Grueneich enjoying fourth decade of coaching
By Edna Sailor
Mark Grueneich is comfortable joking that he has been in coaching for a long time, since the “Paleozoic age,” he jests.
But in reality, Grueneich has been coaching football since 1975.
“I spent two years in Drayton, nine in Towner and the rest in Parshall. I had been accepted to graduate school at UND and applied to a job opening in Parshall, not expecting to get an interview. The superintendent who hired me retired before I started so I never worked for the man who hired me,” Grueneich said.
For the veteran coach, football is more than throwing a pigskin ball up and down the football field. There is depth to his approach to the game he has been leading for so many years.
When students walk out on the field to learn the game from Coach Grueneich they will find a man who has already thought through his approach to the game.
“We try to have our athletes know the rules of the game and the safe approaches to playing it. The more they understand the game, the better prepared they are. We also try to expose our athletes to the many different aspects they will face in each game they will play. We want our athletes to appreciate the rich history and tradition of football,” he said.
