John’s Journal: 108 Years Of Coaching For Rostbergs And Lundeen

Left to right: Grady Rostberg, Andy Rostberg, Dwight Lundeen.

A couple years ago, Grady Rostberg was in his usual spot during a football game at Hutchinson High School. The former head coach of the Tigers and current volunteer assistant was in the press box when he noticed a piece of paper being passed around and signed. He assumed it was some sort of petition.

“I didn’t know what it was for and I said, ‘Am I supposed to sign that?’ Somebody said, ‘No, get out of here.’ I found out later it was a petition to name the stadium after Andy and me.”

Grady, who became Hutchinson’s head coach in 1970 after several years at nearby Brownton, led the Tigers for 29 years. His son Andy took over as head coach and now is in his 25^th season. That’s 54 years of Rostbergs leading the football program, and a year ago the football stadium in Hutchinson was named after them.

Also in 1970, a young coach just out of college was named the first head coach of the first-year football team in Becker. Now in his 54^th year, Dwight Lundeen was honored and humbled when the Bulldogs field was named in his honor before the 2023 season opener.

The Rostbergs and Lundeen combine for 108 years of coaching high school football in Minnesota, and they continue to set a high standard. None of the three will be around forever, but their names will live on in the facilities at their schools.

“It’s been a little more emotional than what I thought,” Lundeen said. “The night of the ceremony was really neat, seeing coaches who were with me back in the ‘70s, players who were here 50 years ago.”

In Hutchinson, generations of kids had played at S.R. Knutson Field; Sever Raymond (S.R) Knutson served as superintendent of Hutchinson schools from 1940 to 1966. The stadium is now called Rostberg Stadium at S.R. Knutson Field.

At Becker’s first home game this season on Sept. 8, a pregame ceremony was held to unveil the new name of the facility as Dwight Lundeen Stadium. The longtime home of the Bulldogs also was improved with new turf, new lights and a new digital scoreboard prior to this season.

The facility in Becker was formerly known as Eppard Field, named years ago for the custodian at an elementary school. Its new name is officially “Eppard Field at Dwight Lundeen Stadium, sponsored by EMR.”

EMR Metal Recycling, a Becker business, made a donation of $300,000 to pay for the new scoreboard, and Lundeen asked Scott Helberg, chief operating officer of EMR, to attend a school board meeting earlier this year where he could be publicly thanked. Unbeknownst to Lundeen, a big announcement was made at the meeting.

While standing in the board room, Lundeen noticed his assistant coaches enter. Then he saw family members arrive. Soon, he learned that the stadium would bear his name. He was overcome with emotion.

“Before it happened, it was just one of those things, you do something long enough they’ll do something for longevity,” Lundeen said. “They kind of surprised me. It’s really pretty neat. I have really enjoyed it, I really enjoy coaching on the new field, too.”

Becker has played in 17 state football tournaments and owns three state titles, most recently in 2015 in Class 4A. Hutchinson has six state championships – three under Grady and three under Andy (two when Andy was the quarterback for his dad) – in 22 state appearances. The Tigers’ last title came in 2021 in 4A.

The growth of both schools can be seen in the classes they have played in. Becker was the Class C state runner-up in 1990, the Class B runner-up in 1994, played in four Class 3A Prep Bowls as well as two in Class 4A. Hutchinson’s first state title came in Class A in 1983.

This year, both teams are in Class 4A and they resumed one of the state’s best rivalries Friday night in Becker. The Bulldogs came in with a record of 4-0 and the No. 1 ranking in 4A; Hutchinson was 3-1, ranked sixth and playing without a handful of injured starters at key positions.

Becker came away with a hard-fought 21-20 win in a game that started late because of lightning. Hutchinson, fell short on a pair of two-point conversion attempts, played hard and almost pulled off the upset.

The two teams didn’t play each other on a regular basis until 12 or 15 years ago, but now the respect on both sides is immense.

“We’ve been good friends for many, many years and they keep that great tradition going,” Lundeen said of the Rostbergs. “If it was any other team I feel we might have an edge in talent, but with Hutchinson you line up and you play four quarters of just crazy football, and that’s about the best way you can describe it. We have such a deep tradition of competing hard against each other.”

The first connection between the two families had nothing to do with football. In  1991, Lundeen, then Becker’s athletic director, hired Grady’s daughter Allison to coach girls basketball. Allison had been a star player at Bethel.

Allison is part of another strong Minnesota football tradition in her own home. Her husband is Chris Meidt, a 1987 Minneota grad who still holds several state passing records.

