NFL 2026 Wild Card Weekend Mon Jan 12, 2026 Podcast.
We discuss Wild Card Weekend. North Carolina and Myers Park High School native Drake Maye advances in the playoffs with the Patriots. The Panthers went down in an exciting game. Anne’s $100 Super Bowl bet on the Packers failed. The Indiana Hoosiers will play for the national title against Miami on Jan 19th in Miami. Anne, it was a busy sports week since last time we talked.
Let’s start with this:
Of all the teams and players that were eliminated, who were you saddest to lose from your viewing experience?
For me, it’s the Panthers. Just an extra buzz in the state when they are still in it. They gave us a great ride in that last game. Overall, this was a season where my relationship grew with the team. I can name more players. I like the guys enough to root for them. I haven’t been there since Luke Kuechly and Greg Olsen. (by the way, Olsen shouted out his assistant middle school coach as a great on the broadcast.
I hated to root against Harbaugh.
Who were you most excited to have them win, so that you get to watch them again?
I think the Bills because of how much fun it is to watch Josh Allen. Except for the Panthers, I cheered the loudest from my recliner on a couple of Niner plays. I like 49ers Christian McCaffrey.
I have a few discussion topics before we start getting into the games:
Coaches who don’t like each other: There’s some animosity between Packers Coach Matt LaFleur and Bears Ben Johnson. I think he said “F the Packers.” Anne, is that enough that you’re salty in the handshake? What might make you salty?
Dislike a coach? Dirty play, poor host, cheating like listening in the lockerroom, Recruiting your players, Still not sure it shows up in the handshake.
Celtics coach Red Auerbach was said to have turned up the heat in the Lakers locker room during the finals in June. Would you be that kind of coach / host?
Let’s go over our first round picks competition and talk about the games if we want. Loser of this contest between you and I has to buy the $50 gift card for our bracket challenge winner.
Rams at Panthers Sat at 4:30 with the Rams favored by 10.5 points.
Anne Rams, Bill Panthers
Final score: Rams beat Panthers 34-31. Bill wins pick because Panthers only lose by 3.
Bill 1-0 vs. Anne in picks.
Bill’s notes:
Didn’t like going for it on 4th down on first possession on own side of the field. Pass play that went nowhere.
Young interception.
Punt fumble 2:44 in the half.
Interesting that Rams didn’t kick it to end half up 10 and getting the ball back to start 2nd.
Panthers run on first play.
Electric run by Young with 37 seconds left in the half.
2:42 in 3rd. Panthers go to 0-2 on 4th down.
Rams 4th and 1with 11:20 and they get it. (game of 4th down conversions?)
Panthers block a kick and go on to score TD.
Great catch by Rams tight end to take lead back. Panthers don’t pick up any yards with 38 seconds left and three timeouts.
Packers at Bears Sat 8PM with Packers favored by 1.5 points.
Anne Bears, Bill Packers
Bears come back from 18 down to win 31-27.
Anne wins the pick. Each of us are 1-1.
I heard the Bears coach say that they showed the film of the Patriots come back over the Falcons in the Super Bowl. Knowing it can be done is worth a lot.
Bills at Jaguars Sun at 1PM with Bills favored by 1.5.
Anne Bills, Bill Bills
Bills win and we both go to 2-1 on our picks.
Jags get turnover in the 2nd when a Bills player runs into another Bills player and causes a fumble.
Jags don’t take 3 and go for it. Lawrence’s knee ruled down on the challenge. Bills go over 90 yards on the drive for a TD. Allen throws hand into a helmet and hurts leg on TD score. (If I were Jags I’d have thought, just take these free points they gave me.)
Back foot Josh Allen long pass on final drive.
Huge Tush Push 4th Down Pick Up.
1 min 2 seconds. I say put it in even though Romo and Nance want to wait.
Josh Allen: threw hand into a helmet, someone landed on his head, twisted his knee at the goalline
San Francisco at Philly at 4:30 on Sunday with Eagles favored by 3.5.
Anne Eagles, Bill San Francisco
49ers win 23-19 and Bill wins the pick. Bill goes to 3-1 against the spread on his pick and Anne goes to 2-2.
Purdy throws two picks. The Eagles have no turnovers and they still lose.
