John’s Journal: ‘Time Really Flies’ During 49 Years As A Baseball Coach

You may have seen the news this week that Pat Sajak will retire after the next season of Wheel of Fortune, which he has hosted for 40 years. Game show hosts and high school coaches have little in common, but longevity is an equal opportunity factor.

For example, from Minnesota high school sports …

--Willard Ikola was the Edina boys hockey coach for 33 years.

--Bob McDonald of Chisholm coached boys basketball for 59 years. 

--This fall will mark Dwight Lundeen’s 54^th season as the head football coach at Becker High School.

We won’t start any silly Mount Rushmore arguments, but Minnetonka’s Paul Twenge is in his 49^th season as a baseball coach. His journey hasn’t been strictly on the high school stage, because he also has coached at the junior college level as well as NCAA Division I.

He took over the Minnetonka program in 2006, and leaning against the dugout fence before the Skippers faced Mounds View in the Class 4A state quarterfinals Tuesday at CHS Field in St. Paul, Twenge said, “Time really flies by.”

He has coached more games than many coaches have played, coached or seen. Twenge brought a career coaching record of 977-956-11 into the state tournament; that’s 1,945 baseball games after Tuesday’s contest.  

That’s really something for a kid from the small town of Hatton, North Dakota, where he played football, basketball and baseball. Among his classmates was Dave Lee, the now retired morning host on WCCO radio. They were two of 28 members of the Hatton High School graduating class of 1972.

Twenge was a football and baseball player at Mayville State, a high school coach in St. Thomas, N.D., a graduate assistant baseball coach at South Dakota State, spent six years as head coach at Anoka-Ramsey Junior College, then 19 years as head coach at Valparaiso University in Indiana before coming to Minnetonka.

He is a baseball man through and through. During games he splits his time between the bench and the third base coach’s box, stepping quickly on the route between the two, a trip he has made thousands of times. He holds a stopwatch in one hand while in the coach’s box; in the dugout he puts on his eyeglasses and holds a pen, clipboard and yellow legal pad. He encourages his players to hustle and play smart baseball.

Twenge’s honors are many and well-earned, including…

--In 2018 he was named National High School Baseball Coach of the Year by the American Baseball Coaches Association.

--In 2021 he was inducted into the National High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

--Also in 2021, he was named to the Minnesota Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame

Twenge is an assistant activities director at Minnetonka, a position he has held since joining the school staff in 2006.

“Coach is amazing,” said Skippers activities director Ted Schultz. “He eats, sleeps and breathes baseball. It's his life, he loves to do it and he loves how he can impact kids’ lives through it. And he's done that for many, many years.

“It's amazing to see the kids look at him with that twinkle in their eye. They know him, they respect him greatly, and they respond to him. He pushes them. He loves them. And I think that's why he’s done it as long as he has, because he develops relationships and he has high expectations to do things the right way.”

Minnetonka defeated Mounds View 4-3 Tuesday in a well-played, back-and-forth game that ended in walk-off fashion after the Skippers rallied from a 3-0 deficit. The winning run was scored by junior Colten Benedict, who raced home on a drive to left-center by senior Maxwell Pederson in the bottom of the seventh inning. Benedict had three hits and Mounds View’s Drew Rogers hit a two-run homer. The Skippers will meet East Ridge in the state semifinals at CHS on Wednesday.

Twenge, 69, has no plans to leave his favorite positions ... in the dugout and the coach’s box.

“It's the kids, and I love the game,” he said after being asked what keeps him going. “As long as you feel like you're connecting with the kids it’s all good. If the players like what you're doing and you don't get too many bad letters and that kind of stuff, this is really fun. I mean, you come here to this ballpark, you get to play, it is a bunch of fun.”

In the school activities office, Twenge has a variety of duties.

“He works on scheduling and works as a site manager, he handles practice schedules, he really does a lot of the organizational pieces with game contracts and officials,” Schultz said. “He’s great to work with.”

When I asked Twenge what he would have done with his life if not for baseball and education, he didn't say, "Game show host." In fact, he had no answer. He loves what he does and can’t imagine anything else.

“I don't know what I would have been,” he said, thinking back to those long-ago days in small-town North Dakota. “Every role model I had was a teacher or a coach. They were always there for you.”

--MSHSL media specialist 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]