Over the years, Lundeen and the Rostbergs have always cheered for each other’s teams when they weren’t playing each other’s teams. When the Hutchinson stadium was dedicated last year, it was fitting that the Bulldogs were the visiting team. All three men are humbled by the honor.

“I think every time you’re standing there at an event, whether it’s football or whatever, and they say ‘Welcome to Rostberg Stadium,’ you think of things,” Andy said. “Holy buckets, all the years. I don’t think any one thing comes to my mind when I hear it, because it’s different every time. One time I thought, ‘My poor son (eighth-grader Graydon, named after his grandfather).’ A stadium with his last name on it. Poor kid. But it’s quite an honor, it is.

“Sometimes I think of my dad when I hear that. And he told me that when he hears it, he thinks about his son. And Dwight, what a deserving thing for him.”

--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: Father And Son, Living A Football Dream

 

One of the biggest stories of the 2023 high school football season in Minnesota is the new coaching staff at Holy Family Catholic in Victoria. Dan O’Brien, who coached at Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Bemidji and Lakeville before becoming head coach at Concordia University in St. Paul and later an assistant coach and director of football operations at the University of Minnesota, left St. Thomas Academy to become head coach at Holy Family. His staff includes Dave Nelson and Jeff Ferguson, who came out of Hall of Fame retirements after combining for 10 state championships at Blaine, Minnetonka (Nelson) and Totino-Grace (Ferguson).

O’Brien, Nelson and Ferguson are football warhorses, football lifers. The most interesting and inspiring member of the Fire’s football staff, however, is a 24-year-old rookie coach … also named O’Brien.

Casey O’Brien is well-known in Minnesota for reasons that have everything to do with courage and resiliency. He was a freshman at Cretin-Derham Hall in St. Paul in 2013 when he was diagnosed with cancer after complaining of pain in his left knee. The 13-year-old underwent tests that revealed osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.

Surgeries (including a knee replacement), chemotherapy and other treatments continued as cancer returned, time and again, through Casey’s time as a walk-on kick holder at the University of Minnesota and beyond.

All told, Casey is a six-time cancer survivor. He has endured 27 surgeries, countless rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, and he has spent nearly a full calendar year in the hospital. He undergoes scans every three months and his most recent tests, in August, marked him as cancer-free for nine months.

Dan O’Brien led a very successful program at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, taking the Cadets to a 49-5 record in five years, including two Prep Bowl appearances. But there was one glitch: Casey refused to join the coaching staff. Because of his strong ties to Cretin-Derham Hall, a big rival of St. Thomas Academy, Casey wouldn’t take a job alongside his dad.

Casey said, “At the start of every season he was like, ‘Hey, you're going to come coach, right?’ And you know, Cretin has been a fantastic school to myself and the community that supported me through my journey, and it just didn't feel right to me to do that to the school that I care so much about. So I had a little school pride in saying, ‘I'm not going to do it.’ ”

One of the benefits of Dan O’Brien’s job change was opening the door for Casey to work alongside his dad. He’s the quarterback coach at Holy Family and it’s a dream come true … even if the dream includes nightmare-like times of uncertainty in the hospital, which also had a football theme.

“It was something that we had talked about for a long time,” Casey said. “You know, we spent 350 nights in the hospital together talking football and watching film, watching games on TV. I've always wanted to be a part of trying to go win games with him. This has really been a fun experience for me.”

Holy Family had lost 20 consecutive games over three seasons before the Fire opened this season with a 45-0 win over Academy Force. “That broke the streak,” Dan O’Brien said. “That was a monkey off our back.”

The Fire are now 2-2 on the season after losing to unbeaten St. Agnes 33-14 last Friday. Casey O’Brien viewed the action from the press box, wearing a baseball cap backwards over a headset with which he spoke to Nelson, who calls the offensive plays.

“That was Vegas or Bama,” the young coach said into his headset. “We’re seeing Man Three coverage.” When a fake punt resulted in what initially appeared to be a first down, Casey’s voice rose as he said, “We have it! We have it!”

“I'm helping watch what the defense is doing and trying to think of plays we can run,” he said. “Coach Nelson will say, ‘Hey, give me some help on a third-down call.’ And I'll tell him what their defensive backs are doing, and where I think we can get them.”

Dan O’Brien beams when talking about coaching with his son.

“When I took this job, a small piece of it was knowing he would come along. We talk about being around the best and treating kids right. We’re laughing every day.”