You had the amazing trick play throw and catch from Jauan Jennings to McCaffrey for a TD.
Feel like the 49ers can convert the biggest plays with the call and the players.
49ers are extremely beat up, which is nothing new.
Chargers at Pats Sun 8PM with Pats favored by 3.5 pts.
Anne and Bill Pats.
Pats win 16-3. Bill goes to 4-1 against the spread and Anne 3-2.
With the score 0-0, Chargers get an interception inside the Pats 20 and don’t end up scoring. My best guess is Harbaugh knew how hard it was going to be for his team to move the ball.
Pats get off their own 1 with a short pass to Stevenson that he takes all the way to the 50.
Went for it to end the half near the 50? Set up a Pats FG to take a 6-3 lead at half.
It was 6-3 until Pats FG with 3 min to go in third quarter.
Henry catches the game winning TD on a 35 yard pass from Maye with 9:46 to go in 4th.
Herbert did the splits sliding. I think I would be a bad early slider. Anne, how would you do?
Herbert battered. Valiant effort. Chargers didn’t really ever threaten to score except on that one turnover.
Bet Herbert is looking forward to playing football not with a broken hand.
Texans at Pittsburgh Monday night 8:15 with Texans favored by 3.5 pts.
Anne and Bill Steelers
We had a Super Bowl Winner Draft. Let’s bold picks that are still possibilities:
My dad Martin Torgerson passed away on a Friday morning September 20, 2024. Dad had navigated Parkinson’s disease for decades, and our last few weeks together were about as good as possible considering the situation: we were all able to help pitch in and care for dad, we had lots of time to visit with him, remember all the blessings of our lives, and say our goodbyes. Dad’s faith was strong, and he was ready to move on from this life.
my dad Martin on the left, his daughter Anne, daughter in law Megan, me, granddaughters Izzy and Charlotte and his wife Carol Sue
Dad was born in the family home in Winamac, Indiana on March 11, 1938. He was a Christian who for as long as I knew him was often studying the Bible, leading us in prayer at family dinners, and often praying on his own. Especially later in his life, Dad was interested in Biblical prophecy and was often looking for connections between what was in the Bible and what was happening with current events around the world.
Dad on the far left in his sweat suit, me #10 as a junior on the Winamac basketball team
Dad on the far left as the Winamac girls golf coach and his daughter Anne back row far right
Dad was probably most well known to me as a coach. Some of my earliest memories of dad were when I was sitting in the bleachers watching one of his teams play or the times when one of his teams would come over to the house for a team dinner. When I was in elementary school, he was often on a variety of high school coaching staffs including at Logansport, Caston, and Winamac. He was my eighth grade basketball coach, freshman coach, and on the staff the entire time I played in high school. He also coached my sister Anne on the high girls golf team at Winamac.
Dad marked up his books and studied them for the entirety of his life
Dad was a voracious student of whatever caught his attention. This included the Bible, the literature anthologies and grammar handbooks he used in the classes he taught, and especially of the game of basketball. Coach Mike Miller, who was my high school coach for my junior and senior years and for whom dad was on his staff, used to remark with amazement at the sheer amount of notes dad could produce. His notes were often scheme related (what’s the plan for this team?), different breakdowns of statistics he’d compiled, or long scouting reports on upcoming opponents. Dad wrote in all of his books and his notes can be seen everywhere. When my first novel was published, I went over it many times, so did the publisher, and so did the editor I was working with. Given dad’s knowledge of the grammar handbook he taught out of for over thirty years, dad found twice as many corrections as anyone else who’d looked at the book. I trusted his opinion on how a sentence should be constructed. I’m sure if he read this text I’ve written, he’d have some suggestions.
dad early in his teaching career
As a teacher, I think something many students appreciated about him was that he gave everyone a chance. When you were a student in dad’s classroom, it didn’t matter what your reputation had been before arriving to his class. Dad started with a clean slate for every player and coach he worked with. In the times he knew about my teams or even helped me coach, he was always arguing for kids to receive second and third chances. In one of the last week’s of dad’s life, I was telling him that this was one of the things I appreciated about him and that I tried to emulate. Dad was at the point where I knew he could hear me. He often responded to what I was saying with words I couldn’t make out, but he very distinctively yelled, “hippies,” in response to what I was telling him. I laughed and then dad laughed with me. I took this to mean that dad was saying he even gave hippies a chance in his classes.
