Thanks coach

As many of you know, I was a debater in high school and then in college.  I debated for national champs, Boise State - the "Talking Broncos".  At nationals this year in Portland, one of my old coaches in retiring from college coaching to go to high school coaching (why, I don't know…)  I was asked to write about a memory of him for a scrapbook my old teammate/friend is putting together in his honor. Because he has meant so much to me, for so many years even after college, I thought in honor of his service, I'd post here what I wrote about him:

Jeff Stoppenhagen was a life preserver for this once scared, intimidated, and generally self-conscious “Talking Bronco” freshman.  I knew I could just be near him or talk to him and feel like I wasn’t this little fish swimming against a current of the vastly more experienced and worldly ones around me.  I came from a farm.  In the middle of nowhere.  I was terrified most of the time.

One day we were loading into vans for a tournament and before we started our trek to the northwest, he pulled us all aside in a huddle.  Among the gifts he bestowed on us, was this prescription bottle filled with “pills” (actually miniature M&Ms) to help us when we needed them.  Placebo that they were, I took them regularly that tournament.  I felt mighty, not small, knowing someone believed in me as he did.

Jeff always took time for me, no matter how late into the night or how tedious my speech.  He helped shape me as a person.  I still try to emulate his kindness. 

Thank you, Jeff, for all you’ve done for me, for the years of emulation since my time on the squad you didn’t know about, and the ways I couldn’t begin to count.