed fine carefree August evenings.

The first great play of the season came in Alden after the Knights’ first touchdown. On the extra-point kick by Landon Mattson, the ball sailed high through the goal posts and was caught 40 feet above the ground. That oddity was made possible because a few hometown folks were watching (and videotaping) the game from a scissor lift positioned on the fence line. As the kick flew, one of them made a perfect two-handed catch as the fans watching from planet Earth cheered.

In the second quarter Landon kicked an extra point on the other end of field, with the ball flying through the posts and over a chain-link fence onto a grassy area. As a young kid jumped the fence to retrieve the ball, referee Jake Kloeckner needled a visiting scribe who had been leaning against the fence, asking why he hadn’t lumbered over it to get the football. The answer: “Fifteen years and a thousand pretzels ago, maybe.”

In Verndale, the hometown Pirates started strong. After Tyler Amerud sacked the Sebaka quarterback on fourth down at the Verndale 40, the Pirates struck for touchdowns … twice in a row. A 22-yard scoring pass from Shawn Schmitz to Jaden Schulke was brought back by penalty, but on fourth-and-27 from near midfield, a screen pass from Shawn to Jaden got Verndale on the board.

The Pirates did plenty of scoring in their 40-6 win, and after each one the hometown fans broke into the school song. There was no band, no cheerleaders, no piped-in music, but no matter; the faithful performed a perfect a capella version, with hand claps throughout and hurrahs at the end.

Down in Alden, AC/GE cheerleaders Ava Avelar, Melany Gaytan Diaz, Ruby Page, Kaylee Slater and Kaci Wallin worked hard throughout the game. They kept up the spirit for their team (with students from two school districts) by yelling in unison, “Let’s go AC!” (clap clap clapclapclap) and “Let’s go GE!” (clap clap clapclapclap).

The corn dogs in Alden were as outstanding as advertised. For much of the evening, a steady line of people happily paid six dollars for one of the beauties from the Bruno’s Corn Dogs food truck. Some squeezed mustard and/or ketchup onto their dogs and some left them unadorned. By the end of the night, 164 had been sold.

Verndale’s Zero Week win was the 427^th of Mahlen’s career (with 128 losses and three ties). He credits all his assistant coaches over the many years, including current staff members Greg Johnson, Matt Jones, Jeff Moore, Lance Edin, Mack Jones and Austin Ludovissie.

At places like Alden and Verndale, crowd control is not much of an issue. Both football fields are encircled by the hallmark of small-town games: a single strand of rope attached to metal posts. No one violates the boundary. Both fields are situated on the edge of town, with farm fields and silos framing the horizon. In Alden, a neighbor watched the game through a window in his house.

While the Verndale-Sebeka game lacked much drama, the ballgame in Alden had more than enough as the teams traded the lead back and forth. After Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons scored on a long pass play to tie the score 28-28 with 8:22 left in the fourth quarter, the Knights forced a Houston punt. That gave the home team the ball with six minutes to go when during a water break -- one of several called by the officials on a hot evening -- a Knights assistant coach told the team, “Here we go! Drive down the field and break their hearts!”

With five seconds on the clock, Mattson lined up a 32-yard field goal attempt for the win. This one sailed wide of the left goalpost and nowhere within reach of the sure-handed crew high up on the scissor lift.

Houston had the ball first in overtime, scored on fourth down and got the two-point conversion and lead 36-28. The Knights found the end zone on first down, went for two and were stopped. Houston 36, AC-GE 34. The heartbreak was on the home side of the field, yet lessons were learned.

“We’ve got a lot of heart. We’ve got a lot of fight,” said Neel, the Knights young coach. “We were down at halftime and really kind of confused at what we were going to do. But we sat down with our seniors, they kind of stepped up and our second half was a lot better than that first half. We made a lot less mistakes and we have something to improve on for next week.”

In Verndale the next night, the length of the grass was not much of a factor after all. But Mahlen, the 75-year-old head coach and always the perfectionist, talked to his players about the importance of better tackling as the season moves on.

After the postgame team huddle disbanded, players posed for photos and chatted with family and friends on the sacred field that has seen the Pirates win two state championships and finish as state runner-up three times in 17 trips to state.

“He really pushes us to be our best,” said Jaden Schulke. “He expects 100 percent on every play and he expects us to win. He expects a lot out of us.”

Shawn Schmitz said it was an honor to play for Mahlen. “He’s one of the greatest coaches to ever coach football.”

Neel is in his third year as a head football coach, Mahlen is in his 55^th. That’s a big difference, but there are many similarities. Preparation is key, of course, as is execution. That’s what the first game of the season, any season in any sport, is all about. Learn from your mistakes, tighten up the loose ends, get better.

