Thanks to the coaches!

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

First of all, thanks to all the coaches for their help throughout the year.  Most people aren’t aware of all the hard work coaches put in, but when you work with them all year and see the amount of work they put in, you appreciate them even more.

First of all, let me say, there were no bad coaches at MAHS.  Laker student-athletes, you are very lucky to have the coaches you do.  They take the time to make sure your exploits are recognized and the community is informed, they make sure I get the information, facts and results, and they make sure the athletes receive the honors and accolades they deserve.

In other words, they do all the things great coaches do.  With that in mind, I’m going to start the first of my annual Laker Coaching Awards.  At Benson and KMS, I also did coaches’ awards and not all the coaches liked it.  However, I thought if the coaches can give out awards to the student-athletes, I can give out awards to them.

All three sports’ seasons went well for me and the fall coaches got me off to a great start this year.  I knew Tara Reichmann, the girls and boys tennis coach, before I started working at the Pope County Tribune so I knew I’d have a great resource for tennis at MAHS.  She didn’t let me down.  Sam Oellien was the new swimming/diving coach this year for the Gators, while Jared Lyle was the new football coach for the Lakers.  They both did great jobs and should be great coaches for the programs moving into the future.

Michele Johnson, the coach of the volleyball team, came within a couple wins of state, while I had heard great things about Jennifer Johnsrud (cross-country) and Ted Hill (soccer) before I took the job so I knew what to expect from them and they also didn’t disappoint.  All-in-all, I was very happy with the way the fall coaches treated me and I was hoping the same would go for the winter sports.  Here’s letting you know it did.

Boys basketball coach Hunter Salathe did a great job keeping me informed and up-to-date, while Sidney Schiffler (girls basketball), Chip Rankin (wrestling) and Tana Ziesmer (dance) were always only an e-mail away from getting the information I needed for stories, questions or comments.  You also have to give the winter coaches credit since their seasons tend to be 3 to 3 1/2 months long compared to 2 to 2 1/2 months for most fall and spring sports.

In the spring, I had a lot of new coaches to meet, including Jason Weber (softball), Joe Alexander (baseball), Tony Janu (girls golf) Jennie Stone (trap team) and David Drexler (boys golf) all new faces to me.  Of course, I would be working with Jennifer Johnsrud again (girls track), while Tara Reichmann was a familiar face for boys tennis and I had met Zach Traphagen (boys track coach) earlier in the fall.

The spring season went well again for me as Laker athletes highlighted a great year of sports with four WCC titles and five teams sending athletes to state during the spring season.  Yes, I’ve worked with a lot of coaches over 35 years of covering Benson, KMS and Border West sports and there’s no doubt the coaches at MAHS are some of the best.  I look forward to covering Laker sports for at least the next decade, but enough with the chit-chat.  

Without further adieu, here are my top three selections for the Laker Coaching Awards for 2022-23.  Sorry, there are no cash awards or trophies; just the satisfaction of knowing you’re doing a great job.

Third place — Wow, what a season for the Minnewaska High School trap team; and you can bet if it happened, co-coach Jennie Stone was going to make sure the community heard about it.  She has been in constant touch with me about the trap team all year, letting me know right away they wouldn’t be having a fall season, sending me pictures throughout the year and keeping me up-to-date with the fantastic season.  I wasn’t sure what trap was all about before this year, but I sure do now.  Thanks Jennie!

Second place — There aren’t too many coaches that will actually write up a story for you, but soccer coach Ted Hill isn’t like most coaches.  I learned a lot about soccer from his stories and soccer has become one of my new favorite sports to take pictures of.  The only disappointment for me is that Ted Hill has retired after 25-plus seasons of coaching.  Thanks Ted, for all your help.  I enjoyed working with you even if it was only for one year.

First place — And, winning the first Laker Coaching Award is a coach that I worked with for two seasons.  She answered back right away every time I asked a question or asked for information.  She sent me results the night of, or the morning after, each event and she even helped supply pictures for me from away meets during the cross-country and track seasons.  It was actually Holly Kovarik who supplied extra pictures for me for cross-county and track this year (and some wrestling), but it was Jennifer who always made sure I had what I needed for results, pictures and information.  Yes, Jennifer Johnsrud, the coach of the cross-country teams and girls track team, is the top winner of this year’s Laker Coaching Awards.

No doubt there were certainly many deserving coaches for these awards, but these three stuck out just a little from the rest.  Already though, the other MAHS coaches are busy trying to figure out what they can do to win the 2023-24 Laker Coaching Awards.