In the aftermath of Cloquet’s loss in the 2016 Class AAAA quarterfinal to Benilde-St. Margaret’s, Lumberjack coach Tom Lenarz found quarterback Tim Pokornowski.
“He just gave me a hug and said in my ear, ‘I know you’re going to take this team farther next year,’” Pokornowski recalled.
The following year, the Lumberjacks did go even further, all the way to the state championship game against Holy Angels. Lenarz’s prediction loomed large all season for Pokornowski, now a player for Minnesota Duluth.
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“It really motivated me and instilled in me that mindset,” Pokornowski said. “That’s one of the moments that I remembered throughout that playoff run, it was in the back of my mind the whole time. It was just so awesome to complete that accomplishment.”
After 19 years as head coach and more than 25 with the program, Lenarz told the team and Cloquet activities director Paul Riess last week he was stepping down as the Lumberjacks’ coach.
Lenarz said he contacted his own high school coach Dave Nelson about the right time to step away. Lenarz and Nelson won the 1988 Class AA title at Blaine when Lenarz was a player and Nelson was the coach.
Nelson told him he would “know when’s the time” to step away, according to Lenarz.
“I think that’s the best answer I can come up with,” Lenarz said. “I feel really good about where the program is at right now, I feel good about the things that we did. I just feel now’s a good time for me to step away and spend some time with my wife, spend some time with my family and kind of enjoy it as a fan.”
Longtime assistant coach Jeff Ojanen, who also played for Lenarz when he was an assistant coach at Cloquet, said it was Lenarz’s ability to connect with players personally that made him stand out.
“He is very good at really making an effort to show kids that he cared about them as individuals, not just as a football player,” Ojanen said.
Forging relationships and getting kids to buy into the program was a challenge early on for Lenarz. Cloquet hadn’t been a successful team in a couple of years when Lenarz took over and was just 1-26 over his first three years.
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“You had to focus on relationships because you don’t have anything else to offer,” Lenarz said. “You don’t have a big win streak, you don’t have a guarantee you’re going to play in a state tournament. For me, it’s always been about relationships and with the number of kids we keep out you have to pay attention to everybody. You can’t just focus on the kids that start, you’ve got to focus on all the kids and make sure you’re letting them know that they’re important too.”
Spencer Wehr, a running back on the 2017 team now playing for Bemidji State, said Lenarz tended to treat all the players, whether they were seniors or freshmen, the same way and worked to build trust.
“My sophomore year, I remember I had this one run during practice and it was a good run,” He came up to me and grabbed me and he was like, ‘That’s how you run the damn ball.’ I just thought that was so cool and it gave me some fire and it motivated me for sure.”
Lenarz led Cloquet to the state playoffs four times in five years from 2013-17 and one appearance in the state title game, but the relationships he built are far more important than wins on the field.
“Obviously you want to be competitive, you want to win games, but some of the relationships I’ve formed are going to last a lot longer than anything I find in the win column,” Lenarz said. “I like to measure success with the number of hugs I get from former players, in the handshakes and when they introduce you to their family when you see them down the road. Those things mean a lot more to me.”