And maybe, just maybe, cut the grass a little bit shorter.

--To read previous coverage of Alden-Conger/Glenville Emmons and Verndale, click here https://www.mshsl.org/about/news/johns-journal/johns-journal-alden-congerglenville-emmons-aims-high and here https://www.mshsl.org/about/news/johns-journal/johns-journal-55-football-seasons-coach-who-loves-game

--MSHSL senior content creator 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: Pequot Lakes Volleyball Hoping For An Even Better Finish

 

The Pequot Lakes High School volleyball team has taken quite the crazy ride in recent years. In 2019 the Patriots ended a 25-year state tournament drought by qualifying in the Class 2A field, where they were defeated in the quarterfinals. With lots of experience and talent returning, the stage was set for a big run in 2020.

That’s when the pandemic hammer dropped. There was no state tournament in 2020 due to Covid, which was a difficult pill to swallow.

“Everyone felt sorry for us because they knew we had a great team,” said Christine Ganley, who is in her seventh year as the coach at Pequot Lakes.

In 2021 the Patriots came oh so close to another state appearance, losing a five-set heartbreaker in the Section 6AA championship match to Sauk Centre, which went on to capture the state title. But finally, last season, Pequot Lakes made it back to state and advanced to its first state championship match before falling to Cannon Falls at Xcel Energy Center.

With a record of 91-20 since the beginning of the 2019 season, and again with plenty of talented players back, the 2023 season could be another season to remember for the Patriots.

At the conclusion of last year’s state tournament, then-juniors Ella Kratochvil and Grace Hoffard were named to the all-tournament team. Ganley said that helped light a fire as thoughts turned to 2023.

“There is a lot of optimism,” she said. “The nice thing is we’ve always talked about how every team has to grow every season and they have to make the team their own. … We talked a lot to this year’s seniors, that it’s their job to work on a positive work ethic and what it takes to make a great season.”

The Patriots know all about great seasons, in volleyball and beyond. Most of the volleyball players are involved in one or two other sports, and Pequot Lakes has been on a strong postseason run in multiple sports.

Ganley said, “I asked the seniors this summer, ‘How many of you have been in a game to go to state?’ All of them raised their hand. They’ve gone to state in volleyball, basketball, softball, track and golf. You take all those moments with you into this season. Not many teams can say that, but we have athletes who have been in high-pressure situations in two or three sports.”

As the regular season nears, Pequot Lakes is ranked second in Class 2A by the Minnesota Volleyball Coaches Association, with Cannon Falls No. 1. The Patriots will open the season at Wadena-Deer Creek on Aug. 29, with high hopes for the conclusion of the campaign, buoyed by memories of a year ago.

“Most of us had just been to the state tournament to watch, and seeing that as a kid, you're like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want to do that someday,’ ” said senior libero Kelsi Martini. “So knowing that was something we can work for, I think last year we all just competed in practice. And we were like, ‘OK, we want to do this.’ And then our goals just kept becoming bigger.”

None of the returning players have any problems finding motivation for 2023 after coming within one match of a state title.

“The feeling we had after our last game last season in the state championship, I think that brings a lot more motivation this year for all of us,” Kratochvil said. “We have a lot of returning players that were included in all of that.”

Going to state is rare for any team in any sport, and advancing all the way to a state championship game is very rare. The Patriots treasure their memories from the 2022 season.

“It was fun and so full of joy. I was happy for these girls,” Ganley said. “The year before we lost by two points in the third set to Sauk Centre (in the section final), and they won it all.

Taking that into last fall, the kids were on a mission; ‘We aren’t going to let that happen again, we’re not going to lose by two points to go to state.’ They were determined. And when we were at state they were on another mission, with so much joy and happiness for the kids. They just had so much fun.”

--MSHSL senior content creator 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: Another Crack At State Title Motivates MIB Rangers

 

MOUNTAIN IRON -- A new banner hangs in a prominent spot on the wall inside the weight room at Mountain Iron-Buhl High School. Two team photos are prominent reminders of what the Rangers football and girls basketball teams accomplished last season: Minnesota State High School League state champions.

There is a strong family angle to this story. The football team was led by senior quarterback Asher Zubich, now playing at St. Olaf College. The star of the girls basketball team was his kid sister Jordan Zubich, who will soon begin her senior year and has committed to the University of North Carolina.

Their dad, Dan Zubich, is the Rangers head football coach and about as proud a parent as you will find.