My father was competitive but not in the cliched way that I often hear about in others. The cliche is that a person just hates to lose at anything, whether it’s ping pong, the family Monopoly game, or a high school sporting event. There were no overturned Monopoly boards or broken ping pong paddles at our house. Dad’s competitveness–whether it was golf, coaching, teaching or even looking for morel mushrooms–came out with his relentless preparation.
Dad on the golf course
Here’s an elementary-school memory of mine that relates to dad’s competitiveness: one of dad’s very favorite hobbies was playing golf. He had a great group of friends with whom he regularly played in two foursomes, most often at Dykeman Golf Course in Logansport, Indiana. For many seasons, he had a golf pass. He and his friends made small bets and took great pride in beating each other and talked a lot of good-natured trash to each other. At the time I was in elementary school, probably 5th or 6th grade, we lived just outside a little town called Twelve Mile. There was a barn behind our house and a fenced in barnyard behind that. We didn’t own the woods that bordered our property, but the owner allowed us full access to do whatever we wanted. Dad mowed a path all the way to the back corner of the woods and every fifty yards or so he created a patch of grass where he could hit golf balls into the barnyard. My memory is that one of my favorite things to do was to get in the barnyard with my baseball mitt and as dad launched 7-irons from the back of the woods, I would (sometimes) catch them in my mitt. Somehow, I never took a golf ball to the face. Dad was always practicing not only so he could beat his friends but also because he enjoyed the work of trying to improve himself. Dad loved to practice.
Dad #13 pictured in high school with his friend and teammate #11 Bob March
Dad was always working to better himself in other areas of his life. He absolutely scoured the texts he was going to teach from in his classes. He would read book after book about basketball. Coach Morgan Wooten’s book Coaching Basketball was one of his favorites. He actually bought me two copies of that book as well as running off some key pages where he had made some notes for me. Once a year he would go over the details of Wooten’s man to man press. He went to lots of clinics, and he seemed to like to do nothing more than go scout an upcoming opponent. Dad often went to high school basketball games just because he liked them so much. When I was an assistant coach at Vance High School in Charlotte, dad drove to North Carolina three weekends in a row from Indiana to watch the team as they made their way to a state championship.
Casey Jones on the left, Dad in the middle, and Kenny Hattery on the right with their morel mushroom finds
Dad’s other great hobby in addition to playing golf was that he liked to forage for morel mushrooms. I should note that Dad would never use that word forage. He would say he hunted for mushrooms, and dad had maps of the areas he looked for mushrooms–whether in the upper peninsula of Michigan, way up in Northern Wisconsin, or in France Park near Logansport. One of the places dad would find morels was near newly dead elm trees. It didn’t matter what time of year it was. If we were in the car, dad was looking out the window for dead elm trees. Incredibly, in the last years of his life hundreds of morel mushrooms grew right outside his bedroom window and in the woods that bordered our property. We would drive our car across the front lawn, park on the edge of the grass, and dad would use his cane to step out of the car and take a look for himself. One of my first documentaries was about dad and his friends and the film was called “The Mushroom Hunter.” You can click here to access it.
Dad in the woods looking for morels with his friend Vick Heater
Dad wrote his own obituary, and I’ll link to that here when it is available. I’ll also share a few details he included in that text here. He noted that one of his favorite things to do was to watch his granddaughters play basketball. While dad always had a lot of feedback for my sister Anne and I during our playing days, when it came to his granddaughters there was nothing but praise from Dad. His favorite thing was to watch them drain a long three pointer. He was able to see both of them play in front of a packed gym at Watauga High School in Boone during last year’s state playoffs.
Dad with his granddaughter Izzy
Dad reading to his granddaughter Charlotte
The more that Parkinson’s disease impacted the quality of dad’s life, the more open he was about his love for us and the more thankful he was for the care he that was provided to him. This included the staff at Watauga Hospital, Margate Rehabilitation Facility in Ashe County, the staff of Medi-Home Healthcare, and we his family. My mom Carol Sue was an absolutely incredible caretaker for dad, not only for the decades that impacted the quality of dad’s life but also for the last few months when dad was not mobile. My mom in an inspiration to me as a model of how one cares for a loved one. Dad and mom were married for 59 years.
