How could the memories not filter through Ron Stolski’s mind today?
The Brainerd High School football coach will pass out equipment to his 2011 team in preparation for Monday’s start of conditioning drills. Today is also Stolski’s 72nd birthday and the start of his 50th season coaching high school football.
The self-described “Polack” from north Minneapolis has won 330 games, more than any Minnesota prep coach ever. Someone might guess that he would smother his players with ego, praising his own accomplishments. But that’s not Stolski.
What Stolski will emphasize with this year’s players is something he’s been asking his teams for awhile now: “What will you settle for? How will you be remembered?”
He will tell them to accept only a “best effort, and the score will take care of it self.” With his teams, that’s usually a winning result.
Three of the last four years the Warriors have made it to the semi-finals of 5A, the big school class usually dominated by suburban or city behemoths like Eden Prairie, Wayzata and Cretin-Derham Hall. Brainerd, a school that sits in the lake country of central Minnesota, even beat mighty Eden Prairie with a 93-yard drive last year in the playoffs.
The Warriors finished 11-1 and Stolski’s record sat at 330-148-5. He’s still looking for that first state title after 49 seasons, but whether he wins one or not, the victories are sure to pile up for awhile longer.
What do the record and all those wins mean to him? “It means I’ve been coaching for a long time,” he said. “That’s all it means to me, to be very honest. We tried hard and learned a lot along the way. Good staff and people.”
Stolski never expected to win so many games. “The thing I am proud of is the 330 has been accomplished at five different schools,” he said. “You look at most other (win) leaders and it’s been at one or two schools.”