Even fifty-five years after graduation, the Brookings High School Class of 1969 is still producing award winners. Following in the steps of classmate John Iverson, who won the SDSU Ralph Ginn Award for Coaching Excellence in 2019, fellow athlete and coach Tom Osterberg wins the same award now in 2024. A quick web search will inform you of Tom's coaching accomplishments over the years. I would like to mention, as a Tom teammate, what a revelation it was to watch him as an athlete.
Looking back at some of the very few films left of his high school days,
it becomes obvious that Tom had two styles of running. I was 6'2" back
then with a long stride, but Tom, when he needed to, would match my
stride length, even though, to quote his high school basketball coach,
Ken Thury, in the Madison (SD) Daily Leader, "Osterberg stood 5'4,'' weighed 145 pounds and showed how a little man had a place in sports."
At the other end of the stride scale, his small steps and quick feet would
leave a basketball defender wondering how Tom got to the basket so soon from his guard position.
Speaking of a crucial place in sports, in March of 1968, we needed every free throw to count in the final minutes of our basketball championship victory over Sioux Falls Lincoln High School. Tom made 10 (or was it 12) free throws in a row to guarantee the win. Forty years later in a remembrance video, Tom allowed as to how, in elementary and junior high school, he practiced free throws, all the while imagining and anticipating such a championship moment. It felt familiar to him when it really happened a few years later. Talent and preparation: the very definition of a great athlete.
Tom's teammates in basketball, track, football and softball will remember the guy you wanted as a teammate, not an opponent.
Congratulations, Tommy.
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