STEELE SPORTS

Over the past six months, I have had the pleasure of meeting and writing about countless of talented young athletes in Steele County and all of them have one thing in common: an influential coach.
The most critical time in an athlete’s career is the period of adolescence where kids learn to love the sport in which they participate.
I know I fell in love with the game of football because of my first coach: my father.
While some kids, including me, had the luxury of their father teaching them the game, more often than not, coaches start out as strangers to most athletes.
The magic of sports is that by the time an athlete is ready to move on to the next level of competition, the coach they once met for the first time on a field, court or rink has suddenly become like an extended family member.
To this very day, I still refer to old coaches of mine as “coach” before their names when I see them.
Since becoming a reporter in Steele County, one thing that I have noticed is that it is a special place for coaches.
From long-time head coaches, Jeff Williams and Chad Gimbel running major football powerhouses to first-year coaches such as boys basketball coach Cam Rutledge at Blooming Prairie and NRHEG football coach Marc Kruger, a collection of different personalities and ideologies shine through at each and every school.
Some coaches even stay for the entirety of their careers and become local legends such as Medford’s Pat Heger who coached girls basketball, volleyball and track and field over the course of 45 years at Medford High School.
However, if you were to ask every coach what matters most to them – as I have – they would all tell you the same thing.
For them, it’s all about the kids.
Williams, who has coached at Owatonna for 26 seasons, said that his entire staff and program is designed around preparing young athletes for not only success on the field but success in any walk of life they choose to pursue.
Even Rutledge, a former Hayfield Viking and baseball player fresh out of college, said that the most exciting part of coaching in Blooming Prairie is walking the sidelines and coaching his athletes like the coaches who molded him as an athlete in Hayfield.
No matter where athletes come from or where they go, the story of their careers starts long before most of us get to see them light up the scoreboard or make their way into the papers.
It all begins with a coach who sees a young athlete's potential at practice and tries their very best to maximize the athlete’s potential so one day we could all be lucky enough to enjoy the story of their career unfold.