Beyond the Margin

Team “USA” has a different challenge

14 • APRIL 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE S ports may be the savior of our republic. Or at least its hope. The pundits squeal there is no time our country has ever been so divided. The depth of this division can be seen all around us, whether in vulgar campaign rallies or social media “forums” that have become havens for name-calling and poor sportsmanship. But the republic won’t be saved by the spectators. The discouraged faces who gin up to the bar can in a few hours either thank the Lord they have the Green Bay Packers or ask God to damn the Green Bay Packers. No. It will be the high school players and Little League coaches, and yes, even the referees, who will save us. Because they believe in the last institution that requires we set aside our differences and play for the common good of a game well-played. A team cannot argue. Players on a team cannot go their own way. A team has to agree on the rules and play by them, whatever the outcome, good or bad. Leaders and followers and teammates emerge. And society is the better for it. The evidence comes in a careful reading of the sports pages. From high school to college, the inspiration is more telling. After all, these athletes do it for the love of the game, the soul-building of the effort and the Lombardi moment when the athlete has “worked (their) heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.” On a Wednesday in February, the Mavericks men’s basketball team faced its last home game with playoff hopes on the line, their 10-point lead dwindled to 1 with six minutes to play. But it was Kevin Krieger’s last home game. And that made a difference. He had battled hamstring issues all season and was not the scorer he once was. His average was down 2 points this season. But he steeled himself against the adversity and rose to the occasion. With the leading scorer fouled out of the game, Krieger took charge. “No way was I going out with two losses like last weekend,” he told The Free Press. “I’ve definitely struggled offensively, but my role on this team is more defense,” Krieger said. “But I made one, and Ryland (Holt) told me, we have to take care of this.” Minnesota State coach Matt Margenthaler was grateful. “Kevin absolutely put us on his back. To do that in your last home game, it was something special.” Krieger shot above his weight because of determination that swelled from within. He made 7 of 9 shots, including an incredible 4 of 5 from 3-point range, and 2 of 3 free throws, scoring 20 points, about 50 percent above his average. Krieger scored 20 points and MSU defeated a motivated Bemidji State team 71-61 in the opening round of the Northern Sun Tournament. What’s better is that 919 fans got to see one player with grit who decided his career would not end with another home loss. Perseverance. Teamwork. Then there’s Charlie Pickell, a senior at Mankato West who won the state wrestling title at 132 pounds. He lost the state final two years in a row, in 2018 and 2019, and that was motivation enough. “Those two losses in the finals haunted me,” he told The Free Press. But in some ways, the past became the past. “I let them go before the match and just wrestled my style.” The win put Pickell in the Mankato wrestling history books as only the third wrestler ever to win three state titles, a list that includes Cody Adams of Mankato East and former Mankato Mayor Stan Christ of Mankato High School.

Resilience. “I really wanted this. I know I worked harder than everyone I wrestled against. I deserved it.” Desire. Work. Confidence. Kolin Baier has a different story, but no less remarkable. The Mankato East senior won the state championships with pins, not decisions, an event his coach called “quite a feat.” Baier follows in the footsteps of his father who won a state wrestling championship in South Dakota in the 1980s. Kolin Baier beat the top seeded wrestler as he was behind in points and had hooked his opponents arm when he saw the nod from the coaches to go for the pin, making him the third wrestler from Mankato East to win a state title. Drive. Coaching. Inspiration. And then there’s the unlikely Bethany Vikings men’s basketball team, down early and often to a faster St. Scholastica. But Brian Smith decided to play aggressive defense for Bethany. “We know if we defend, our offense will take care of itself because we all believe and trust in each other. We just came out there in the second half and played for each other.”

That defensive play sparked a 27-8 surge and led the Bethany Vikings to a 92-82 win for the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference Championship. Feb. 22 brought the 40th anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” the most storied underdog victory in sports history that put the unlikely victory in the hands of the U.S. Olympic hockey team over the vaunted Soviet Union team. John Harrington, now coach of the MSU women’s hockey team, played a part, getting an assist on a goal in the game. Harrington says it can be called a “miracle,” but he attributes it to hard work and a desire to win. And coach Herb Brooks told the players this moment was for them and “screw the Soviets.”

Grit. Some dismiss sports as “only a game” and lament how much schools spend on athletics to the detriment of other needs. But the coaches, referees and yes, even parents, commit to seeing young people succeed and work as a team so they can carry that forward when it really matters. And in these times, it really matters. So the lessons from our sports heroes can be summed up: Perseverance. Drive. Work. Confidence. Teamwork. Grit. Listening. Inspiration. Belief. And “playing for each other.”