Although it’s not common knowledge, current Adrian High School head wrestling coach Gregg Nelson nearly became a coach in the Luverne High School program in the mid-1990s.Nelson, who guided AHS to three state team championship berths and tutored two individual state champions during a six-year tenure as head coach in Adrian, thought he was going to be coaching in Luverne in the spring of 1995.A 1989 Owatonna High School graduate who wrestled his way to a state runner-up finish as a senior, Nelson was a first-year teacher in Ellsworth during the 1994-95 school year. Ellsworth was in the final year of a sports sharing agreement with Adrian, and Nelson represented EHS as an assistant coach on Jim Carr’s coaching staff at Adrian that season.The sharing agreement between Adrian and Ellsworth was discontinued in the spring of 1995, and EHS entered a wrestling sharing agreement with Luverne starting the next season. At that time, it looked like Nelson would work with then LHS head coach Dave Duffy for the 1995-96 season."It was a possibility," Nelson recalled from his home in Adrian Sunday night. "I was living in Luverne then. I was a lot younger, and I would have gone to Alaska to coach if I would have had to back then."The way things turned out, Nelson never did enter the LHS coaching ranks.Adrian offered Nelson a teaching position before the 1994-95 school year was complete, and he’s been there ever since. Nelson served as an assistant coach to Carr for five years before taking over the head coaching position for the 1999-2000 season."If I would have been back in Ellsworth (for the 1995-96 school year), I would have coached in Luverne that season," Nelson admitted.Considering Adrian’s recent success in wrestling, Nelson made the right choice for himself and the AHS program.My apologies tothe good doctorI’d like to apologize to Luverne optometrist Dr. George McDonald and another reader I sent on a wild goose chase Thursday Feb. 24.In last week’s Star Herald story about the Ellsworth-Hills-Beaver Creek girls basketball game, I released some bum information. The story said H-BC would play Fulda in Worthington Thursday night, but the game actually was played Friday night.The misinformation I relayed in the story sent McDonald into a frantic scramble to get his seat in the Worthington gym for a game he desperately wanted to witness in person. Once he found out there was no game in Worthington, the eye doctor traveled to Fulda to see if it was taking place on the Raiders’ home floor. Instead of the girls’ game he wanted to see, McDonald found himself watching the play-off games of the South Section 3A Boys Basketball Tournament.In his usual good-humored manner, Dr. McDonald, the first person I ran into in Fulda, confronted me with the question, "Where are the Fulda and H-BC girls playing tonight?" I couldn’t come up with a reasonable response, and we ended up laughing at each other.Sorry, George. It’s not a good excuse, but sometimes I get confused with all the tournament games taking place on different nights at different sites.Upon further reflection, I consider it to be fortunate that basketball is played in the winter rather than the summer.Dr. McDonald, you see, is an accomplished golfer. If the mistake I made came at a different time of the year, I’m sure McDonald’s golf clubs would have been in the trunk of his car. Instead of being greeted with a question when our paths crossed in Fulda, I may well have been greeted with a blow to the head from a 5-iron.
