Pain is Temporary, Pride is Forever

Coach Telecky and Isaiah Wills during an emotional 2015 win.

Jason Telecky, Monticello football coach and history teacher, talks to his former player and student, Isaiah Wills.

“I think there is a calling. I think this is it for me.”

Jason: It was not what I had chosen to do, throughout high school I assumed I was going to be a lawyer. So, Desert Storm happened in 1990 and I actually enlisted and joined the Marines my senior year of high school. After I graduated, I left and went to boot camp and the war was over in like 100 hours, so there wasn’t much going on by the time I got out of boot camp. So I was in the reserves at that point; I went on to Normandale Community College and wanted to play football again. I went there and played for a year, I played well enough that I transferred then to St. Cloud State. I got to St. Cloud State and I was playing football and my major was pre-law. The St. Cloud State football team hooked us up with jobs and we were working for the outreach program for the YMCA, and at that point I didn’t know if I wanted to go to law school. I’m working with this outreach program for the YMCA and basically I was a Phy-Ed teacher. One day it just hit me and I’m like “you know what, I really enjoy doing this. Maybe I should be a history teacher and then I could coach and then I get sports and school altogether.” Now when I look back on it, that was a really dumb decision because Phy-Ed teachers wear sweatpants and shorts everyday and they don’t grade anything, but I really enjoy teaching history. I teach a College in the Schools history class now: American history, it’s kind of my forte. I get to coach too so it really became the best of both worlds in that aspect.

“Well I’m kind of a History Buff”

Jason Telecky in the Marines, 1991

I’m terrible at math; I could never teach math. I probably couldn’t form a legitimate sentence so english is out. Science I was okay at, but history was, you know, not to toot my own horn, but history was my thing.  I mean I can remember in elementary school telling the teacher “well, you have two mistakes on this test about the Revolutionary War.” So history was kind of my deal.  When I was in boot camp I had a General Instructor try to trick me, he asked me who was the second in command in the Philippines when they surrendered to the Japanese. The second in command, not the guy who was in charge, and I told him it was General Wainwright and I think he about pooped himself. So that’s why history: I’m good at it.

“You know, I just want them to be good people.”

I want them to be good people first and foremost. I think that if you can help kids become better people in life, make good decisions that ultimately you can give them the tools to succeed. You know, the byproduct of that is if you’ve got a team full of great kids or great players, you’re gonna have success. As you’ve heard me say, “true leadership is when things are going bad then what kind of person are you?  What’s your character? Do you piss and moan or do you get up and do something about it?” We harp on that a lot, and there are times where it’s not easy, and there’s some bickering that goes on, but in the end I think that, hopefully, I’m helping them learn how to deal with those types of things and make the best out of a bad situation. Be a good person. Try your best.  I know it sounds kind of cliché, but if you’re a good person and you try your best, good things are gonna happen. It’s hard to get kids to be a good person all the time and to try their best all the time because it’s human nature right to slough off or relax a little bit. You run through a ladder, and you skip the last one, why?  Because it’s close to the end?  You’re just cheating yourself, you’re cheating your teammates, you’re cheating the program, you’re cheating people who came before you. I just want them to be good people and I want them to try their best at all things.

“Shaking hands and kissing babies”

I do love coaching and to be honest with you, the longer I’m the head coach, the less coaching I actually do. I do way more meeting with recruiters, getting things ready for kids, compiling stats, or organizing game plans, and I feel like I do more shaking hands and kissing babies than I actually do individually coaching. It’s selling signs on a football field to raise money. You get a $5,000 budget and we spend $32,000 a year on the football program a year, so that means $27,000 needs to be fundraised yearly. Sometimes seems a little overwhelming, but it’s the connection with the kids and the players that kind of keeps you around. I love to see you guys transform from 9th grade to 12th grade. I love to see you guys coming back, it’s a very unique opportunity for me. If you teach you might get a student one or two years, you know, and that’s it. I see a lot of these guys for four years. I see them grow, I see them make mistakes, I see them pick themselves back up, I see them help other people. My goal is that if everybody’s a good person, then they’ll start to help other people too. It’s kind of the old cliché like in my history classes I say, “what if everybody in the world was nice?” I mean just think about how much different the whole world would be if everybody was nice, instead of giving somebody the finger when they cut you off, you just say “I’m sure you’re in a hurry. Have a nice day.” I wish I was as nice as I would like to be sometimes too because as you know sometimes on the sideline I’m not as nice. Ultimately just try to get everybody to be nice and hope that the players will start to reciprocate that and it creates a great atmosphere when you guys come back.

