Impactful Influence: Remembering Kurt Zuidmulder

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Many people have come and gone through my life. Like a revolving door, but it doesn’t matter how long they stayed in my life. To me, it only matters on how they made an impact on me. I think about Kurt Zuidmulder every day, he was a coach, teacher, and father. He was also a friend to the whole community of Hermantown, MN, and Hibbing, MN. He was the greatest human I have ever met, and I will never forget him. Kurt affected me through his larger than life personality, his incredible sense of humor, and his overall kindness. Kurt had a larger than life personality, I got to see it through the years of me managing high school football, basketball, and baseball. During basketball games, I would always hear him in the stands. I look back and …show more content…

Whenever I was around him I was guaranteed a giggle or two. For example, we know the Hump Day commercial, “Mike, Mike, Mike what day is it... HUMP DAAAYYY!” This was Kurt’s famous saying, as the head coaches for baseball were the same assistant coaches for football they both had names that started with Mike. Wednesday practices would start by hearing Kurt 100 yards away saying, “Mike, Mike, Mike guess what day is it… HUMP DAAAYYY!” and it was spot on from the commercial. That never failed to put a smile on my face. Kurt also liked to exaggerate things to the extreme. For example, the Hermantown High School is getting a new school added on. Kurt had parking lot duty in the morning, so he would drink his cup of coffee with the head construction worker. One game in Cloquet, Kurt kept trying to tell me that school was going to be let out early because everything was ahead of schedule and they wanted everyone out. I being very gullible, believed every word. Of course though it wasn’t true and the head coach Zags, laughing at the fact I believed him, was bickering with Kurt about the school. Zags kept saying, “Why do you do this? Spreading false rumors like that, making kids believe.” In the end, we all had a good laugh because we knew Kurt was just being himself. Making everyone …show more content…

It didn’t matter who you are either he was always willing to talk and help out when he could. This next example happens to be right after Kurt’s bowl of lies on the new school. I was talking with the other baseball manager, Michelle, on how I really wanted a chocolate frosty. Kurt must have overheard me, because during the second game Kerrie, Kurt’s loving wife, comes in the dugout with a chocolate frosty from Wendy’s. Kerrie hands it to me and Kurt sends a wink my way. He had so much kindness in his heart, and sometimes it just the little things he would do that made a huge difference. For example, I was sitting next to Michelle in the baseball dugout. Kurt walked by waving his hand with a huge smile on his face saying, “Hi ladies!” in a tone that was higher up in his range that made it funny yet it was still genuine. Which was the kind of person he was, kind, genuine and

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