Sports are a large part of the lives of very many students, from badminton to football the coaches have a big impact on the teams that these students play on. This affects many different parts of students on the team’s lives, and with a new coach comes a different way of playing the game. Recently a seasoned veteran of South sports has taken up the mantle of head coach on the South football team. Rodney Lossow, who has occupied  the role of assistant football coach for a while now, has been coaching the badminton team for ten years.

Lossow is a coach that has done a lot for Minneapolis sports, he explains his experience saying “I’ve had a huge history, I’ve been a head football coach I’ve been a head girl’s gymnastics coach, a head girls softball coach a head, a head girl’s soccer coach. Badminton I’ve done now for ten years, [and] football I did 18 years prior as a coach, three years as an assistant and now I’m entering into a new school under my first year. I’ve got multiple experiences being a coach over my twenty five years. So I’ve got multiple experiences being a coach over my twenty five years in the district.” This along with Lossow’s long history of coaching on the Minneapolis park board gives him a lot of expertise when it comes to the world of sports.

Lossow has clearly done quite a lot for Minneapolis sports over the years. one of his players, Ilya Edwards mentioned, “I really like how he coaches us and trains character building skills, and makes us better people.”

Lossow believes that with his experience he can improve both the badminton and football teams, he explained that the football program “can make a surge and compete and that’s the most important thing. Wins and losses are gonna take care of themselves, but I think we’re gonna be competitive on the field as early as next year.” By competitive he means that the team will be able to succeed on the field, he continued, “I’m hoping to have some success where we can win some sections games and even possibly a section championship. As far as badminton goes last year we were second in the conference so obviously our goal this year is to try to finish first in the conference. I’m looking forward to that.”

However, Lossow’s primary focus is not making the students better athletes, but instead better people. He describes his goals for the team, “I’m proud of the character that we’ve obviously developed in our athletes that’s come number one. And then as far as accomplishments with wins and losses with a couple of our football programs we won some city titles. Actually in every sport I’ve coached we’ve won a city title so that’s kind of fun to mention. We’ve had a couple of state appearances in gymnastics and in football that I’ve coached. There’s been some on the court on the field competition accomplishments, but I guess I’m more proud of what my athletes become after their all done.”

Leonard Sedlock, the former head football coach, is also a health teacher here at South. He was the head coach for 15 years and believes that coaching the football team, “was a pretty good experience overall.” He admits the reason he enjoyed it is because of the time he spent as a student and football player at South. “When I was here I had a great experience. I had a lot of fun my coaches did a great job. They had teachers here who helped me out so coming here to kind of be on the opposite side, so to speak, was pretty big,” Sedlock explained. Having worked alongside Lossow Sedlock has high hopes for Rodney, “I think he’s gonna do a great job.”

Another one of Lossow’s athletes who plays football is named named Quinlann Woodberry. He thinks Lossow is a great coach, Woodberry explained, “I think he’s the greatest not just the fact that he’s coached me since I was in 5th grade and park board now. I feel like he really cares about us individually he thinks of us as part of his family, that’s really cool,” Woodberry continued, “he pushes us to be a better person not just on the field but in general and when he does that it just feels good.” This relates to Lossow’s personal reason for becoming a coach which he defined as, “Passion for sports and a passion to teach young people how to do things the right way.”

Woodberry believes Lossow has already had an effect on the football team. “He just recently installed a new lifting program for football players to get stronger because he realized that we’re not that strong so he made a weight thing to get us stronger and he also tells us to not just focus on football but also our academics too” Lossow has done a lot for both the football and badminton teams and will very likely continue to only improve that team. With his willingness to help student athletes outside of South, Lossow represents a bright future for sports at South.