Casey said, “When he was talking about taking the job I said, ‘If you take it, I want to be the first hire on the staff. I want to be a part of it.’ ”

The younger O’Brien, who works as an investment associate at RBC Wealth Management in downtown Minneapolis, admits that it can be hard to not think about football during the workday, after which he drives to Victoria for practice.

 “On Fridays I’ve got to snap myself back in and concentrate on finance a little bit because I’m just so excited to get out here and be a part of it,” he said. “Win or lose, this is the highlight of my week.”

Fire senior quarterback Gavin Frye said that because of Casey’s youth, “He really kind of relates to us a lot.”

The announcement earlier this year that the new coaching staff would include Dan O’Brien, Nelson and Ferguson remains memorable for Frye.

“It was surreal. It felt like a daydream,” he said. “I remember the day I came home from school and my dad was telling me who we got. So then we started looking it all up, making sure it was actually true. That was really exciting.”

Casey’s coaching jobs means time at practices and games, of course, but he works just as much and just as hard as the rest of the staff.

“Case works with the quarterbacks and a little bit with the receivers,” Dan O’Brien said. “He does a good job. He sends out film every single night from practice.

“I’m really proud of him. He sees things that kids his age don’t always see. He’s at staff meetings, Saturday meetings, Sunday meetings. He does a good job, he’s working hard.”

Nelson has known Casey for a few years, but mainly as Dan’s son. Working alongside the young, inspirational coach has been remarkable.

“I’ve known him for a while, but when you're coaching with somebody you really get to know them much better,” said Nelson, who is also a cancer survivor. “He's never had a bad day out here. He's just an inspiration. It's fun to coach with Casey. He's knowledgeable and obviously he’s got a great perspective on things. He’s really good with the players.

“He has a great outlook on life and how can you have a bad day when you're around him?”

The Fire will host Byron on Friday for their annual Tackle Cancer fundraising event. The goal is to raise $15,000 for the Randy Shaver Cancer Research and Community Fund.

After the loss to St. Agnes, the Fire players took a knee and gathered around their head coach. O’Brien talked about the disappointing loss, about continuing to work hard, about using the pain of losing to get better as a team.

When he asked the assistant coaches if they had anything to add, Ferguson said, “Some of you didn’t play your best game. We didn’t coach our best game. We need to coach better.”

And then Dan O’Brien, with his son standing a few feet away, looked past that night’s game. He smiled at all the young faces and said, “Tomorrow’s a whole other day.”

It sure is.

--Click here to watch Casey O’Brien’s inspirational speech at the 2019 Big Ten Kickoff Luncheon: https://shorturl.at/crDJ7

--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: Park Football Team Is All In On Concussion Safety

 

The Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Center at Boston University is well-known for doing research on brain injuries, including studying the brain tissue of NFL players after they pass away. Earlier this year, the CTE Center announced that 91.7 percent of brains of former NFL players (345 of 376) studied showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a delayed neurodegenerative disorder that research says is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries.

In addition to the research done by the CTE Center, they also receive film of every game played by one high school varsity football team in Minnesota.

Park High School has become a team to watch for reasons beyond the scoreboard. The Wolfpack are believed to be the only football team in the country at any level that’s wearing extra protection in the form of Guardian caps.

Everyone who has watched video from an NFL or college football practice has seen them. Guardian Caps are padded helmet covers that are used to limit the impact of collisions on the brain. They are attached to helmets with snaps and Velcro.

Before the season began, the CTE Center asked Park coach Rick Fryklund to send game films so researchers could study the use of Guardian Caps in game action for the first time.

Every football player in the Park school district, from sixth grade on up, wears a Guardian Cap during every practice and game. The high school team first used them last season during practice, and prior to this season the National Federation of State High School Associations made them legal for games. At Park, Fryklund and activities director Phil Kuemmel took the next logical step in pursuit of safety.

“More and more schools are going to do this and I really believe that the NFL is probably not far away from doing something like this,” Fryklund said.

Melissa Haupt, the certified athletic trainer at Park, said the decision to wear Guardian caps in games makes total sense.

“Rick said, ‘If it reduces our chance of concussions, we're doing less hitting in practice than we are in a game, so why wouldn't we use them?’ ”

Haupt, who has been in the profession for 10 years, estimated that she has probably seen at least 10 concussions per year in football. She looked at records from the 2021 football season (when Park didn’t use Guardian caps at all) and 2022 (when the Wolfpack used them in practice) and saw a 30 percent decrease in concussions.

“Is that due to other things? Is it due to the Guardian caps? I'm not doing in-depth research,” she said. “But we did have a 30 percent decrease in concussions so I think there's something to it for sure.”

