MINNEAPOLIS — There are not many people who get to do a job that they enjoy getting up for every morning.

But former New Ulmite Ali (Bernard) Sprenger is one of those people.

Sprenger is in her first year as head women’s wrestling coach at Augsburg University after replacing Jake Short as head coach.

“I realize how cool it is that I get to do this every day for a job,” Sprenger, who officially had her first practice as coach on Oct. 10, said. “I get to go in, wrestle and work with the girls. I am extremely happy with my new position and the move.”

Sprenger began her journey to what she calls her “Dream Job” wrestling with the New Ulm Rolling Thunder and then with New Ulm High School.

“I wrestled in the nationals and then went on to wrestling in college at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan. Then I transferred to the University of Alberta,” Sprenger said.

She won the Junior World Championship at 158.5 pounds in 2003 and again in 2005. She also won U.S Open titles in 2004, 2008 and 2011 finishing second in 2005 and third in 2006. She also won multiple junior titles in the junior and cadet ranks. She highlighted that by representing the United States in the 2008 Summer Olympics.

“After the Olympics, I decided I wanted to live back in Minnesota,” she said. “And I was wondering what I wanted to do — a college women’s head wrestling coach job was not available.”

So for the past eight years, she has been working at the Best Buy Corporate Offices.

“I was doing a lot of adult learning and training for HR,” she said. “And that worked well because I learned how to educate adults in the way that they want to learn.”

And Sprenger was happy with her position until the Augsburg job opened up.

“I was talking with the AD at Augsburg and I was on the Board of Directors for MinnUSA Wrestling,” she said. “So I sat down and talked with my husband Jason about the job — it is a lifestyle change for our family. I have a 5-year-old daughter Scout.

“There would be traveling on the weekends, our income changed a little bit, so my husband and I had a discussion. And one of the things that he said to me is that not everyone gets to do their dream job. Here is your opportunity to do it. So I am really grateful that I had the support from him to make this jump.”

Sprenger’s first order of business was to look into recruiting for next season.

“Seniors in high school are deciding where they want to go,” she said. “We are a little behind [in recruiting] with the head coach change.”

She is also looking at tournament scheduling.

“Before the season started, I had to hit the gas on where we wanted to go, how we are going to get there and the budget.

“But the last two weeks for me have been getting on the mat with the girls and making a development plan for each of them.”

Sprenger said that she will recruit nation-wide.

“We recruit from the Tri-State area and we do have some girls from California,” she said. “There are around 40 schools in the NCAA for women’s wrestling.”

Sprenger said that when recruiting, she looks for that mindset of a girl who is willing to learn.

“And girls who are willing to work hard and push through things,” she said. “If I can get girls who work hard and learn, that is great.”

She is also learning that there is a lot of administrative work, especially with the budget.

“But I got that experience from my job at Best Buy — that corporate side of understanding of how to deal with these back-end items.”

Sprenger has just 12 girls on the team right now. “So myself and my assistant coaches are all on the mat.”

Her long-term goals are to get 24 girls on the team and eventually compete for a National Championship.

And as Sprenger grows the wrestling program at Augsburg, she said that she is very happy.

“My daughter is 5 and she gets to see these girls and young women and look up to them and idolize them, which is cool,” she said. “Right now she is in gymnastics, but she is watching the girls and getting more interested it, so we will see.”

Augsburg’s first match is on Saturday, Nov. 4, at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.