John's Journal: Coach To Coach, A Life-Saving Gift

The first week of football practice at Tartan High School in Oakdale ended with a grueling drill. Under a bright sky and warm sun, the players stood on a goal line, and as a whistle blew everyone sprinted to the five-yard line, dropped to the ground and did a push-up. This exercise continued down the length of the field; run five yards, do a push-up, run five yards, do a push-up, the entire length of the field.

Soon after, the kids gathered at midfield and kneeled in front of head coach Matt Diediker. The coach talked about upcoming fundraising activities, the plan for the second week of practice and reminded the players about taking care of themselves with rest, fluids and healthy food.

A reporter was at practice to meet with a couple of assistant coaches for a story, and Diediker spoke briefly about the topic. He reminded the team about what had taken place earlier this year.

“Coach Taylor has a piece of Coach Wessel inside him,” he said. “Think about that.” 

He was referring to assistant head coach Randy Taylor, 70, and assistant coach Jon Wessel, 59. Taylor has been on the Titans coaching staff for 28 years, Wessel for seven and they are very close friends … even before Wessel gave Taylor one of his kidneys earlier this year.

Taylor grew up in Chicago, played football at Wisconsin-River Falls and graduated in 1977 with a degree in business administration and marketing. Randy met his wife Kathy in college; they have been married for 46 years and have two children and six grandkids. Taylor worked in marketing at 3M for 35 years before retiring from the business world a few years ago.

Wessel grew up on St. Paul’s west side, graduating from Humboldt High School in 1993. After playing football and graduating from Minnesota State Mankato, he became a physical education and health teacher in St. Paul, North St. Paul and Richfield before going to Tartan. Taylor and his wife Angie have been married for 23 years and are the parents of three kids. Their youngest, Vincent, is a sophomore on the Tartan football team.

Taylor coaches offensive linemen, Wessel coaches running backs and special teams.

“Every time I see Randy it’s Christmas morning for me,” Wessel said. “I see him with the kids, with my own kids. There aren’t many men like him in this world with the effect he’s had on hundreds if not thousands of kids. I kind of won the lottery, being able to help keep him around.”

Taylor is walking around with not only a kidney from Wessel, but another kidney that was donated to him 20 years ago. That one came from his sister-in-law, Cathy Jensen.

“We’ve got all these struggles in the world about what race you are, the color of your skin,” Randy said. “It doesn’t mean a thing because I’ve got two kidneys from white people inside me.”

The Tartan football players know about what took place between the two coaches, and they are inspired by it.

Charlie Graske, a senior quarterback and safety, said, “It was just like, ‘Wow, for a guy to go out of his way and do that,’ it brought all of us closer. That makes us look at each other differently. It was just a great thing.”

Seven-year Tartan head coach Matt Diediker, who was an assistant coach there previously, said of Taylor and Wessel, “You couldn’t find two more selfless people. They would give the shirt off their back to anybody. They do amazing things for kids that go above and beyond.”

The process of kidney donation is not simple. There are many rounds of tests and procedures that are necessary in order to determine if a prospective donor fits the bill.

In February 2023 – the midst of the football offseason -- Taylor sent a text to his fellow Tartan coaches letting them know what he was facing. He didn’t ask for any of them to be tested, but they did.

“He said his kidneys were failing and he would start dialysis while looking for a donor,” Wessel said. “In typical Randy fashion he didn’t ask anybody, he just kind of put it out there.

“I saw his text, went to bed, woke up the next morning and said, ‘I’m going to get tested.’ I called Randy and said, ‘Buddy, I would love to see if we’re a match.’ ”

Taylor told Wessel that he needed a donor whose blood type was O positive. Wessel was indeed O positive, so that early hurdle was cleared. Randy gave Jon a phone number for the kidney donation center at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. Wessel called and started the process.

The donation center asked about Wessel’s family health history and much, much more.

“They go above and beyond to make sure that you are healthy before they even consider you to be a donor,” he said. “I had more blood and urine tests in the span of four months than I had in the prior 49 years. They check you out from head to toe; angiograms, X-rays, MRIs, everything you could possibly imagine.”

One complicating factor was that Taylor’s donor also needed to have antibodies similar to his sister-in-law and the kidney she donated two decades earlier. Antibodies are part of the body’s immune system, attacking unwanted and unrecognized substances.