Guardian caps are not complicated. They are lightweight, one size fits all helmets, they can help preserve helmets for longer use, and the company that makes them (Guardian Sports) claims that they reduce surface friction during collisions. They are available in several colors; Park’s caps are grey, which is a nice fit with the Wolfpack’s school colors of green and white.

At first glance, they do look odd, enlarging the size of the headgear. But the players at Park, who have now worn them since the first day of practice and through three games so far this season, don’t even think about them.

“I personally don't even notice it on my head,” said Kody Aikens, a sophomore running back and linebacker. “I think it's a good thing, I think it's a good change to the game. And I think that it really helps people out because there have been players able to come and play after they implemented Guardian caps. So I think it's a great idea.”

Indeed, Kuemmel said at least one player came out for football because of Guardian caps, after his parents didn’t allow him to play football previously.

“We're not saying these kids will never get concussions or that they’re completely safe,” Kuemmel said. “It's all the other things, too, like teaching proper tackling techniques. This is just one piece of the puzzle.”

Guardian caps retail for $69.99, although that price can be reduced when purchased in bulk. At Park, approximately $11,000 has been spent on Guardian caps, with all those funds coming from donations, grants and other outside sources.

“We said, ‘If we're going to raise money, let's make sure it goes back to kids and kids’ safety as number one,’ ” Kuemmel said. “I give Rick all the credit so every kid in our program has one.”

If Guardian caps are used, the entire team must wear them, according to rules concerning uniforms. They don’t change the way the game is officiated; the caps sometimes become partially detached from the helmet, but that’s a quick fix.

“If there's a negative, people worry a little bit about them possibly coming off,” Kuemmel said. “I think we've had about one per game, which is not that different than helmets coming off. It’s no big deal, that has not been an issue.

“We're kind of waiting for what negatives might be out there and right now there are none.”

Fryklund said Guardian Sports has told him that high school teams in Connecticut and Tennessee have worn the caps in games in recent years but not for every game. And at this point it appears that Park is the only team in the nation to wear them all the time.

“I think they 100 percent keep you safer, especially in a fast-paced high school varsity game,” said Park senior Brett Salmonson. “I play running back so I get hit and beat up a lot and I feel like the Guardian cap just gives me an extra layer of protection. That's always nice. I also play free safety on defense and I feel like it adds an extra layer of protection. I feel a lot safer in it.”

Kuemmel said, “We’re not doing it for publicity. We want to let parents and kids know that we’re doing everything we can to keep them safe.

“The parents are on board, the kids are on board, and we’re moving forward.”

--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: Lots Of Reasons To Smile At Mabel-Canton

 

Lonnie Morken smiles all the time. And he has plenty of reasons to smile. The volleyball coach at Mabel-Canton High School has built one of the state’s top programs during 30 years there, the team is undefeated this season and coming off a third-place finish at last year’s Class A state tournament.

Early this season, Morken, 52, became only the fourth volleyball coach in Minnesota history to record 800 career wins. That’s another reason to smile.

Lonnie and his wife Stephanie are parents of three daughters; Sadie is 22 and works as a para-professional at Mabel-Canton (where Lonnie and Stephanie teach), Sophie graduated last spring and is playing volleyball at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, and Sahara is a junior on the volleyball team. Smile? You bet.

Everybody involved in volleyball knows Lonnie Morken and smiles at the mention of his name. He’s the coach who has never been seen wearing anything but short pants; his fashion choice will be interesting when he is inducted into the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Oct. 14, by tradition a coat-and-tie event. (He was inducted into the Minnesota Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2011.)

He graduated from high school in Spring Grove in 1989 and Luther College in Iowa in 1993; Spring Grove is eight miles east of Mabel and Luther is 18 miles south. Morken is a fixture in that region, but rewind the tape 32 years or so to a time when Morken was uncertain of his future in the area and considered moving away. That seems unthinkable now.

How he got involved in volleyball, and how he remained close to home, is a story that leans on serendipity, fortune and maybe just a bit of good timing.

As a high school student he served as a line judge at Spring Grove home volleyball matches, so he got to know something about the sport. A three-sport athlete himself, he played basketball and baseball as a college freshman before a shoulder injury on the baseball field delayed his sophomore season on the Luther basketball team.

Unable to play basketball, he began hanging out with male friends who played on Luther’s club volleyball team. He earned work-study money by line judging Luther women’s volleyball matches and being around the game so much made him fall in love with the sport.

“It’s funny how your life experiences shape and mold you,” he said.

