Goessel track coach retires after 28 years years ago
When Brian Stucky starts the track season, he asks his athletes to set four goals: early season, mid season, late season, and "in your wildest dreams."
He loves watching students hit those "wildest dreams" numbers.
"It's amazing how often they do that," he said.
That's one of the things Stucky will miss as he ends his career as head track coach at Goessel High School. Stucky is retiring from track after 28 years as a coach — 24 of them coaching the Bluebirds.
He will continue to teach art and photography at GHS. Sandy Banman, currently the co-head coach with Stucky, will take over the track program.
Stucky and his wife, Nancy, moved to Goessel for the start of the 1979-1980 school year. Stucky graduated from Moundridge High School, and his wife is a Goessel native.
Before coming to GHS to teach art, Stucky taught for the Buhler school district, where he served as the assistant track coach. At that time, he was living in Halstead, but with he and his wife working in different towns, they wanted to "consolidate," he said. So they made the move to Goessel, where they planned to work as well as live.
During Stucky's first year at GHS, he was the assistant track coach alongside Chet Roberts, the current USD 411 superintendent. Several years later, he was named head coach, in 1986. And in 1989, Sandy Banman joined the squad as a coach.
Stucky's an expert in two events: hurdles and high jump. Those were his main events as a high schooler and a college student at Bethel.
"Sure, kids don't believe it, but that was quite a few pounds ago," he said, laughing.
Over the decades, Stucky has coached quite a few standouts. Vanessa Schmidt, a 1993 graduate, took — and still holds — the 1A state record in high jump. Yvette Peters, who graduated just a few years ago, made it to the NAIA national tournament three times and took sixth place in the 400 meters this year. Kevin Nikkel is now a distance runner at Tabor College. Chad Unrau, a 2000 grad, won the hurdles at state and took home four medals.
Over his 24 years of coaching at Goessel, the track team sent at least one athlete to state every year, Stucky said. In the '89-'90 and '90-'91 school years, the teamss took second place.
While coaching junior AAU track, youngster Travis Schmidt earned the national record in the 9- and 10-year-old boys high jump — a record that stands today.
And, of course, there's Stucky's daughter Melinda, who graduated from GHS just a few weeks ago. She went undefeated in the high jump this year, except for the KU Relays, and took fourth place at state.
Melinda's graduation is one of the reason's Stucky is calling it quits. His son just graduated from Bethel. The track equipment is getting harder to pull around. And health concerns are cropping up.
So after nearly 30 years coaching, "that's probably the right thing to do," Stucky said.
He'll miss the coaching and teaching aspect of track. He'll miss the long bus rides home from meets, when everyone's relaxed and the girls get giggly.
"Kids are fun, they're goofy, they're laughing," Stucky said.
And he'll miss watching his athletes succeed — "when they really do well and surprise themselves," Stucky said.
