Macho, New Ulm hockey icon, remembered for impact, dedication
Macho
By Jim Bastian
sports@nujournal.com
NEW ULM — For the second time this year, New Ulm lost an iconic coach when Tom Macho, who was the head coach of the New Ulm High School boys hockey team for 31 years, died Sunday, April 6, at the age of 78.
Macho’s death came just 37 days after Jim Senske’s, who coached the New Ulm High School baseball team for 40 years.
The death of Macho, who is considered the Founding Father of high school hockey in New Ulm, saddened by the community.
“It was sad to hear,” Mike Peterson said. “He was an instrumental part in being basically the founder of New Ulm hockey. He helped facilitate getting high school hockey going here [in 1975] — he led the charge. I had him as a teacher back in fifth grade — he was a great teacher and I had him for three years as a coach.”
Peterson describe Macho, who was inducted into the Minnesota High School Hockey Coaches Hall of Fame in 2009 as a coach, as one who made the players work.
And for a while, the Eagles’ practices were held outside regardless of the weather before practices went inside at then Vogel Arena in 1981.
“Tom did not go easy on us in the outdoor practices,” Peterson said. “But he got the most out of us”
Randy Paa, one of the players on the first Eagles high school hockey team as a freshman back in 1975 coached by Macho, said that outdoor practices at Westside Park — now Harman Park — involved first getting the snow shoveled off of the ice before practices started.
“Tom was a really good coach,” Paa said. “He had the unique ability to motivate each player in a different way — he got the best out of each player no matter who you were — he just knew what buttons to push.”
Paa feels that a big reason that New Ulm is still known for hockey is Macho.
“Tom was New Ulm hockey and it was his program,” Paa said. “When I started hockey in 1968, at that time Tom coached the squirts, the PeeWees, the Bantams, the Midgets and the Juveniles — he coached all of those teams in the same year.”
Paa also recalled a road trip to Jackson for a game.
“He had five teams on a bus from the age of 10 years old to 18 year olds and he also coached all of those teams,” Paa said.
Paa said that when he and former players found out about Macho’s passing away, all of them felt a sense of huge gratitude to him.
“Any success we have obtained in our adult life was do to the foundation of hard work and effort that Tom instilled in each player early in our lives,” Paa said. “We all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for that.”
Jamie Hoffmann, who played for Macho three years and was late drafted by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2003 National Hockey League draft in the eighth round, echoed the type of coach Macho was.
“He was great,” Hoffmann said. “He was a teacher as well and did very good job of coaching us as hockey players and also as people. We did a lot of off-ice stuff like mental learning and dealing with the pressures of being an athlete. He did a great job of guiding us young men through hockey and life.”
Hoffmann said that even now he still uses something that Macho introduced to him as a player.
“It is ‘The Man in Glass’ poem — to take a look at yourself and evaluate yourself and do what is right and what values instilled by your family,” Hoffmann said. “He printed off that poem and handed out to all of us. I still have it on my mirror at home.”
Macho leaves a great legacy for New Ulm.
“He is New Ulm Eagles hockey and that is what is going to live on,” Hoffmann said. “He was great at coaching, teaching and guiding you men through hockey and life. He was the staple of New Ulm hockey. Losing both coach Senske and coach Macho in the same year — it is a sad year for New Ulm Eagles sports. They were both great pillars in the community.”
THE MAN IN THE GLASS
When you get what you want in your struggle for self,
And the world makes you king for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
For it isn’t a man’s father, mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass,
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life,
is the one staring back from the glass.
He’s the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you, clear to the end,
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test,
If the man in the glass is your friend.
You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But the final reward will be heartache and tears,
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.
