By Mark HaugenTim Homan coaches wrestling, but he teaches his athletes more than just takedowns and reversals.After nine years at Sioux Falls Roosevelt and 12 at Brandon Valley, Homan takes over a Luverne team that was 0-17 last season, has no seniors and more than half his team is in the ninth grade or younger. So as his young wrestlers concluded a recent practice, they sat with eyes closed in a silent circle with Homan in the middle. You could’ve heard a pin drop."It’s what I call imagery," Homan said. "We have to get our minds set and focused. If we’re going to be wrestling, all I want them thinking about at that time is wrestling."He teaches focusing on the task at hand before moving on to the next."You have to get your life set, get your priorities in order, live your life the right way," Homan said. "You have to learn to focus when you are an athlete or when you do anything. If you learn to focus, you get more out of it."So when his athletes wrestle, that’s where he wants their focus."They can’t be worrying about problems in school or about their friends when they are out there on the mat. You can’t have a zillion things on your mind. If you can get focused, you can do well and tackle the problems one at a time much better than if you just let them all float around."He said he’s been emphasizing that for 15 years and often hears from former athletes who testify to its effectiveness."When kids come back they talk more about that than they talk about wrestling," Homan said. "They found out that there’s more to life than what sports you were in. It’s how you learn from the sports you are in and how you deal with life."As a coach he wants to help give his athletes a good base. "Later in life it will come in handy. I’ve even had people come back from Iraq who said that imagery helped them over there. The one young man wasn’t even a varsity wrestler. It’s nice to know you can have an influence. That’s what coaching is all about."It’s something he learned from his coaches, including legendary Augustana College coach Paul Kendle. "All the way back to high school, my coaches emphasized being a total person. Coach Kendle helped me a lot and is still doing that today."Homan graduated from Augustana in 1981, coached two years at Webster, S.D., before moving to Brandon Valley and then on to Roosevelt.When his wife, Pam, was named superintendent of the Sioux Falls School District last summer, Tim decided to look elsewhere for employment. Pam, ironically enough, started her education career in Luverne as a special education teacher in 1981. They live north of Brandon."It’s the same commute I had going to Roosevelt, so it’s worked out well," he said. "When she was considering the superintendent’s job, I told her I would look elsewhere. I could’ve stayed in the district but felt there could have been a conflict of interest down the road. It would’ve worked fine for a while, but sooner or later somebody would’ve had a problem with it so we thought it was best."Homan said he wanted a position where he could coach and teach. "I felt if I was going to go into a coaching situation, I also wanted to be teaching in the school. I came over here and the people here have really been nice."He teaches sixth-grade social studies and also coaches ninth-grade football. The Homans have two daughters and an adopted son. Fenecia is a senior at Augustana and Betsy a sophomore there. Felix, originally from Guatemala, joined the National Guard after graduating from Roosevelt last year and now intends to go full-time in the Army."It’s pretty neat that a kid from another country comes over here and now wants to serve his new country," Homan said.