My mom Sue, daughter Charlotte, Dad, and my daughter Izzy at a state playoff game in 2024
Dad kept up a positive and hopeful attitude throughout his entire life. He credited this to his faith in God, the loving care of his family, and the work of the actor Michael J. Fox who also has Parkinson’s. “I’ve got Parkinson’s you know,” Dad would tell just about every healthcare worker who would come into his room. “It makes it hard for me to hold a thought or to be understood.” Invariably, dad would use a couple of vocabulary words from his teaching days or scientific ones he’d picked up from studying Parkinson’s and the person he was talking to would tell him they thought he was doing pretty well.
my mom Sue and dad Martin at a wedding
If you are so inclined to want to remember dad in some way, he asked that you might donate to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Click here to link to the Michael J. Fox Foundation website if you’d like to donate. There’s a section on the website titled, “Give in Honor & Memorial.” eCards from the foundation can be sent to my mom’s email: TorgerC@yahoo.com. Physical cards can be sent to 165 Leighway LN, Banner Elk, NC 28604.
As per Dad’s request, he was cremated and will be buried in a private ceremony at McKinley Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Winamac, Indiana.
I believed I had coached my last basketball game two years before Charlotte was born.
Megan, Izzy, Charlotte, and I at her signing ceremony to play basketball for Christopher Newport University
My daughter Charlotte graduates from high school this June and next fall will go off to college six hours away to Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. Right now she thinks she might want to work in sports–maybe coaching, maybe marketing, maybe behind the scenes–and she plans to major in business marketing and play on the basketball team. Charlotte recently had a signing ceremony in the school media center during which friends of the family, fans of the team, the athletic director, a representative from the booster club, coaches, teachers, and her teammates gathered to commemorate the occasion. Standard procedure for these ceremonies at Watauga High School is that the athletic director opens with a few words and then turns it over to the head coach to recognize the athlete. As both Charlotte’s dad and the head coach, I decided to tell some of the story of Charlotte’s history with basketball. I used my notes for the talk to write what follows.
I believed I had coached my last basketball game two years before Charlotte was born. I was an assistant boys coach at Vance (later renamed Chambers) High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. That team won the Class 4A boys state championship. Walking off the court in the Dean Smith Center at UNC, I thought what a way to wrap up my life in coaching. I was looking ahead to writing books and more graduate school. I believed that the decades I’d spent in gyms as a player and a coach were enough to last me a lifetime.
The 2002-2003 State Champs. I’m on the far left, and I thought I was done coaching.
It was my daughter Charlotte who brought me back to the game. She was born in 2005 when I was a graduate student in creative writing at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville. As a graduate student, I took classes in creative writing and literature while teaching undergraduate writing courses. My wife Megan worked as a resident director of a freshman dormitory. After I graduated, I accepted a position teaching at St. John’s University in Queens, New York. We lived in Connecticut, and I commuted several times a week into the city to teach at St. John’s. My second daughter Izzy was born while we lived in Connecticut.
Teaching at St. John’s, I often thought of one of my childhood heroes, a fellow lefty named Chris Mullin who played at St. John’s back in the 80s for a coach named Lou Carnesecca. I would occasionally see Coach sitting with friends at the coffee shop just outside of the writing center where my office was at St. John’s. While I was gone for the day teaching, my wife Megan would report that Charlotte would come out of her room dressed in athletic attire. “When will Dad be home?” Charlotte would ask. “I’m ready for sports.”
I’d come home to Charlotte who said she was ready for sports.
Charlotte on the left and Izzy on the right at a St. John’s women’s basketball game.
Although I believed I was done coaching, I still played several times a week during a lunchtime game at the local YMCA in New Canaan, Connecticut. One of the afternoons when I was leaving the gym, I spotted a sign up sheet on the wall for youth girls basketball. During the first years of Charlotte’s life and then as Izzy was born, I often said I didn’t care if my daughters played sports or not. I had taken for granted some of the things sports had taught me: the ability to receive feedback, goal setting, developing a work ethic, and persevering through adversity. Of course sports are also a way to stay healthy getting in a workout and a way to make friends, to feel a sense of belonging. These are things I’d received from sports, and I hoped maybe my daughters and their peers might know these things too.