He graduated from Luther with a goal to teach physical education and coach volleyball close to home, which didn’t work out right away. He found work as a substitute teacher, but finding a permanent position was tough. He interviewed at schools in Minnesota and Iowa but wasn’t hired.

He was hired to help coach junior varsity volleyball back in Spring Grove in the fall of 1993, admitting, “I had played a little but really knew nothing about volleyball.” He checked out library books about the game and got to work.

In that first year as a coach, the Spring Grove JV team was unbeaten and the freshman team lost only once, which may have opened some eyes about the young coach. But he still didn’t have a teaching job and was considering moving four or five hours away to wherever he could get hired.

And then the head coaching job in Mabel opened up and some of Morken’s friends encouraged him to apply. He was hired to coach but was still looking at teaching on a substitute basis. And then – smile! – a teaching position that fit his qualifications became available at Mabel.

The year before he became coach, the Cougars recorded zero wins. They won six times in his first year, then seven, then 12 and in his fourth year they won 17 times.

“In those first few years I was trying to figure out how to coach volleyball and mentor players,” he said.

Reaching the 800-victory club is very special to Morken. No. 800 came during a Sept. 2 tournament in Floodwood, and a home win over Kingsland on Tuesday was his 804^th. Previous coaches to reach 800 were Gail Nucech of Hibbing in 2007, Milan Mader of Lakeville in 2010 and John Dzubay of Stewartville in 2012. Dzubay is the only other active coach on the list.

“It’s really humbling, for one,” Morken said. “When I hear John and Milan and Gail , they’re the pioneers, right? There were trailblazers before me. As a young coach, I called and emailed them with questions.

“I have an overwhelming level of gratitude toward the volleyball community. I try to be an ambassador and give back to other coaches now. If I hadn’t been so well received by the volleyball community I might not have stuck with it.”

Bethany Moen, who was an eighth-grade volleyball player in Mabel when Morken came to town, has now been an assistant coach for 22 years.

“As a young adult, he had a purpose and a point and he had a plan,” she said. “And I think he was more regimented at that time. Obviously getting married and having children softened Lonnie a little bit and the Lonnie I see today is definitely different. I think he's evolved with the girls at the right pace and speed.”

This year’s Mabel-Canton team is ranked No. 2 Class 1A behind Minneota. They are unbeaten in their first 11 matches this season, the latest a 3-0 sweep of visiting Kingsland that lasted 46 minutes. With no seniors on the roster, the Cougars’ effort was balanced: Sahara Morken had 30 assists, 12 digs and five aces, Lydia Vatland had three aces, Kailey Ingvalson had 10 kills, Saijal Slafter had nine kills and Kinley Soiney had 13 kills and three aces.

Asked to describe her father as a coach, Sahara smiled and said, “He really doesn't yell that much, even if he's upset. He doesn't yell and he's very clear about what he says to you. And he treats all of us the same. He knows what he's talking about.”

Mabel-Canton’s trip to the state tournament last season was special for several reasons. One was the opportunity for all of Lonnie Morken’s friends in the sport to celebrate with him, another was ending a long drought of state appearances. The Cougars finished fifth at state in 2000 and third in 2001, and then waited it out against some of the best small-school competition in the state before returning to the big show in 2022. From 2002 to 2021 they lost in section championship matches 10 times.

Mabel-Canton finished 36-3 last season. The only seniors on that team were Sophie Morken and Makenzie Kelly. So this year’s team is experienced, although the Cougars are playing without junior hitter Hope Erickson, who suffered a wrist injury in a preseason scrimmage. The Cougars are hoping Erickson will be able to return before the postseason begins.

“We want to make sure we peak at the right time,” said the coach. “Not having Hope right now should help us develop depth.”

If all goes well and a few bounces go their way, the Cougars may get back to state without another two-decade wait.

“It was a lot of fun,” Sahara Morken said of last year’s experience. “That's all we talked about, that whole week and for like three weeks after. We talked about how exciting it was.

“All of us are so determined to go back because we had so much fun last year and everyone's goal is to get to state this year. We all want it so bad.”

No matter how or where the season ends, Lonnie Morken’s positive impact on his community and volleyball all over Minnesota continues to produce smiles.

“He is dedicated to Mabel-Canton, to the girls, to the families,” said Moen. “It’s a family endeavor; it's not him and it's not the girls but it's everybody.”

OK everybody. Smile.

--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: Thinking Back To 22 Years Ago This Week

 I’ll always remember where I was on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. I had an appointment to speak to a class at Bloomington Jefferson High School, and I turned on the radio at home as I was getting dressed for the day.

