Great Bend’s school board presented a ROSE award this week to Great Bend Middle School Coach Norbert Muth, for his “kind, understanding acts.”
The USD 428 Board of Education created this award Recognizing Outstanding Support of Education. Recipients are given a framed certificate and honored at a board meeting, as Muth was this past week.
Jake Hofflinger, Muth’s fellow football and wrestling coach, nominated him for the award so he could tell others of the kind, understanding acts which he has witnessed.
Two years ago an eager and energetic student with special needs went out for football, greatly desiring to be on the team. Though the student did not become a player on the school team, Muth identified him as a manager, and that student proudly helped manage the team throughout the season. Then, at the onset of the wrestling season, Muth arranged for this student to be a wrestling manager. The student was filled with team pride and fulfilled assignments. In the subsequent year the manager designations were again assigned and fulfilled.
This wrestling season Muth has encouraged and inspired the student to wrestle for the team. That young man is Great Bend Middle School’s 75 lb. wrestler. The student practices and, like all team members, strives to improve his athletic and special skills. He has contributed by scoring points for the middle school team, and he recently got his first takedown.
“Coach Norbert, with compassion and willingness, has gone above and beyond to help this young man build skills to become part of the team,” Hofflinger wrote. “Norbert’s whole-team leadership is to be admired.”