Sports

Forsberg leaves gymnasium, classroom, legacy

By Tyler Ohmann

03/13/2012

Bottineau Stars head girl’s basketball coach Mike Forsberg is retiring from coaching, and from his job as principal for good this time.

Forsberg nearly retired from coaching in 2010, four wins shy of his 700th career win, but three members of the class of 2012 talked him into coming back.

“I was going to retire from coaching in 2010,” Forsberg said. “But Heidi (Artz) enlisted Whitney (Page), and then it was Trista (Bjerk), Whitney and Heidi asking me to stay until they are done.”

The girls were happy to have their coach to the end, and they may have convinced him with one simple question: Why?

“He retired on us when we were sophomores, and we went and asked him why, because he was still pretty young,” Page said. “Just talking to him, he decided maybe that’s not what he wanted, and he decided to stay for us. I think he really enjoyed that.”  

Heidi Artz was the lone remnant from the final of three consecutive Bottineau Class B State Championships back in 2008. Artz was an eighth grader at the time, and she is glad she got to finish with a great coach.

“I kind of felt pressured in a way, because he has had such a successful career,” said Artz a senior and five-time letter winner under Forsberg about this season. “We didn’t get as far as we wanted to, but only one team can go to state in a year, and it wasn’t us, but we still had a good season, and we worked hard for him, so we hope that was enough.”

As to why Forsberg was a great coach, Artz and Page had similar answers.

“I think that’s the thing he enjoys about his career is that he’s made relationships with all his players,” Artz said. “They can come back and still have that relationship that was there 20 years ago like they came out of the gym yesterday.”

“I also really enjoy his coaching style. He is hard when he needs to be, but he is not one of those coaches that is always screaming on the bench,” Artz added.

That same amount of caring and dedication were what Page said made Forsberg a great coach to her too.

“I think that he’s a coach that really enjoys spending time with his team,” Page said. “He really cares about us. Some coaches it’s just in the gym, that’s their job, and they’re done. His is more a personal level, we can go talk to him whenever, and it doesn’t have to be about basketball, it can be about anything.”

“He has a good balance between being hard on us, and knowing when to let down a little bit,” Page said.

Forsberg cited several reasons for leaving the gym, and his principal’s office.

“I don’t want to come some day and feel that I don’t want to be here,” Forsberg said. “That has always been a gnawing in the back of my head.”

“Probably the worst thing that would happen to a person is to wake up one morning and don’t want to go to school and you’re in the middle of the school year, and you think ‘now what do I do?’” Forsberg continued. “And that’s not fair to the kids.”

Another reason will be to spend sometime away from the school and with his family and friends.

“The other part is that I want to try and do something a little different,” Forsberg said. “There is not going to be any drastic changes in my life, but I’ve never been without school since I was six years old, and as far as my career goes, I’ve never been involved in anything but coaching.”

“I know there’s a part of me that just wants to be a fan next year,” Forsberg continued. “I think for the first time in 34 years I’ll have a Christmas free, and we’ll be able to spend more time with family and friends, and hopefully do a little more traveling.”

Forsberg did however state that he will do some substitute teaching for part of the year next year, but even with that as his fix of the classroom, he will still miss his other classroom—the gym.

“I guess I’ve always looked at the gym and my classroom, and I’ve always loved teaching, so going to the gym became my classroom,” Forsberg said. “I know going to games and playing a little bit I’ll still get a bit of a fix, but I know I will miss going to practice.”

But he says he’ll still miss being on that bench.

“I’m going to miss coaching. How long am I going to miss it, I don’t know?” Forsberg said. “But I do know I’ll miss it when the season rolls around and I’m thinking, ‘I should be making my practice plans.’”

The thing he might miss the most though, the seniors that talked him into coming back.

“I’m going to miss the girls, especially this group, since they talked me into coming back,” Forsberg said. “I’m so thankful for those girls for talking me back into it, because I’ve absolutely loved the last two years. I know because of them talking me back into coaching I have tried to slow down a little bit more, and soak it in a little more.”

“I think I’ve appreciated just being at practice a little more. I know I have tried to enjoy it much more,” Forsberg added.

They’re appreciative of his decision to return too, even if it was a bit selfish.

“We knew going into our junior year that we didn’t want to have to face the whole new coach starting everything fresh,” Artz said. “We thought that it would make it a lot easier for us. Maybe that’s selfish, but we wanted to make it easier for us, and we’ve always enjoyed his coaching style, so we asked him back, and he came back.”

A group of people are planning a party for Forsberg on Memorial Day. More information about the party will become available in the future.