There was talk of something bad happening in New York City. I turned on the TV in the kitchen and saw a big black smoldering hole in the side of one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. A plane had apparently struck the building, but nobody knew anything more than that. Before long another aircraft blasted into the other twin tower.

I drove to Bloomington Jefferson, arriving a few minutes early. I listened to the radio in the car for as long as I could and then walked into the school and was escorted to the room where the Sports Literature class was meeting. There were televisions in the classrooms, but because of construction work in the school none of the TVs were working. I told the class everything I had learned from listening to the radio, and then we were all in blackout mode.

After the class period ended, I drove to the Star Tribune building in downtown Minneapolis. Like everyone else in the newsroom, I watched the scenes on television. The Pentagon was on fire … a plane had apparently gone down in Pennsylvania.

Fast-forward a few years and I was back at Jefferson, writing about a memorial stone that had been installed at the school in honor of former Jaguars quarterback Tom Burnett, who died when Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. I also wrote about former Blake linebacker Gordy Aamoth, who died in one of the twin towers on Sept. 11. The stadium at Blake now bears his name and a twisted beam from the World Trade Center is on display at the stadium.

In the Sept. 14, 2001, edition of the Star Tribune, I wrote a column under the headline “High school sports can help the healing.” I had spoken with people at Colorado’s Columbine High School as well as Osceola High School in Wisconsin, where a traffic accident had claimed twin brothers a few weeks before Sept. 11. That column seemed to resonate with readers at the time, and to this day people occasionally will mention it to me. I have heard from a few people who say they saved that column, and they read it every day as Sept. 11 comes around. That is equally touching and humbling.

Here is that column as it appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune 21 years ago, on Sept. 14, 2001…

High School Sports Can Help The Healing

In the horrible wake of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, all after-school activities were canceled Tuesday in the Jefferson County (Colo.) School District. This didn't surprise Ed Woytek, the athletic director at Columbine High School.

The day's events hit Columbine hard, especially the senior class. They were freshmen on April 20, 1999, when two students shot and killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives.

"Our coaches and all of us are on kind of a fine line, especially with what happened here previously," Woytek said.

Columbine still is recovering from that day. Recovery also is an ongoing process in Osceola, Wis., where twin brothers Eric and Aaron Kipp, 18, died in a car accident on the way to football practice 30 days ago.

With thousands of innocent people presumed to have perished this week, what do you say? How do you heal? Maybe it's best to listen to the kids. That's among the lessons learned at Columbine and Osceola.

"Pretty much all of them are saying to us, 'We need to be a family,'" Woytek said. "Because that's what happened a few years ago; they got with family. And that's where we need to be, that's where our American people need to be, is with family."

After the Kipp brothers died, football practices were stopped for a short period. But soon, everyone wanted to return -- or try to return -- to some sense of normalcy.

"Very soon, the kids were ready to go back," said Osceola coach/principal Mike McMartin. "They said, 'Coach, I need to keep busy.' And they were right. When we jumped back into it, although they weren't the best practices in the world, there was almost a big sigh of relief that they could start moving forward and take with us all the good things that the boys had shared with us for so many years, instead of thinking about the bad."

Activities went on as scheduled Tuesday in Osceola, the day of the attacks.

"We just really felt during that time it was massively important that we show to the kids, 'Hey, we're going on. We're not going to let these people defeat us or take us off our feet here. We're going to move forward and be proud,'" McMartin said.

At Columbine and Osceola, tragedy struck a specific community of people. This week, tragedy struck us all.

The Columbine Rebels take a 1-1 record into tonight's game at Dakota Ridge. Osceola is 3-0 and the homecoming opponent for rival St. Croix Falls. The games go on, as do our lives.

"Everybody keeps saying we'll never get back to normal, just like our nation will never get back to normal," Woytek said. "But hopefully we're going to get as close to normal as we can."

So if sporting events are part of your normal routine, stick with it. If you haven't been to a high school game in years, tonight would be a wonderful time to go. Get away from the television, escape the headlines. Find a seat in the bleachers and take a break, however temporary, from all that's gone so wretchedly wrong in this world.

Watch the team captains shake hands before the coin flip. Hold your hand over your heart during the national anthem as the flag flutters at half-staff. Bow your head during the moment of silence to honor this week's victims. Get on your feet for the opening kickoff. Watch our young people -- players, cheerleaders, fans -- as they smile, holler and laugh together during this evening that is tradition both athletic and social. Buy popcorn, listen to the band, cheer first downs, simply celebrate.

