For 36 years, Curt Wetsel has built up New Life Academy’s athletic department, and this June he’s stepping into retirement. With a career like his, though, he knows he’ll be stopping back in to say hello.
It started around the time that his daughter was entering kindergarten, and he and his wife decided they “really wanted to put her in a Christian education.” Wetsel’s brother-in-law was already engaged at the New Life church, so it was easy to hop on board—easy, aside from the 57-mile commute each way from their home in Harris, Minn.
“We commuted for six years,” while waiting for their house to sell, eventually moving into a home just a mile from the school. Wetsel started working at the school in 1980, and at the time, New Life just went through eighth grade. Because of that, he says, “I actually started as the business manager for the church and school.” The school added a grade a year starting with the school year of 1980-81, with the first graduating class containing 12 students in the year 1984.
In those years, the school developed high school athletic teams, and Wetsel was at the front of them. It started with co-ed soccer. “Our gym was also the church sanctuary,” he says. “We had brown carpeting and we had the basketball lines down with white plastic tape, which we would have to patch every game because the church’s chairs would scrape off the tape.”
“Nobody really wanted to play us here,” he says. And in December, no one did, as they needed the sanctuary for Christmas programs.
Over the years, they added soccer, volleyball, basketball, softball, baseball, tennis, football, track and more, not to mention a new gym in 2003, named after Wetsel. And while he proudly talks about the success of the softball team going to state for the past 10 years (winning five times)--and the past two years New Life Academy won the baseball state championship-- it’s easy to tell that the guy who built the program from the ground up isn’t all about winning.
“I like to think of athletics as another classroom,” he says. “You know we’re not teaching English and mathematics … but we’re teaching things they’ll apply to life.”
This translates into his coaching, as past students can attest.
Katie Lerud Allmaras, who graduated in 2005, was coached by Wetsel in basketball during her junior and senior years. “There are many valuable lessons that I learned from Curt, and those lessons were taught by example,” she says. “His hard work ethic behind the scenes is something to aspire to.”
Jeff St. Cyr, class of 1991, had Wetsel as a health teacher and basketball coach. “He leads by example with a rare servant attitude that shines through in everything he does,” he says. “His ultimate desire has been to make a difference in kids’ lives and bring them closer to God. He has done that.”
Wetsel, also a retired firefighter and a retired certified EMT, can make a difference because he’s been able to do what he loves. “I’m passionate about athletics, the kids, doing it in a faith-based organization like this where I can share my faith with the kids … I’ve been blessed to do what I do.”
And the school has been blessed to have him, says Cade Lambert, head of school. “[Wetsel] leaves a rich legacy here,” he says. “He’s just invested in people. This is just a big deal for our community; it’s the reason people have reacted like they have [to his retirement]. There will never be another Curt.”
Wetsel plans on spending retirement traveling, and getting to see his grandkids play in the games he usually missed while coaching. But don’t think you won’t be seeing his face around the school. “I’m going to miss a lot of things,” he says. “I was thinking the first day of school next year, I might just [stand by the front door] and greet people.”