Ask Dan about his favorite memories from 2022-23 and he thinks back to the first weekend in December. That Saturday, the Rangers rallied to defeat Spring Grove 28-25 in the Nine-Player state championship game at U.S. Bank Stadium. The girls basketball players cheered from the stands, then rode a bus to Hopkins High School, where they defeated Hayfield in a matchup of two of the state’s best small-school teams.

“We were watching that game on the bus on the way home,” Dan Zubich said. “And the next day, Jordan got her offer from North Carolina.”

A new year began at MIB on Monday evening when the football team held its first practice of the season. If things go well for the Rangers, they will make another lengthy postseason run. While last season’s state title was their first appearance in the Prep Bowl, boys from MIB have made regular trips to the state playoffs. Mountain Iron was the Class B state champion in 1972 and returned to state in 1973 and 1982; Mountain Iron-Buhl went to state in 1983 as well as 2003, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2018, 2019 and 2021.

The Rangers football team hasn’t lost a district game since 2019 and is unbeaten in postseason section tournament action since 2017.

The obvious question as the 2023 season begins: What are the expectations?

“As far as I know, there might be a dark horse out there but I think we’re as good as anybody,” said Dan Zubich, the head coach since 2012. “You know how kids are. I’ve been getting after them, saying ‘You don’t have to do anything now, you won the state title, huh?’ ”

Zubich likes to needle the players about working hard, while reminding them what last year’s team did to make their dream come true.

“I think we have confidence but it’s like smart confidence,” said junior Micaden Clines, who will take over at quarterback this fall. “It’s like, ‘Don't think too highly of yourself. You’ve still got to put in the work. You’ve still got to perform.’ ”

The year’s first practice was workmanlike, with few whistles and not one raised voice. The stadium at MIB is one of the finest in the state, with artificial turf and comfortable seating set between the school and a wooded area. During Monday evening’s practice, the sounds of football were bookmarked between vehicles on nearby U.S. Highway 169 and crickets beginning their evening choir performance.

There were 44 players on the field – from seventh grade to seniors – wearing helmets, t-shirts, shorts and cleats. They stretched, they did 20-yard bear crawls, they carried teammates on their backs for 20 yards, they were timed in the 40-yard dash, two players at a time. They did drills on blocking, tackling, footwork, throwing and catching, they ran plays in a nine-on-nine format (aka 18 Wide).

The Rangers attended a football camp for Nine-Player teams at the University of Minnesota Morris in July, giving those who attended a head start on working together.

There are holes to fill, beyond the spot vacated by Asher Zubich. Dan Zubich said five starters are back on defense, along with two offensive linemen and running back Damien Tapio.

“We’ve got a lot of experience on defense,” Tapio said. “We'll see but I think our defense might be better than last year. On offense it's going to be a different team.”

Tapio carried the ball 18 times for 80 yards and two touchdowns in the Prep Bowl win over Spring Grove, and also caught four passes for 29 yards. After Spring Grove led 19-0, Tapio’s 11-yard scoring run late in the first half put the Rangers on the board. He scored again from 10 yards with 25 seconds remaining in regulation to cap the Rangers' rally and the memorable three-point victory.

“It was a lot of fun,” said Clines. “You know, we started off down and we kept our composure. It was a lot of fun out there, sticking through it as a team.”

Those kinds of lessons can pay off a season later, and that’s what the Rangers are hoping for in 2023. They will open the season with a road game at Cook County in Grand Marais, a 275-mile round trip that will set the tone for MIB’s regular-season road schedule. They also will play at Lake of the Woods (332-mile round trip), North Central (234) and Blackduck (242).

Home games will be much anticipated at the Rangers’ state-of-the-art stadium that was built in 2018. When Mountain Iron-Buhl’s junior high team lost a home game last fall, it was the first home defeat for any MIB football team since the facility opened.

“We like to tease those guys about that,” Zubich said.

The state championship poster is in its place, and this year’s football team will try to hang another one.

“Last year’s seniors, when they were younger, were so good in lots of sports,” Zubich said. “We tell the kids they have to be mentally tough. It’s helped them, because they have been through so many games.”

--MSHSL senior content creator 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: Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons Aims High

 

ALDEN – The football gods haven’t exactly bestowed a steady diet of feast or famine in recent years on the football team from Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons. But the results have veered closer to the latter.

From a record of 5-4 in 2018 to 0-9 in 2019, then 1-6 in the Covid-shortened 2020 campaign, followed by another 0-9 mark in 2019 and back to 5-4 one year ago, the team has seen some mild highs and some major lows.  