Maybe administrators at every school can find a recording of God Bless America, and across our states -- Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and beyond -- we'll sing together when the game ends. Just like 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: Home Field Can Be Truly Home Or Somewhere Down The Road

 

Home is where the heart is. In high school football, that can mean different things to different teams.

--Owatonna, a Class 5A power, unveiled its new stadium – alongside a new high school on the southern edge of town – last week, and Owatonna Stadium/Federated Field is an absolute showplace. The Huskies will enjoy the stadium for years to come and everyone in Owatonna is rightfully proud.

--Hancock, which has competed in two of the past three nine-player state tournaments, is on the other end of the spectrum, playing its entire 2023 season on the road. The Owls’ home field is being rebuilt with drainage tile and a new irrigation system and will be ready for next season, but this year they are playing two “home” games at the University of Minnesota Morris Big Cat Stadium (nine miles from Hancock) and two at Minnewaska Area High School in Glenwood (24 miles away).

Hancock’s season on the road includes practices as well as games, because the Owls’ practice field also is being rebuilt. That means the football team car-pools to Morris for workouts, either at Big Cat Stadium or neighboring Morris Area High School. The Owls are used to being mobile, having moved at least one home game in each of the last five seasons to Big Cat because of standing water on their field after rainfall.

Traveling for every practice and every game is not the easiest thing, but the Owls make it work. And they are grateful.

“We want our kids to be respectful for what we're given,” said Hancock coach Chad Christianson after the Owls opened the season Friday with a 50-14 win over Norman County East/Ulen-Hitterdal at Big Cat. “We tell them, ‘We're given this opportunity to come play on this field so let's take care of it. Let's make sure we're picking up after ourselves and thanking people for letting us be here.’

Hancock will play another home game on the road this Friday, facing Border West at Minnewaska.

Owatonna defeated Hastings 42-7 last week in its first game at the new stadium, and the Huskies will travel to Chanhassen this Friday. Last week’s win was the 200th career victory for Jeff Williams, who has been Owatonna’s head coach since 1996. The Huskies have been to the state playoffs 10 times and have played in five Prep Bowls, winning state titles in 2013, 2017 and 2018.

The first game at their new home was a community celebration, with a large crowd on hand for a pregame meal on a roomy plaza next to the stadium. With artificial turf, a digital scoreboard, top-notch sound system and lights, the facility is a distinct upgrade from the classic old grass field next to the classic old high school in the middle of town.

“It's a lot different,” said Williams. “I was out there picking pebbles (at the old field). Tonight felt a little bit like a state playoff game, it reminded me of the state playoffs at Lakeville North, so it seemed like a bigger game. It felt a lot bigger than a season-opener against a nonconference opponent.

“The plaza was rocking before the game and by 6:30 there really wasn't a place to sit over on this (home) side (of the stadium). The music, the tunnel, everything was really cool.”

Both teams cruised to their season-opening victories. Hancock, which has a record of 38-4 since the start of the 2019 season, held a 26-6 lead at halftime in its first game since falling to Spring Grove in last season’s state quarterfinals. Chase Evink, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound junior, ran for four touchdowns, including bursts of 55 and 80 yards against Norman County East/Ulen-Hitterdal.

Hudson Ver Steeg, a 6-6, 245 Hancock senior, two-way lineman and punter, said playing no true home games “kind of stinks. I'm a senior and we don't have a home game, but we'll push through it. Road games are fun as long as we get the job done.”

In Owatonna’s win over Hastings, Huskies quarterback Jacob Ginskey completed 14 of 26 passes for 250 yards and four touchdowns. Caleb Hullopeter caught scoring passes of 20 and 10 yards.

“Our mentality going into the game was ‘We're not losing the game,’ and so we came out here flying around, made some plays and got the job done,” said Ginskey.

Williams said being ready to play is important, no matter the venue.

“We've played at U.S. Bank Stadium, we played in the Metrodome, we've never been distracted,” he said. “There's a way to do it. You soak it in, you enjoy the experience. And then as soon as you get to the sideline, it's focus up and I thought our kids did that right from the outset.

“I’ll relax for a bit tonight and I’ll try to soak in some of it. And that’s something I told the kids, ‘Make sure you do that. Soak everything in.’ ”

At Hancock, an important game-day tradition is having the team walk several blocks from the school to the football field (which also serves as the outfield in baseball).

“It's a nice march to the field and we’re losing some of that,” Christianson. “But you know, when we had that state run back in 2019 (when the Owls fell to Mountain Lake in the state championship game), I think we played on something like six different fields. And it's kind of nice to get kids acclimated to playing at different places.