At the YMCA, a child needed to be in at least the 2nd grade to participate in the basketball program. I signed Charlotte up on the spot, and when I went home and told her what I had done, she seemed willing to give basketball a try.
The next time I went to the Y to play in the noon pick up game, I was approached by the director of youth sports who was also a regular in the lunchtime games. “I saw you signed your daughter up for basketball,” he said. “Any interest in coaching that group?” The director explained that there hadn’t been enough girls sign up to have a league, but if I wanted to work with them once or twice a week for a couple of months, he’d appreciate it. I agreed to do it, and soon I was back to regularly writing practice plans. It felt good to imagine a starting place for second grade girls and the game of basketball. It had been nearly ten years since I’d worked with a group of kids in a gym.
After 10 years out of coaching, I returned to this 2nd grade group. That’s me on the left in my Puma sweat suit and Charlotte holding the basketball.
We got started in one of the local elementary schools, and I had the girls work on jump stops, pivots, dribbling with each hand, passing, lay ups, and shooting technique. I tried to turn as much of the skill work into games as I could. The gym was loud with laughter during our practices, and of course one of the girls in the gym was Charlotte. She had fun, she got exercise, and she made friends with other little girls she never would have met. The players were all smiles and full of enthusiasm.
Charlotte and I ready to head to one of our first basketball practices.
Of course the contrast between high school boys and second grade girls was stark, but not in the ways you might think I would report. I got my start in coaching when I was 22 years old and a head high school boys coach in Indiana. I remember an angry dad pounding on our locker room door after a game while I tried to talk to the team. “You can’t come in here,” the JV coach tried to tell the dad. Once, an older brother of one of my players threatened to assault me in the hallway. A relative of another player grabbed my shirt from behind while I coached a game. I came home one night to a yard full of for sale signs in my lawn. That one was pretty funny. These things didn’t phase me in my 20s. It was what I expected coaching in Indiana. On the other hand, working with the 2nd grade girls reminded me of all the things I used to love about basketball as a kid: the solitary hours on the town park court, working to get better, making friends, getting a good sweat in, and learning to set goals and persevere in the work required to reach them. I was very conscious that I wanted those things for all of the players who shared the gym with me. I didn’t feel like a dad in the gym, and I often wouldn’t be able to tell Megan or my parents how Charlotte was doing. I was focused on the larger picture of creating a positive atmosphere for practices. When I got started in high school basketball, it was conference and sectional championships that everyone had in mind. A big success with the second graders might be winning a game of dribble tag or one of the players making their first weak hand lay up. Once again, there were kids in the world calling me Coach.
We moved to Asheville when Charlotte was in the third grade, and she once again played at the local Y, but this time she was one of the only girls on the team. Our new house had a goal in the driveway, and I started to think about Charlotte practicing more regularly. Part of my growing up in Indiana was being a fan of the Indiana Hoosiers. In 1987, when I was a sophomore in high school, the Hoosiers won the NCAA title led by a guard named Steve Alford. The Alfords were a well known basketball family in the state, and one of the things I knew about the Alfords was that Steve had a daily workout. Among other things, Alford’s workout involved placing a basketball on a chair, running a cut, picking the ball up off the chair, and taking a shot. A player would get his or her own rebound, place the ball back on the chair, and run another cut. I spent many, many hours in the Winamac town park where I grew up shooting shots, getting my own rebound, and spinning the ball out to myself before I would take another shot. As a player and later as a coach, I came to believe in the power of the regular individual workout.
Charlotte gets an individual workout in at the New Canaan YMCA
Charlotte played for the YMCA in Asheville as a 3rd grader.
