Be organized and passionate about what you are doing.”

Jackie Kranz

Jackie Kranz LOVES high school sports, more specifically, she loves her Raiders, and that is where this story takes a quick turn before it even starts. Her retirement is more of a ‘kind of’. Yes, Kranz is retiring from her official position of Administrative Assistant to Trent Hanson in the Athletic Department, but as she put it, you’ll still see her around working various athletic events at the high school.
She is also going to be available to help her successor, Kristina Cook, as needed the rest of the school year.
“I'm sure I'll have to go back and help her later on because there are things that we're not even going to do till May. It is hard to cover things that we don't do until May or February or whatever,” said Kranz.
Her body language said she is completely good with coming back to help Cook later in the year.
“I’ve just enjoyed so many of the coaches. I mean, I worked at so many events, because I just really like athletics. I was an athlete and so was my husband, my kids and now my grandkids. I was on the very first volleyball team in the 80s with Vicki Davis as my coach,” said Kranz. “I’m just passionate about athletics. I believe you cannot go into this job and not know anything about a sport, and what I did not know, I sure learned.”
She started at the school just over 30 years ago in the attendance office and at the time, Ann Minnaert was the Secretary for the Athletics Department.
“I worked two years in attendance, and then Ann retired in 1995, so I applied. Back then I think it was only Don Miller and Rich Clymer who interviewed me, and I got the job. So we were at the old school, the middle school, when we first started, and then we moved up to the high school. Then Don retired the year we moved up to the high school, Tom Johnson came in, and then Rich and then Tom retired,” she explained.
Kranz has had a dream team of sorts when it comes to both the high school principal and athletic director positions. In both positions, she has had to deal with a total of six different people over her thirty years consisting of Principals Rich Clymer, Michael Johnson and Scott Doran and Athletic Directors Don Miller, Tom Johnson and Trent Hanson. To have that little turnover in those positions is unheard of and current AD Trent Hanson explains why she has been such an integral part of the sports programs and the key cog that makes the sports machine turn for the Raiders.
“Jackie has meant ‘everything’ to HHS athletics in the last three decades,” said Hanson. “She led with heart, integrity, and a steadfast dedication to HHS and the Raiders athletics community. She was creative, efficient, and innovative. When her HHS career started, things like schedules and equipment and purchase orders were done with a pencil, legal pads, typewriters and telephones. Today almost everything is done digitally and through a phone or screen. What has never changed is her incredible work ethic, quick wit, and devotion to the kids and programs at our school. Jackie has set the standard for all to aspire to with regard to a 'job well done.' She has left a legacy to be proud of!”
The behind the scenes work Athletic Department Administrative Assistants do is paramount to the success of a school’s sports teams. Every team, from ninth grade to varsity all have similar needs. Each team needs coaches, an opponent, a facility to play at, a time to play, transportation for away games, officials, scorekeepers, announcers, trainers, bookkeepers, uniforms, end of season awards, daily attendance for coaches and more. Some sports like football need the chain gang to mark down and distance, hockey needs people for the penalty boxes, volleyball needs line judges, wrestling needs timers and kids to notify the refs when time is up and so on. Each team, each grade level has needs and nearly all of them need to get paid. All of those things have gone through Kranz in some form for the last 28 years.
Most of the sports have at least a ninth-grade team, B-Squad (tenth grade), Junior Varsity and Varsity teams. In the fall, there are seven sports, winter has ten and spring has eight for the regular student body. 26 sports teams yearly, most of which have four different teams, that is over 100 different teams to manage all the listed items above plus things that were not listed. All which Kranz has had some form of interaction with.
Hanson put together an amazing list of what Kranz was part of in her time with the Athletic Department.
In her tenure as the HHS Athletics Secretary, Hastings has been a part of three athletic conferences; the St. Paul Suburban, Suburban East, and Metro East. In that time, the Raiders have won 107 team conference titles, 63 team section titles (state tournament teams), and 7 team state championships. There have been 28 individual state championships won by 17 different athletes. She has worked alongside only three athletic directors, all of whom were Region and/or State AD of the Year (Don Miller, Tom Johnson, Trent Hanson).
Kranz still enjoys all sports, so, while she is retiring from controlling the chaos in the office, you will still see her on the sidelines of the various sports working the table or selling tickets.
“I worked as many of the sports as I could, I really love working the swim meets because I love watching both the diving and swimming, same with Gymnastics meets, I love watching them too,” said Kranz.
She has many moments in Raider history that she is very fond of, but like many Raider fans, the one recent thing that comes to mind is the State Wrestling Team Tournament in March of 2023. The Raiders were down 32-9 and they stormed back to win 33-32 against the year long number one team in the state, St. Michael/Albertville (STMA). To us regular fans, that story still brings back a flood of emotions, but for Kranz, it was even more personal.
To explain it properly, we need to go back a little to 1996, Kranz’s first full season as the Athletic Secretary.
Jackie’s husband Pete is an assistant wrestling coach for Hastings. In 1996, their daughter Becky was in high school at Hastings, and she was a manager for the wrestling team. For the purpose of this story, on that team is Chad Beissel and Josh McLay. That team took home the team state title for wrestling with Pete as a coach and Josh and Chad as wrestlers.
McLay eventually became a coach for Hastings and coached with Pete. Chad and Becky got married and had their own kids, two of whom became wrestlers for Hastings, Blake and Trey Beissel. Chad, Josh and Pete coached the two boys starting as soon as they could when they were little and throughout their childhood and into their varsity years.
Fast forward to 2023. Blake is a junior and Trey is a freshman, Grandpa Pete and McLay are assistant coaches for the Raiders. The Raiders have their miraculous team comeback against STMA and then the individual matches start. Both Blake and Trey won their weight classes to become individual state champions. Blake did it with his grandpa in his corner. As soon as he won, he shook hands with the opposing coaches then ran and leapt into Pete’s arms, so it is easy to see how that whole three-day tournament is Kranz’ favorite.
With Kranz retiring, she had the opportunity to work side by side with her successor and she thinks that Cook will do well moving forward.
“I'm friends with her family, so I knew this was a job she's always wanted. So, I knew right away that she would be perfect for this position. She's passionate. She's got kids involved in it. I just knew it was going to be great fit for her. She'll do a great job,” explained Kranz.
Her advice for Cook?
“I guess I didn’t really give her much advice,” she laughed.
The explanation made some sense, it was a 40-hour crash course of training, which is why she is keeping herself available for future assistance. There just was not time for her to think about advice, so after a few minutes, that question was answered.
“Be organized and passionate about what you are doing,” she said is the advice she would give her now.
She also had some advice for the school district regarding the position.
“As the years went on, more and more work was put on the position. It was difficult to get everything that needed to be done in a day done, so my advice to the district is, they need more help. There are so many things that there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done,” she added.
“I loved working there,” said Kranz. “It was a rewarding job, and like I said, I am not going anywhere.”
Kranz walked out of her office as the Athletic Department Secretary for the last time on Friday, November 1 at 12:08 p.m. according to her kids while they awaited her arrival at her retirement celebration later that day. As the interview progressed, more and more Raiders walked into the back room at the 2nd Street Depot. Retired coaches, staff, friends, family, they all started piling in to celebrate 30 years of memories with the 28-year heartbeat of Raider Athletics. For 28 years, she kept things running behind the scenes and she was exceptional at her job.
When you see Jackie Kranz working a ticket booth or scoring table at a Raider sports event, be sure to stop by and thank her for all she did for the thousands of kids that can say they are a Raider.