“There's something special about being at home, though, so it’s kind of tough not having that this year, but it seems like the kids have bought into it and are really enjoying it.”

Winning certainly adds a lot of enjoyment, whether at home, on the road or somewhere in between.

“It's been a kind of a struggle,” said Hancock junior Levi Kellenberger. “But we all got it, we're all family.

“I’m really excited for next year. Our field is going to be really 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: Young Coaches Join Storied Volleyball Programs

 

Chaska head volleyball coach Sue Murphy (left) with assistants Kenzie Bachmann (rear) and Makayla Wenzel.

Volleyball is a sport steeped in tradition, as well as often family ties, and that is a ready theme during the current high school season.

The biggest offseason coaching change in years took place at Eagan High School, where Kathy Gillen – the only head coach the Wildcats have had since the school opened in 1989 – became an assistant when her daughter, McKenna Melville, was named head coach shortly after graduating from college.

And at Chaska High School, head coach Sue Murphy promoted two of her former players to varsity assistants following the retirement of Chuck Zemek after 26 years. Makayla Wenzel (Murphy’s niece), the setter on Eagan’s 2014 state championship team, and 2017 graduate Makenzie Bachmann are new members of the Hawks’ varsity coaching staff. Bachmann was part of an NCAA Division III national championship team at Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2021.

Gillen, who was inducted into the Minnesota Volleyball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2014, and Murphy, who became a member of the Hall of Fame in 2015, are thrilled to have young coaches take on big responsibilities.

“They know my game style, my purpose of why I’m a coach, and just the style of my coaching and what I expect,” said Murphy, who has been part of the Chaska volleyball program for 42 years. “We like to keep it in the community. After Chuck resigned, I took a couple weeks and thought hard about who should be my assistants.”

Wenzel has been a Chaska B squad coach and Bachmann coached at the 9A level  prior to this season.

Melville’s rise to head coach followed an all-state high school career at Eagan and an All-American career as an outside hitter at Central Florida. Because the Covid pandemic allowed college athletes to compete for an extra year, Melville, 23, was in school for five years and came home to Eagan with a Master’s degree. She was hired as a teacher at Eagan, joining her mom on the math faculty.

“I always tell people that she sees the game in slow motion, so if she can get the team to understand some of that volleyball IQ, that's going to help us a lot,” Gillen said.

Eagan and Chaska are two of Minnesota’s marquee volleyball schools. Both have been to state 16 times and own seven state titles; Eagan won it all in 1997, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2013, 2015 and 2016, and Chaska did so in 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2005, 2006 and 2014.

Wenzel said she is excited about the challenge and the future.

“I think it brings a new aspect with us being younger,” she said. “Chuck was the assistant coach for a long time, those are impossible shoes to fill and he has been one of my favorite coaches ever. He's just a great person and really will leave a legacy forever. So I don't think we'll ever replace Chuck, but I do think that we bring a different look, being fresh out of college and just having a perspective that's more similar to the players in terms of our age. But also, we've been through this, we've walked in their shoes. We know what this looks like.”

Melville began her college days as a finance major before switching to education during the pandemic.

“I knew I wanted to coach and teach,” she said. “I just knew that my bucket was being filled by helping other people and being around the sport that I love more than anything.”

Eagan athletic director Sandra Setter Larsen said the mother-daughter similarities are clear.

“McKenna’s got lot of energy and great personality. In many ways she’s so much like her mom in her competitiveness and ability to see the court and know the game and understand the game. One of Kathy’s great gifts is to succinctly say what the athlete or the student needs to hear. In some ways they are two peas in a pod with a lot of the same gifts.”

Gillen said discussions about coaching positions began last spring when McKenna was applying for a teaching position at Eagan.

“One thought was, ‘Should she be an assistant for a year or something like that?’ And I was like, ‘No, I'll be there.’ She's brought in a lot of new stuff that should make us a little bit better. It was just kind of a natural slide into that position for her.”

All three of the young coaches are thrilled to be in their new positions, realizing the importance of the sport and their school’s programs. And that includes the two longtime head coaches.

“She's just inspiring,” Bachmann said of Murphy. “She really kick-started Chaska volleyball years and years ago and that legacy is important. Playing for her, there is a serious weight to that, with hundreds of girls that will forever wish they could put on a jersey again and play for Sue.

“She's a leader, she's one of the most committed people I've ever gotten to know. She just is someone who really puts her entire heart into the program, and that will never go away. She is the reason why Chaska volleyball became what it is. It’s been an honor to play for her and now coach with her.”

“I just hope more kids would do this,” said Murphy. “Giving back is huge.”

--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