At least the first time I tried to help Charlotte practice basketball in the driveway, it did not go very well. It was pretty hot. Basketball can be tiring. I realized I had planned too much and what I was asking Charlotte to do was too difficult. In sports (and surely in life) there are many ups and downs. I think something that helps to promote success is to ride out the tough times and just keep going. Today wasn’t great, one might think, but I will be back at this working tomorrow. I stepped back, reflected on how things had gone with Charlotte in the driveway, and came up with a new plan. I offered Charlotte $1 to practice basketball for 15 minutes. Charlotte was impressed with the sum of money and out we went to practice. I probably had her do some jump stops and pivoting. She dribbled with each hand. She practiced lay ups on each side the rim, and she did some form shooting right in front of the rim. The fifteen minutes passed quickly, and when we were done, I handed Charlotte her dollar. It didn’t take long until Charlotte started to forget to ask for the money. It seemed that working out in the driveway was no different than training for a race or building up stamina to be able to read a book for longer and longer periods of time. These days Charlotte enthusiastically works out by herself or with her sister Izzy for 90 minutes at a time on the court. Of course time isn’t what’s most important. A player can spend less time on the court but get more good work done than a player who is on the court for a longer period of time.
Charlotte in her defensive stance and Izzy ready to shoot in our Asheville driveway
As we got more involved with the community in Asheville, we learned of something called the South Buncombe County Girls Basketball League. The teams practiced more often and played more games than the YMCA and this time I could sign up both girls: Charlotte as a 4th grader and Izzy as a second grader.
Charlotte drives to the hoop as a 4th grader in the South Buncombe Rec League in Asheville
There was a box on the registration form where parents were asked if they were willing to coach, and I said I would. I think there was a spot on the registration form to report any experience I’d had with basketball. Not long after that, I was asked to coach a team in the 4th grade league. The first day of the league was a player evaluation day. Charlotte was automatically placed on my team. Izzy played in an age group one level younger than Charlotte’s. We ran into a surprise the first couple of games in that Charlotte refused to play. She told me her stomach hurt. She and my wife Megan went into the restroom. I think the exchange between them got heated and at one point, Charlotte said something like, “Fine, if you want me to throw up all over the court, I will.” Charlotte came out of the restroom shortly before tip off and played in the game. She seemed fine. She did not throw up all over the floor as she had threatened to do. It showed that she was able to dribble and make lay ups with both hands. This is often all that is needed to stand out in youth basketball games. The next few games the situation repeated itself but with a little less drama. By the time the season ended, Charlotte seemed to have got over whatever it was that was making her stomach hurt. She had stretched out of her comfort zone playing in the games. By the end of the season, she had a new comfort zone. She had grown as a person. This is one of the gifts of sports: the chance to grow as a person.
It was year two in the South Buncombe League that we as a family had the most fun with basketball to that point. League organizers adjusted the age groups and one of groups included grades 3rd-5th. This meant that I could coach a team that both Charlotte and Izzy played on. We got to pick our team name, and we chose the Indiana Hoosiers. The girls were also ball girls for Roberson High School in Asheville. It was the school where my wife Megan graduated from high school and also touts UNC retired Coach Roy Williams as an alum. There was a point guard on the Roberson team named Cam Jansen, and she scored her 1000th point that season. I remember Charlotte saying that was something she didn’t think she could ever do. I told her if she worked hard she would probably have a good chance to do that too.
The whole family dressed in red for the Hoosiers of the South Buncombe Rec League
The Roberson high school girls team came to watch our Hoosier team play for the league championship. We lost a close game at the end. I remember both of my daughters immediately burst into tears. I remember Izzy saying, “Dad, I’m so sorry. I tried as hard as I could.” I remember hugging her and telling her I know she tried hard and that I was proud of her. I told all the players I was proud of them and that coaching them was one of the best parts of my life. If you look at the picture of our team after the game, you can tell that Charlotte and Izzy had been crying.
The 2nd place Hoosiers of the South Buncombe League. Charlotte next to the last on the right with her arm around Izzy. You can tell tears were shed after the loss.
We started our own travel team called Hoopsville. Charlotte is #1 and Izzy #10
When Charlotte was going to be a 7th grader and Izzy in the 5th, I took a teaching position in the English Department at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. One of the great benefits of teaching at App State has been that school admins ask me when I want to teach. I say the morning and that allows me to be in the gym coaching basketball on most afternoons. With two daughters who both played basketball, I tried to find out what I could about the high school girls basketball coach by reading online articles from the local newspaper, The Watauga Democrat. The coach’s name was Laura Barry, and I was impressed by her list of credentials: she’d played at North Carolina, gone to the final four as a player, and since then had coached at universities including East Tennessee State and St. John’s in New York City. Of course since I’d taught at St. John’s, that jumped out to me. In doing some clicking around on the St. John’s women’s basketball website, I realized that Coach Barry’s time at St. John’s had overlapped with ours. We’d sat in the stands and cheered for the Red Storm women’s team while Coach Barry had been an assistant coach on the bench. Before even moving to Boone, we got a hotel for several nights so the girls could attend Coach Barry’s summer camp. This began a relationship where I would eventually work as one of Coach Barry’s assistants for three years and both of my daughters would play in her program.
