Guess What Happened to me Today: October 2026

Editor’s Note: This column features out-of-the-ordinary events that occur to high school athletic directors, school administrators and performing arts educators during the course of their day’s work. If you have encountered an event that clearly strays from the daily plan, please send your information in 200 words or less to Bruce Howard at bhoward@nfhs.org.

By Broc Threinen

An idea of hosting an outdoor high school volleyball game was in the works. Kasson-Mantorille Komets were going to host the Triton Cobras. This would be located in Southeast Minnesota, and a first for the state of Minnesota.

A lot of planning went into the night. The biggest challenge was reaching out to the various volleyball centers to see who would be willing to rent a court to make this work. After asking dozens of different sites if they’d be willing to rent the court, I finally received a yes from Jeremiah at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, Minnesota. After he provided the quote, we went to work on finding sponsors for the event. After we secured the money from sponsors, we planned the night.

The game was hyped up in our area and within the entire state. Lower-level volleyball started at 4:30 p.m., followed by a JV game and then varsity. The day went super well, until the middle of the varsity game. Ironically, due to Minnesota high humidity in August, condensation started happening on the court in the evening. Once we had several players start slipping on the court, we deemed the court unsafe and moved it back inside to our Alerus Arena to finish the game.

While not all went as planned, it was an awesome night.

Broc Threinen is activities director for the Kasson-Mantorville Schools in Kasson, Minnesota.