Jason Telecky and former players at U.S. Bank Stadium. Isaiah on the far left, Jason on the far right.

Isaiah: I remember back in 9th grade when we were playing on the varsity field for the first time and I got an interception and I remember you sitting up in the booth yelling my name and good job. That’s basically what kept me playing football and working hard because I knew I was going to get that same response.

Jason:  Didn’t you have a punt return touchdown too in the game?

Isaiah:  Yeah. [laughing].

Jason:  Okay, so it’s not like you were doing awful, it was a pretty good game! [laughing].

Isaiah: I was just going to ask you, do you realize the impact that you have on the community?

Jason:  It’s kind of an unintended byproduct which I know is there, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think about that necessarily; I want 9th graders to see me there. I want them to know that I’m watching and that I’m cheering, but I don’t think of it as those pivotal moments necessarily. But I know, whenever I get a chance with the little kids, high fives, shake their hands, and that’s the shaking hands and kissing babies. I do know it’s a very important part of continued success here. So, I probably don’t know like the story that you just shared because you never told me, and yet I picked you up and gave you rides to school when you were younger and you were my TA for a year but you never once told me that.  So thanks for sharing now in the middle of an interview.  [laughs].  

Jason Telecky coaches youth football players at the Minnesota High School Football All-Star game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“That’s like a super proud moment for me.”

It happens every year. It’s when a group of senior kids comes together on the football field because that carries over into the environment in the classroom. A lot of times we have kids in a class, they come, they go every hour, and you don’t get to see that bond that’s made. Every high school kid, they’re all cliquey right, and when they leave the field sometimes they go in a million directions, but when they come on the field and they all work together for the betterment of the team. That’s pretty cool. That’s a super proud moment for me. Win lose doesn’t matter because when those guys come together like that, that’s pretty fun to see when they pick each other up. You know, you don’t see it as much in the classroom because kids are pretty individualistic, but every once in awhile the classroom you’ll have a debate or something where you see kids kind of come together and like the little light bulb comes on. Those are the kind of ah-ha moments where they get pretty excited about what you’re teaching and that makes you feel pretty excited. And it’s history so we don’t get that a lot.

“There are other things that I could do, but this is what I want to do.”

I can say I’ve never regretted a single day of it. I think there is a calling. I think this is it for me. I think I do a decent job at it. Unlike a lot of the other social studies teachers, there actually are a lot of other things I could do, and I joke around all the time because some of them are like “I couldn’t do anything if I lost my job right now; I have no skill set.” Well I have a license to run every piece of equipment that’s out on that football field [being constructed] right now. Every piece of heavy equipment from the Marines. I’d never do it, but I could of went and done something like that. I contemplated joining the FBI believe it or not at one point in time because you just need a four-year degree and have a military background. So there are other things that I could do, but this is what I want to do. Each day I enjoy doing this, even when I want to ring kids’ necks [laughing]. I would say a couple years ago I thought that potentially when my daughters were in college that I might take a job at a D-III school around here because then your kids get free tuition by the way, so that’s not a bad gig. But I don’t know, I’m not gonna say that I would never do it, but it’s less and less likely. I’m getting to the age now where, I think when I’m done it might be time to go back to the old junior high and, you know, “throw the ball down the field boys. Good job.” I like where we’re at right now. I like the connections with the kids. It feels like so much more of a community here and that’s what I like; that’s what keeps me doing it to be perfectly honest with you.  

Monticello's student section, "The Cauldron" made a banner that says "Pride is Forever" in 2013.

Story Facilitators: Callie Albers, Nate Schreder, Isaiah Wills