Craig Morgan

NEW ULM — Just weeks away from his official retirement, Craig Morgan has finally had some time to sit and reflect on his 31-year tenure at Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School.

Morgan, a long-time coach, teacher and current Athletic Director at MVL, will be retiring and have his last day at the school on June 30.

“I’m going to miss the interactions with the coaches, but more importantly with the kids,” Morgan said. “In coaching you had the one-on-one relationships or the relationships with the teams and kids, and you spent three to four months with the group and you got to know them a whole lot different than their teachers did in the class room, and that was pretty special.

“With your coaches, you try to do anything you can to help them and make their job easier, because the general public just doesn’t understand how many hours extra they put in. They think it’s just the kids have practice and they go home and it’s just coaching the games and that’s it, when there’s a half hour to 45 minutes of work after the game and there’s that much or more time prior to the game prepping and scouting and figuring out where your team’s going to work, who’s going to work in which position and how they’re going to all gel as a group.”

Morgan said he thought when he got to be 67 years old and eligible to retire, he was going to retire.

“I just thought as long as I got my health, I want to be able to go out and do things, see the grandkids, I want to be able to go to games, I want to go hunting and get out whenever I want,” he said. “And a lot of the things I want to do happen during the school year and during the time you coach and administrate. In what I do, you can’t leave during January or February and go some place nice and warm.”

As cliché as it sounds by saying Morgan has worn many hats over the years, it couldn’t be truer. Morgan started at the school as a teacher, freshman boys basketball coach and assistant baseball coach in 1995, but he quickly took on more roles, something he didn’t shy away from doing during his time at MVL.

He was the JV girls basketball coach from 1996-1999, head varsity baseball coach from 1998-2004, head varsity boys basketball coach from 1999-2025 and the head varsity boys and girls golf coach from 2006 to 2026. If he didn’t have enough on his plate as it was during his final year at MVL, he also took on the head coaching position of the girls varsity basketball team, with the Chargers finishing the 2025-2026 campaign 15-11.

Morgan also was the Athletic Director at the school from 1999 and is in that position continuing to learn what we can until he officially has his last day at MVL on June 30, when Dave Biedenbender takes over the helm as MVL AD and head varsity girls basketball head coach.

Athletics wise, Morgan is most known for his time as the Chargers boys basketball head coach, where he finished with five Tomahawk Conference Coach of the Year awards, two Section 2AA Coach of the Year awards and a 473-224 record.

“Basketball, you see guys and they bring up some memories, but it’s all been good,” Morgan said. “The times you get to be with the guys and laugh and they hit you with water or you get excited about something in the locker room afterwards and you share it with them. Our wins at the Bethany Tournament, going to sections in basketball, Single A and Double A.

“There are a couple times I wish we just could have gotten over that jump in the section championship and gone to state. That’s the one thing that eluded me, and maybe that’s a good thing, because I really appreciate the things that these guys did each and every day and the girls last year.”

His coaching career also saw him named the 2020 Girls Golf Coach of the Year and he’s coached 15 state qualifiers during his time. He also started the boys and girls golf teams in 2004, four years after starting the MVL boys and girls cross-country programs.

Morgan said that the biggest changes he’s seen from his start at MVL to now as an AD has been how big computers have gotten.

“This is going to sound archaic, but I’m going to say the computer [has been the biggest change],” he said. “We used to write out contracts and call each other as ADs for games on the phone, and now a lot of it is emails and we have new programs. I’m learning the new program for another [few weeks] and then Dave Biedenbender gets to take over and our new Administrative Assistant Haley Giefer, she’s learning it brand new.

“The computer was supposed to give you more time and that was not really true [laughs]. It gave you more to do. People figured out more ways to use this thing and add stuff to different programs where there’s a lot more to do.”

Morgan said he really liked coaching the girls basketball team last season and he enjoyed it so much he wishes he could have another year to coach them. He also said he would have fun coaching today’s boys players with how tall and athletic they are.

However, that’s the coach side of Morgan talking and he said he didn’t have the energy anymore to coach a full season. Now Morgan will look forward to following the teams as a fan, cheering — and offering hushed critiques under his breath — from the bleachers.

Coaching aside, Morgan has driven buses, been the Region 2A Committee AD from 2003-2007 and 2021-2025 and served as the Tomahawk Conference AD Chairman from 2004-2021, just to name a few extra responsibilities. Adding on his service to the community and assistance getting other sports on the map at MVL, Morgan’s bio is full of noteworthy achievements.

With all of things to be proud of, Morgan cares more about what his students and players took away from him.

“What I tried to do was teach them how to be good Christian young men and women,” Morgan said. “Understand what people’s feelings are, understand how hard they can work and when they think they can’t do it, yeah, they can. Play under pressure with the help of God. … In health class we talked about what’s pressure, and pressure is the opportunity to succeed with the help of God, and that’s what I hope they take away. They’re never out there alone, he’s always there for them and just enjoy what you do and be thankful.”