MINNEAPOLIS -- Augsburg College head athletic trainer
Missy Strauch and Auggie alumnus Stan Nelson '43 were both honored by the Minnesota Chapter of the National Football Foundation at the
Minnesota Football Awards event, held earlier this month.
Strauch, who is in her 17th year as Augsburg's head athletic trainer, was presented with the Fred Zamberletti Award, which honors excellence in the field of athletic training, at the ninth annual Minnesota Football Awards, held at the Hilton Minneapolis on April 17. Nelson, who was a four-sport athlete at Augsburg and the school's Honor Athlete in 1943, was presented with the Bud Grant Distinguished Minnesotan Award at the event.
Strauch serves as the head athletic trainer and as an adjunct professor at Augsburg. She supervises four certified athletic trainers, 10 student sports medicine assistants and serves more than 500 athletes. She is the primary athletic trainer for the Augsburg football team, the men's and women's hockey teams and the baseball team. Strauch has had a long career providing athletic training services at multiple levels of athletics. She started her career as the head athletic trainer at Orono (Minn.) High School as a service of the Institute for Athletic Medicine. Strauch served as a clinical athletic trainer with The Orthopedic Clinic in Phoenix, Ariz., and then an assistant athletic trainer at both Augustana College (Ill.), and then in 1997 at the University of Minnesota.Â
A native of Perham, Minn., Strauch attended North Dakota State University and received her bachelor of science degree in athletic training in 1989. She later earned a master's of science degree in human performance in 1994 from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Strauch is a member of the National Athletic Trainers Association, the College Athletic Trainers' Society and the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. In addition, she has served as the president of the Minnesota Athletic Trainer's Association and has provided athletic training services for the Special Olympics, the 1992 cycling Olympic Trials and the Paralympic games in Atlanta in 1996.
Before earning the Fred Zamberletti Award, Strauch received a 25-year award from NATA in 2014, and was awarded the Outstanding Staff Award by Augsburg in 2015. Missy is an avid Minnesota sports fan and resides in Robbinsdale, Minn. with her dog Zoie.
A native of Dawson, Minn., Nelson was a four-sport athlete at Augsburg, earning 12 varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball and golf. Following his graduation from Augsburg in 1943, he served his country in the U.S. Navy in World War II, participating in the 1944 D-Day invasion of Normandy and in service in the Pacific theater. Returning from the Navy, he coached and taught at Zumbrota (Minn.) and Farmington (Minn.) high schools before moving to Anoka (Minn.) High School, where he coached the football team for 26 years and the baseball team for seven years. His Tornadoes football teams won seven conference titles in football and the Minnesota state title in 1964, including a 33-game winning streak. He retired from teaching and coaching in 1983, and finished his football coaching career with a 154-70-8 record. He was named Minnesota Football Coach of the Year in 1964.
A 1977 Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, Nelson was inducted into the Minnesota State High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 1983, the Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame in 1981, the Minnesota Old Timers Football Hall of Fame in 2007 and the Anoka High School Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 2011. He received Augsburg's Sports Achievement Award in 1979 and the Minnesota High School Athletic Directors Distinguished Alumni Award in 2008.
Nelson and his wife, Marcie (Solheim), a 1946 Augsburg alumnae, were married for 64 years until her death in 2011. They have three children, Cheryl Nelson King '90, Steve and Dave. Cheryl, a four-sport athlete at Augsburg in the 1960s, and Steve, a 14-year linebacker for the NFL's New England Patriots, joined their father in the inaugural class of the Anoka High School Hall of Fame in 2011. Nelson King was a 1990 inductee into the Augsburg Athletic Hall of Fame. Dave joined his father in the Minnesota Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2014.
In addition to Strauch and Nelson, one other individual with Augsburg ties received an honor at the Minnesota Football Awards. Gene McGivern, who had served as sports information director and cross country head coach at Augsburg from 1988-94 before moving to serve as sports information director at the University of St. Thomas, received the Sid Hartman Media Award at the event. He is in his 22nd year at St. Thomas.
NOTE: Story includes information taken from Minnesota Football Awards press releases.