“That was a long shot for us,” Wessel said. “They told me about this way back, saying this is an extreme longshot but don’t feel bad when it doesn’t work out.”

Diediker said, only half-jokingly, “It’s not surprising that their kidneys and blood type were a good fit for each other. They’ve very sympatico, very good people.”

When everything had been checked and re-checked, when all the test results made clear that Wessel could be a donor, he received a phone call from Allina transplant coordinator Julie Berken, someone he and Taylor knew well.

Wessel and Berken had exchanged messages, unable to connect. She finally let him know that she would call at 4:30 p.m. and he absolutely needed to answer the phone. The football team was beginning summer workouts, gathering in a shed near the field to watch film. Wessel went to his truck, which was parked nearby, to take the call.

Julie said to him, “Are you sitting down? Great news, you’re a match.”

“Even now, it’s been six months since the surgery and I still get emotional thinking about that,” Wessel said. “I held it together in the truck for about a minute. Julie said, ‘You can tell Randy.’ I told her, ‘That’s great. He’s 15 feet away.’ I made it about five steps and then I just lost it. We hugged and I said, ‘We’re a match, brother.’

“The kids didn’t know what was going on. They saw us crying and laughing, and we told them a little while after that.”

Taylor remembers the scene well.

“He came up to me and he was crying. I was thinking something had happened to his family. He said, ‘I just found out I’m a match’ and we both started crying.”

The two checked into Abbott Northwestern early on the morning of January 15, which was Martin Luther King Day. They hadn’t seen each other in several weeks and Wessel was concerned when he saw his friend.

“We got to the hospital at the same time and I’ll never forget the way he looked. He had been on dialysis two or three times a week and he looked rough. He looked absolutely yellow. It was like, ‘Wow.’ ”

The two surgeries took several hours. The next day, Wessel was taken to Taylor’s room. The change in his friend was striking.

“The human body is amazing,” Jon said. “When I got into the room he looked like the Randy I had met seven years prior. He looked completely different, healthy and happy. We had a good hug and some tears.”

When Taylor learned that he needed a second kidney transplant, it wasn’t easy to be overly optimistic.

“I had been told that at some point, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe three years,  I was going to need another kidney,” Randy said. “I wasn’t on any lists yet for a kidney.

“If one other person can come across a situation and be willing to donate, they should consider it.”

The outpouring of support for Taylor has been overwhelming. After his first transplant two decades ago, the Tartan football team signed a game ball and brought it to the hospital. This time, the Titans signed a helmet for their coach. A large number of former players have called Taylor to offer support.

“It was a great, great thing that happened,” said current senior Caden Ekereke, a linebacker and tight end. “Coach Wessel is a great guy. And it didn't surprise me that this happened.. It made my heart warm to know we have a coach who cares about other people like that.”

Wessel recently had his final post-operative checkup and is cleared for any and all activities. Taylor had a six-month post-op visit and will return in four months. He was told everything is perfect and he’s back to working out five days a week.

For veteran coaches, the relationships with players and fellow coaches are special. They spend so much time together, they work hard together, they set goals together.

“The game taught me so much, and if I can get only a few of the people I have coached to feel that, then I’m doing something,” Taylor said. “I love working with kids. I get on them sometimes, but I tell them ‘If you can go home and look in the mirror and know you gave it everything you have, you’re good.’ ”

The Tartan players have learned valuable lessons from what they have seen their coaches do.

“The kids have been amazing about understanding the gravity of the situation and the true gift,” Diediker said. “Teenagers don’t always know that life will end. This has done wonders for them, realizing that life is short and you need to understand that when you think about the people around you.”

The Titans will open the season against Cretin-Derham Hall on Aug. 30 at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. The 2024 football season will be a celebration of many things, including friendship, devotion and love.

Thinking about receiving that world-changing phone call, Wessel grows emotional.

“Those are the days that forever live in your mind,” he said. “Your wedding, when your kids are born, and what we found out that day.”

Think about that.

--For information on kidney donations, click here: https://shorturl.at/C63wi

--MSHSL senior content creator John Millea has been the leading voice of Minnesota high school activities for decades. Follow him on Twitter @MSHSLjohn and listen to "Preps Today with John Millea” wherever you get podcasts. Contact John at [email protected] or [email protected]