Charlotte listens to Coach Barry at a timeout during a game.
We moved to Boone and tried to get a sense of the school system. The town is located in Watauga County and borders the state of Tennessee. There are eight K-8 schools that feed into the only high school in the county, Watauga High School. My wife Megan accepted a position teaching kindergarten at Parkway School and both of my girls attended the school since Megan taught there. As Megan talked with the principal, it came out that I had experience coaching basketball. It was suggested that I offer to help coach the girls team. I did so, and before the season got started the person who’d planned to coach stepped down. Once again, I was set to coach Charlotte. Izzy was not yet old enough to play on the team.
The team I took over was talented. Two of the players who were 8th graders would go on to be starters and all conference players at the high school. Both players ended up playing division 1 volleyball. As a junior high team, we saw a lot of zone defenses. Our two best players were two of the tallest players in the league. I decided on a plan for offense where a player would run from corner to corner along the baseline. When we passed to the corner player, the passer would cut into the post near the basket. We needed a player who could throw these entry passes into the post. We didn’t really have anyone to do it and with unlimited access to Charlotte, I decided she could learn to do it. I showed her how to run the baseline, the footwork that was needed on the catch, and to fake low and throw high passes into the post. Charlotte would not get many shots or recognition for doing this job. I don’t even remember having to sell her on the importance of the job. I told what she needed to do and how we would practice it. She began working on it right away, and she spent the season passing inside to several of the 8th graders on the team. After coming up short the year before, the team won the county championship that year. Since then, Charlotte has always been willing to do whatever jobs needed done if it gave her team the best chance to win.
The Parkway Patriots were county tournament champs. That’s Charlotte in front of me and to my left.
Charlotte drives to the basket vs. Blowing Rock as an 8th Grader
For Charlotte and my second year at Parkway School, Izzy was able to join us as a 6th grader on the team. This was the first time the girls were school teammates. We have great memories of being in the gym together growing as players and people.
Charlotte and Izzy were school teammates for the first time at Parkway School in 2019. Here they are before the final tournament at Watauga HS.
It was March, 2020 and the spring after I coached both of my girls on the Parkway team. We were all at a travel basketball practice preparing for what was called the Boone Roundball Tournament that was to take place that upcoming weekend. The subject of COVID was in the news more and more, and as we were practicing, I remember saying to one of the other travel coaches that this could be our last practice for awhile. The next day the tournament that we’d planned on playing in was cancelled. Shortly after that, we were told that instead of a one-week spring break, we would have two weeks. We never did return to face-to-face classes that year and the girls and I set up for remote learning–me as a teacher at App State and them doing their school work–in our home office. We spent the next seventh months working out on outdoor courts and on our narrow backyard court. Although we didn’t have access to a gym, both of the girls improved a lot during the pandemic. I remember Coach Barry telling me how much more confident Charlotte looked handling the ball as we began practices at the school for Charlotte’s freshman year. Both girls and I felt like they made a lot of progress on their games over the course of the pandemic.
The Watauga school district began a central district middle school basketball team, and I stepped down as the Parkway coach and Izzy played for that new central team. I started a new coaching position–while still teaching at App State–as an assistant coach for Coach Barry at the high school. As a former boys and girls head coach, I very much appreciated not being the head coach, especially with a daughter on the team. I got to spend time with the players and help them to grow on and off the court, but I was not the one who decided what team Charlotte would be on, how much she would play, what her role would be, or if she would be a starter. Those decisions were all for Coach Barry and for that I was thankful. Charlotte did make the varsity as a freshman and she started all 11 games of the shortened season at point guard. Although there were quite a few games that came down to the last few possessions, the team only won one game. Individually, Charlotte made a lot of progress as a high school player.
Here’s Charlotte as a freshman playing for Watauga. Players had to wear masks for practices and games.
