WADENA-DEER CREEK
Mike Brunsberg is in his 8th year as the head coach of the Wadena-Deer Creek Wolverines cross country teams. W-DC has won 3 conference titles under him. The boys won in 2016, and both the girls and boys won this year.
"I started out as a baseball player having played Legion ball growing up in Moorhead. After I graduated college, I began doing some running and eventually ran a marathon. My best one was a 2:58 in 2003. Then when I started teaching English at Plummer, MN, I also coached baseball. I continued to do that in my moves to Bertha-Hewitt and later at Wadena-Deer Creek where I am now. I have coached baseball ever since.
Since I had done some running, it was natural that they asked me to help out when they needed an assistant at WDC. I eventually took over the cross-country program as head coach in 2013. (He was also the head coach in 2001).
My approach to coaching is to run the program to last. I want it to be a good experience for kids and I suppose I am not real strict about missed practices. What I want is for the student-athlete is for them to have a good experience. We do have a three-sport approach here at WDC and I do not recruit from other sports. Sometimes kids choose to become more dedicated to running and drop their winter sport after their sophomore season, but that is their choice.
I trust kids when they say they have an injury, but I also try to educate them as to what is merely good pain and something to pay attention to as a real problem. As for our training program we do what most teams in terms of speed and distance. Our only exception is that we run many "broken miles," instead of long runs.
What I mean by that is someone might start with 4 X 1 mile at a race pace. They get a long recovery at first such as 6 minutes. Then what we try to do is add miles and reduce the recovery as the season progresses. The mile ladder workout often peaks at 6 repeats with a 5-minute recovery.
Now, some of our runners might choose to do long runs on their own. That is fine. If we have a new runner, we start them out with something they can handle such as 2 X 1 mile. The total number of miles each kid does is fluid. We also have plenty of cross training early in the season so they can adapt. This includes Speed Frisbee Golf which is done in partner teams. We have a formula for combining the fewest strokes with the fastest time. We also have a Triathlon with biking and swimming. We do run/walks.
I am mostly hands-off during the summer and winter. W-DC has a summer weight training program. I will show up afterwards and those that choose to can be part of the Wet Shoe Club which is named thus because of the dew (and sometimes school complex sprinkler system) that comes with summer a.m. running on grass. On those days I have the kids tell me what they will do. I do not really do anything with them in the winter."
Girls Section Varsity
Kira Sweeney - grade 11 (who came over to us this year from Staples-Motley
State XC 2016-19 (All State 2016, 2017)
Ally Pavek - grade 9
Amber Collins - grade 7
Johanna Brunsberg - grade 10
Emma Ries - grade 10
Goeden, Macy- grade 8
Emma Mehl - grade 11
Boys Section Varsity
Bereket Loer - grade 12 - State XC 2017-2018-2019; 2-time state champ in track (4x400; 4x200)
Lucas Hinojos - grade 12 - State XC 2018-2019; state 4x4 runner-up track 2018
Nathaniel Bervig - grade 11
Joshua Tabery - grade 12
Elias Bervig - grade 9
Lane Hoefs - grade 9
Jayson Young - grade 12
*special mention to my son, Bjorn Brunsberg. He's a ninth grader who was a top 7 varsity CC runner for us every meet this year except the conference meet.
These runners some other pioneers of our program that made it to state with me as the head coach:
Adam Asfeld - 2001
Emma Schmitz - 2013
Abby Motschenbacher - 2018
I've also coached the following at state as a CC assistant to Terry Olson who is now our assistant coach.
Kourtney Anderson - 2000
Kelsey Browne - 2007
Hannah Toedter - 2008
Rocky Jantzen - 2002, 2003
Brook Puskarich - 2005 (did not compete)
Cory Asfeld - 2006, 2007
Mr. Olson also had two state champion squads in 1996 and 1998.
Casey McGraw was the individual state champion in 1998.
His daughter Johanna Olson was an NCAA Division III Champion in 2000.