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Sports Memories by Tom Jones

With the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, I want to look back at some of the coaching memories I have made in my 40 years-plus of coaching teams in our area and give thanks to the many lives I’ve been a part of including one special person.

In early October I received a message in my Facebook messenger account from Sarina Klapetz, who lives in Cologne, Germany.

It was 23 years ago when I was embarking on my first paid coaching job with the Glenville-Emmons junior varsity girls’ basketball team.

I knew of many of the players but was not familiar with a Sarina Pranschke, who was an exchange student from Germany who was staying her senior year in Glenville.

I don’t believe she had played basketball before, but she came to the first and every practice with a big smile, ready to learn and await her opportunity to get in a game.

During the season, we were playing a team from LeRoy-Ostrander and she got her first start and played most of the first half. I believe it was this game where she scored her only two points of the season, and the excitement on her face was something else. She tells me she has a video of it. It was an honor to be invited to her graduation party.

So many years later, we have remained in touch, and she was sure excited to message me that her daughter Carla was about to start playing basketball this fall and how she wishes I could coach her.

I sent her some things to have her work on, which she jokingly called Trans-Atlantic coaching. She told me how honored it was to be on the Glenville-Emmons team and how proud she was to be on an American basketball team.

Our team picture is hanging in her office in Cologne where she works. Carla is a 9-year-old that plays basketball each week for a team in Cologne (https://www.rheinstars-koeln.de).

It was so amazing to have Carla’s team picture sent to me so I can have it in my office just like her mom has done. She also reminded me I had my head completely shaved by the varsity team after we had achieved a goal of both teams sweeping Lyle-Pacelli in a big late season match-up.

Over the years I have coached kids in basketball, football, baseball, softball and even one hockey game.

I once told a player to run to the other end of the gym and back and if his new shorts were still on, they were a good fit.

A few years ago I had a new softball player pick up a bat the opposite way. As I write this, I just found out that two kids from Kasson that I helped coached in fall baseball a couple years ago have recently signed to play baseball in college.

Good coaching is building relationships with your players — relationships that last a lifetime.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

Tom Jones is an Albert Lea resident and avid sports enthusiast.