The team was dramatically better the next year and shared the conference championship two years in a row as well as winning the conference tournament both years. Charlotte made the all conference and all district teams.
Charlotte prepares to shoot the 3 in a playoff game during her junior season
It was August before Charlotte’s senior year that we received a surprise. Coach Barry left the program to be an assistant coach at Davidson College. She said she thought I should be the person to take over her position. I felt I could do the job well and help the program continue the progress that Coach Barry and Coach Epps had established. However, I also had my reservations about being the head coach of a program that would have both of my daughters in it. I knew no matter what I did, there would be some people and probably some of my daughters’ teammates who would in a way hold my daughters responsible for decisions that I made. I also checked in with my wife Megan. She had been a head coach’s wife once before when I coached at Greenwood High School in Indiana. That had been a big adjustment for her getting used to being the coach’s wife in the stands. Because of the demands that I’d had as a high school teacher and coach the last time I’d done the job, the experience hadn’t been a happy one for our family.
I tried to help Charlotte and Izzy understand some of what it would be like to have their dad as the head coach. Given all of my warnings and explanations, the whole family was supportive of me doing the job. The interview process and then the decision of the school board took about five weeks. It was a time where each time the team worked out, we thought maybe it could be our last workout together. After about five weeks, I received the news that I would be the next coach.
Conference Champs in 2022, 23, and 24. Charlotte #33 and Izzy #5
School Teammates Again: Charlotte #33 and Izzy #5 before the start of Charlotte’s senior season.
Charlotte’s senior season did have the ups and downs that we had anticipated. There were of course challenges for the whole family to navigate, and we grew closer as a family by the time the season ended. There are successes to report: Charlotte and Izzy sometimes shared the court as sisters on the same high school team, and the team repeated as regular season and tournament conference champions. Charlotte scored her 1000th point during the state playoffs. The team went undefeated at home going 15-0 and made the school’s first women’s basketball appearance in the final for playing on Wake Forest’s home floor at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
Charlotte holds the poster and poses with teammates after scoring her 1000th point. Izzy is on Charlotte’s left.
The 2023-24 Watauga team on the floor at Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum before the Final Four game.
As Charlotte’s dad and coach speaking at her signing ceremony, I pointed to three things I appreciated about her:
A Consistent Work Ethic over a long period of time: I remember Charlotte really committing to working out six days a week the summer before her 7th grade year. She has kept that up through her senior season and it still continues to the present.
Prioritizing the Team: Starting with that 7th grade season when she spent a lot of time learning to pass into the post, Charlotte has always been willing to do whatever jobs were needed to maximize the potential success of the team.
Loyalty to Family: as a dad who was the head coach, it gave me strength in the face of adversity to know that I walked into every workout, practice, and game with the support of my senior daughter. She showed this support verbally to me in private and on the court with her willingness to be coached and lead with effort and attention to detail.
Final Four Bound!
The game of basketball has been something Charlotte and I have shared for at least 11 years. On the one hand, this will continue: there will still be summer workout sessions lifting weights in our home gym, runs in the park or on the track, and on court training sessions, but also Charlotte will go off to college six hours away and our days of working together six days a week will come to an end. Perhaps someday we will coach together on the same staff. Her departure from our home is something myself, my wife, Megan, and daughter Izzy have all struggled with. We are excited for Charlotte but very sad to see her less often for her not to be home with us everyday. That was something all four of we Torgersons struggled with over the last season, and it helped for us to several times sit around and discuss how we felt. I also shared my thoughts with friends whose children had gone off to college.
Charlotte and I confer during a game her senior season.
One of my friends–who coached his sons in high school–told me he thought he’d partially ruined his sons senior season because he’d put so much pressure on himself to make the final year a great one. This helped me realize that I couldn’t allow the fact that I was sad about my regular time with Charlotte coming to an end to negatively impact the time we had left together and the time we would share in the future even though it would be less than what we were used to. This is exactly what it means to live a lift. That it will end should invigorate the moments we have, and we can’t let the knowledge that it will end ruin the time we do have. Although I do understand there are many adjustments ahead for our entire family as Charlotte continues to grow as a person, have new experiences, and head off to college, I think we have reached some peace and understanding as a family that helps us relish the joy of the present while still planning for and celebrating what the future may bring.