That 5-4 finish in 2022 opened some eyes, however, because coming back from an ofer season to win more than half your games is not an easy lift in football. The Knights bring back lots of experience in the 2023 season, which will begin with a Zero Week home game against Houston on Aug. 24.

But there’s another new wrinkle to the new season: The Knights have gone from Class 1A to Nine-Player football, which is a big -- and welcome -- change.

“We needed it,” said third-year head coach Brady Neel, an alum who grew up on a farm outside of Alden and graduated from high school here in 2015.

On the morning after Alden-Conger/Glenville Emmons’ 2022 season ended with a playoff loss to United South Central, Neel was on the air with Aaron Worm of KATE radio in nearby Albert Lea. Aaron began the interview with this statement: “The future is so bright for Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons football.”

There was and is no doubt about that. Sophomores and juniors dominated the roster last year, and that kind of experience can be key in a new season.

“There’s not a ton of drop-off,” the coach told Worm that morning. “We’ve got younger guys who are ready to step up. We’re going to have a good future.”

The future is now, and the team has a weeks’ worth of practice in the books under the Zero Week format. With a pair of 2023 grads now playing college football in Iowa (Lucas Hensche at Waldorf and Caleb Songstad at Luther), the Knights are looking forward to a new season, new opponents and new challenges.

“We’re trying to play our hearts out and we’ll go into every game knowing that we can win,” said senior receiver and linebacker Tyler Erickson. “It'll be different going down to nine-man. We've haven't been here, playing smaller schools, and we should match up pretty well. So we'll see how it goes.”

Five years ago there often weren’t enough players to have a full scrimmage. This year there are 30-some kids on the roster, with 30 or so signed up for middle school football and 50 to 60 on the elementary level.

“Lot of kids here want to play football,” said Neel, who teaches third grade in Albert Lea. He played football, basketball and baseball in high school, along with being a member of the FFA and “a bunch of other little clubs and things to stay involved.”

That’s the model for small-town kids. Erickson also plays basketball and golf and fellow senior captain Tyler Linn has participated in basketball and baseball.

Another constant in small schools are cooperative agreements. That’s what the slash designates in “Alden-Conger/Glenville-Emmons” … two school districts that come together to have teams in football, girls basketball and softball. Alden-Conger is in another coop with United South Central in cross-country and track and field, and with Albert Lea in wrestling.

The football season with have some twists this fall, because after looking east and facing the Section 1 juggernaut of teams in the regular season, AC/GE will play in Section 3 during the postseason, with most of those teams to the west.

The regular season should be a good test for the Knights. Section 1 has produced seven state champions in the last decade (Grand Meadow in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, Spring Grove in 2017 and 2018 -- and a state runner-up finish last year -- and LeRoy-Ostrander in 2021). In addition, Mabel-Canton won a state title in 2001, Kingsland did so in 2002 and Houston won it all in 2008.

The Knights’ state tournament history is a bit sparse. Alden-Conger won a Class C state title in 1978, returning to state in 1979, 1986, 1998 and 2008.

Alden-Conger/Glenville Emmons played Nine-Man football before moving to Class 1A seven years ago.

“Thankfully we came back down to where I think we belong,” said Neel, who can lean on a coaching staff with vast amounts of experience.

Neel was an assistant coach for two years before becoming head coach. On his staff are former head coaches Gary Nelson and Chad Mattson, and along with assistant Joe Brooks they have more than 40 years of football coaching experience and 80 years when other sports are factored in.

Linn and Erickson have already seen a lot as they begin their senior season. Jaden called their 0-9 sophomore campaign “a struggle.”

“Just learning to cope and learn from everything like that was pretty much what the year was,” he said. “It was just a learning year to get into all of our positions and learning how we're going to work into things, and then that helped to improve the next year. Seeing all that improvement, all that came from lear"ing from the 0-9 season and how that kind of really brought everything together.’

Erickson said their sophomore season “was a learning curve for all of us, trying to learn the plays, and the game speeds up from middle school to high school.”

Last year’s turnaround set the tone for 2023, Jaden said.

“Just based on what practices were like, we expected improvement and we liked learning from the experiences from the past,” he said. “That helped a ton. We wanted to set a goal of being .500 and we exceeded that. I think what went into that was all the hard work and effort we put into practices and everybody coming together, working as kind of a family.”

--MSHSL senior content creator 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: 55 Football Seasons For A Coach Who Loves The Game

 

At 9 o’clock Monday morning in Verndale, a village of 500 or so residents where everyone is a football fan, Mike Mahlen will direct the Verndale Pirates in their first practice of the 2023 season. The head coach knows the drill, because this is his 55^th year at the helm.

