February 12, 2025
Why did you decide to return to MPA as a coach?
I returned to MPA as a coach in the fall of 2015 during a time of transition in my life. I was considering looking for a new job and sought direction in reconnecting with folks at MPA, a familiar community full of people who had positively impacted my life. I reached out to former head cross-country coach Dan Ethier to see if the team needed an assistant coach.
Thankfully, they did. I ended up coaching three sports—cross country, basketball, and track and field—and working in admissions and marketing for six years. Deep down, I decided to return to coach at MPA to continue to be part of a community that I knew and loved.
What does it mean to you to have mentored the next generation of students?
Coaching and mentoring the next generation of student-athletes at MPA was the honor of a lifetime. It meant everything to me. I am incredibly proud of creating connections with those students that continue today, more than three years after I coached my last game for the Panthers.
It meant so much to me to mentor/coach the student-athletes on my teams in many different aspects of life, from shooting free throws and practicing handoffs to being a good teammate and developing into a leader. I loved hearing them talk about their classes and seeing how incredibly smart and sophisticated they were. Mentoring these student-athletes meant connecting with them not just through athletics but through academics, leadership, and joy.
I was especially proud to be able to mentor a number of athletes that competed collegiately. It takes so much more than athletic talent to continue with a sport at the NCAA level. It requires mental toughness, intelligence, problem-solving, and communication, among many other things, and mentoring student-athletes in those intangibles that made them both more coachable competitors and better people was a particular joy.
How did your experience as an MPA athlete shape you and relate to your coaching today?
My experience as an MPA athlete allowed me to learn from some of the best and most dedicated coaches in Minnesota. Bev Docherty, Dan Haase, and Dan Ethier all brought many decades of experience to coaching. Each taught me something unique and important.
From Bev Docherty, I learned what it truly meant to work hard. She found a way to push my teammates and me in practice in a way that we did not know was possible. From Dan Haase, I learned about bringing joy to sport. He brought a contagious sense of humor that deepened his connection to his student-athletes. From Dan Ethier, I learned to appreciate the details. He tracked and analyzed each practice and race, creating personalized strategies for everyone on the team.
With these three lessons from three great coaches, I felt more than prepared to take on student-athletes of my own. Passing on what I learned from my mentors, I tried to keep the right balance of having fun and working hard, made sure to include everyone (and recruit newcomers) no matter their experience level in the sport, and gave each kid the most personalized experience possible.
I hope to come back someday to coach again at MPA. It is the ideal place to use athletics as a tool to turn young people into responsible, worldly, intelligent human beings.
Go Panthers!
PS: Don’t miss this great video that further highlights the incredible impact Coach Bander has had on the student-athletes he’s coached!