Mahlen was 20 years old and fresh out of Mayville (N.D.) State when he was hired as a healthy/physical education teacher and head football coach in Verndale the same year that Neil Armstrong put a foot on the moon’s surface, the Woodstock music festival was held in upstate New York and Sesame Street made its television debut.

That was 1969, and what Mahlen has accomplished since is incredible.

Coaching 11-man football for his first 16 years at Verndale and the nine-player version since, he owns more football victories than any coach in Minnesota history. He begins the 2023 season with a career record of 426-128-3. Second on the list is Becker’s Dwight Lundeen, who is beginning his 54^th season there with a record of 390-166-3.

Mahlen and Lundeen are two of three active head coaches among the top 15 in career wins. Retired Brainerd coach Ron Stolski ranks third at 389-182-5 in 58 years and Eden Prairie's Mike Grant, the third active coach on the list, is fourth at 377-79 over 40 seasons.

Mahlen averages more than 10 victories per season, which is astounding when teams play only eight regular-season games.

Football seasons, whether in 1969 or 2023, have similarities. Mahlen will welcome 30-some players to the first practice as preparations begin for the Pirates’ season opener against Sebeka at Mahlen Field on Aug. 25.

Mahlen, who will be 76 years old before the season ends, also has served as the Pirates head baseball coach and assistant boys basketball coach. He was the school’s athletic director from 1977 to 2018; he retired from teaching in 2004 and loves spending time with his wife Sallie, their two kids and five grandkids, and devoting time to football. He has no plans to retire from coaching.

“When I get sick of going to practice, then I’ll retire,” he said. “I’d like to keep coaching forever but that’s not going to happen.”

Mike and Sallie grew up in Erskine, both attended Mayville State, and they have been married for 55 years. Mike jokes that it’s easy to remember how long he has been coaching because it’s the same number of years he has been married. Their wedding took place shortly before his first football season in Verndale.

Mike was a three-sport athlete in high school and played football in college, although the prospect of going to college at all was not a certainty until one of his high school coaches literally showed him the way.

The young man was doing yard work one day when Erskine basketball coach Lowell “Marty” Martinson drove up and told Mahlen, “Get in.” Mahlen remembers that day well.

“After 30 or 40 miles (of a 77-mile one-way trip) I said, ‘Where we are going?’ He said, ‘We’re going to Mayville State and you’re going to register for college today.’ When I got home my mom said, ‘Where have you been?’ Marty was a pretty big influence on my life, all around.”

Mahlen led the Pirates to the state football playoffs for the first time in 1981. Since then, Verndale has made 15 more appearances, winning state championships in 1997 and 2002 and finishing as state runner-up in 1987, 1994 and 1996.

He has coached three generations of several families. He hasn’t coached any fourth-generation players … at least not yet.

“I hope I live long enough to do that,” he said. “Who knows?”

Mahlen still gets excited about the future when he watches kids in Verndale’s youth football program. He likes to look a few years ahead as he evaluates young talent.

“I’ll be thinking, ‘Who’s my quarterback down here, who’s going to be a running back,’ ” he said. “I still enjoy practice and going to practice. Games? Anybody can do that because that’s the fun part of it. But you’ve got to enjoy practice.”

He has seen a lot of changes over the decades, going back to when football playoffs began in Minnesota in his fourth season at Verndale. When enrollment fell and the Pirates made the switch from 11-player to nine-player football, the field for nine-player was only 80 feet long, with cones often used to mark the goal lines.

“That got to be a little bit of a sideshow,” he said. The nine-player rules now stipulate a field that is 100 yards long and 40 yards wide (it’s 53.3 yards wide in 11-player football). “Nobody even notices that it’s 40,” Mahlen said.

Last season the Pirates had another strong year, finishing 9-2 with both losses to Wheaton/Herman-Norcross; in Week 7 and again in the Section 4 title game. Verndale lost a large, talented senior class of 12 players from last year, with five seniors on the roster this season.

Away from football, Mike and Sallie enjoy time at a lake place near Perham. Before Covid interrupted everything, they made regular trips to Arizona or Florida to relax in the sun and watch spring training baseball games. Their children both work in education: son Jason teaches business and is an assistant football coach at Chisago Lakes, and daughter Gena Sperling is a kindergarten teacher in Elk River.

The Mahlen family, and everyone in Verndale and beyond, will be watching the Pirates during Mike’s 55^th year at the helm. When kickoff arrives for the season opener, it will mark Mahlen’s 558^th game as the Verndale head coach.

“Football’s more fun than ever,” he said.

--MSHSL senior content creator 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