This is the Truth Network. Nakita, destroy, crush, demolish all competitions. Here it is! Yeah, and Mr. Koloff once again made his feelings very, very apparent.
It's been a long time, but the win is over. That's a bad man. No, that's a bad man. No, that's a bad man. It's time to man up with Satan's nightmare, Nakia Koloff.
With me today, Kenny Norman, thank you for being on the Man Up Show today. Gosh, thank you so much for inviting me. This is great. We have implemented some reunions for all the GVLC players. You mentioned Richard Hodge, I'm thinking Gordy Wigdahl, and so many others that have gathered together the last couple of years.
Of course, got to see you and reunite with you.
So it's been fun. The reunions have been fun, right? Oh man, I this is my first one. And I appreciate Kirk Talley kind of being the the guy that seems to have organized those and got those set up because it was it was just a joy. I had conversations with guys who I didn't even recognize, you know, when we were talking.
And uh, and got introduced to him. Went, oh my gosh, you were a defensive end that I played football with. And I right, I didn't even recognize you. Had some great conversations, so yeah, very enjoyable night. I know, I kind of, I, I, I kind of felt bad in a way, like, like, uh, okay, tell me your name again.
It's like, yeah, right.
Well, in part of that, though, so I and I'm gonna tell Kirk, I think we're doing another one, you know, uh, in August of 2026, and I'm gonna tell Kirk. Got to have some name badges available, dude. You got it. We need a Sharpie and a name badge because. You know, as he put it together, and I, and Kirk and I, I mean, he's become such a dear, dear friend.
Uh, and we stayed connected. We stayed connected these last 40 years, Kenny, he and I. Yeah. And but he just opened it up to anybody who played football at Golden Valley.
So, I mean, this last one, there were guys there from, you know, the mid-70s to into the 80s, you know. Yeah, it was I I felt like we set the table for some of those guys. Because Golden Valley, like my freshman year, the year before you got there, That was the first year of real excellence in Golden Valley football. I mean, they'd been okay. But, you know, I mean, it's a private school playing with the With the public schools, and uh, and then our year we had you know, Coach Burke, who you talked about, and And he got us going.
Coach Nerdahl came out, an old retired Robinsdale coach. Yep. and put together some things and all of a sudden, you know, we end up with the best defense in the country. And until we lost that last game of the year to Crookston, like you say, nationally rated and And uh, yeah, I think we set the table for those guys in the 80s to just enjoy being part of a good uh an established program. Yeah, no, I think you're right.
And you you probably don't know this. I'll feel you in, and I don't know even if some of my listeners may may even know this, uh, but Now, if they read my life story, if they read the book, they maybe would. But. You mentioned Burke, and so coach Bill Burke, defensive coordinator, right? Because you play defensive back, right?
Yep. So, defensive back.
Well, Bill Burke, Kenny, was my first male mentor in my life. And what I mean by that is, my dad left when I was three years old.
So I'm being raised by a single mom. And I joined a football team. It was a park team, like.
So it wasn't a junior high or high school team. It was a park board league, right? And Bill Burke was the head coach. And, you know, he kind of, I think he kind of got the just, you know, my story, you know, just no dad, my life.
Well, he became like my first male mentor. in seventh grade and then when when I'm getting ready to graduate from Robbinsdale High School, he he would work at at the high school and do different things there, and I'd always run into him and see him. And he's the one who really talked me into coming over to Golden Valley. And how do I say no to my first mentor, right? I'm like, absolutely coach.
You know, and I just always called him coach. And so that's the whole reason I came over to go. And then a part of that, though, was, you know, you mentioned Peltier, Tim Peltier, the quarterback. He was a Robinsdale guy.
Some, you know, a few other guys, I think, followed me over there, Scotty Berger, Berger, and others. Mike Hauck, who came and played fullback, Mike Houck, if you remember that name, too. Yep, sure. Saw him at the reunion. Yeah, yep.
And so, yeah, so just a great.
So just a great time reminiscing uh there at at the at the reunion. And now I didn't know from there from there you went on down to to Iowa, right? Yeah. Yeah, I left. I I have to admit, I went to uh To Golden Valley, not for Jesus and not for academics.
So as soon as football was over, I was out of Golden Valley, no longer in school. I was working at Cocus Sporting Goods printing T-shirts. And at that age, I I thought I kind of had life made. And then a good friend of mine, one of the guys we ended up playing against when we played Normandale for the state championship. had gone down to the University of Dubut, Brian Ferguson.
He was one of their running backs, and we'd played running back and defensive back together and the starting guards in basketball and high school and stuff. And he'd gone down there Honestly, the coach from Dubuque had come up to Golden Valley and uh and met with a few of us And he's just this little short guy. And I was so arrogant, Scott. And I treated him with arrogance. Like, you know, I think I even teased the name of Dubuque.
What is that? You know? And that's just. Poke fun at it, right? Poke fun at it.
Oh, my gosh. That's how I was back in those days. I look back and I just think, who did you think you were? Yeah. But.
So I'd you know, I'd put them way in the in the rear view mirror. And my buddy Brian calls and he says, Kenny man, they're doing something down here. We got twenty two junior college transfers. Wow. Because it was right at the at the end of Division three football scholarships.
Okay. And coach was smart. He said, I'm going to bring in a bunch of juniors and seniors, man. I'm not going to waste these scholarships for one year on freshmen.
So he said, There's a lot of good dudes, man. If you're not doing something, you should come down. I literally loaded up.
Well, I said, Get the coach on the line for you. We talked. He Don Birmingham was his name. He told me what he could do for me that year, found out that my dad was retired.
So he said, you'll be fine when it comes to Pell Grant and other financial aid. Just if you're ready, come down. I loaded everything I I owned into my my uh Impala the next day, hit the road, went south to to Dubuque, didn't know where I was going, had never seen it. And uh and there I was down at the University of Dubuque and And we had three tremendous years. We won the conference championship three years.
Running. made it to the national playoffs two years, once as I was a senior and Yeah. once when they kept me around for student coaching because the academic effort I put in at Golden Valley cost me an extra year of going to college. Yep. But yes, we had some great success down there and And just like the Golden Valley Reunion, I keep in touch with those guys.
We've got this thread of email. A bunch of them are from Indiana.
So they were celebrating, you know, last night like crazy. bunch of them from Chicago, so they were whining when the Bears lost the other night to the Rams, you know, and but we keep in touch. Wow. Here's here's another funny part of that is we we've been as a team put into the to the college's Hall of Fame, Athletic Hall of Fame.
So they they've had us back a couple of times to come and strut around campus like we're big dogs and act like we're important. And it's been fun, again, reuniting with guys who have changed so much. from who we were back in those days when You know, at least for me, there was an awful lot of arrogance with what was being accomplished. And hopefully, for all of us, a lot of that is kind of moved off to the side. We can look and see what others did To make those teams great more than just all the little contributions we think we made.
But isn't it amazing? I mean, just yeah, just the reuniting or staying in touch with like, like Kirk Talley and I have, gosh, I mean, we've stayed in touch since those days we played. you know, at Gold Valley, right, in the late 70s, Tim Peltier. Tim Pelton and I, you know, he and I I first met Tim as a sophomore in high school when he quarterbacked our high school team, and then he went over there to Gold Valley. He and I still stay in touch and talk, and then Mike Houck.
Quick side note on Mike Houck. You might appreciate this. I. A wrestling friend of mine, an old high school buddy of mine who got into pro wrestling too. His real name is Barry Darso, but he wrestled with me at one point as Crusher Khruzcheff.
Then he went up to the WWF and wrestled as Demolition Smash.
Well, we were doing an autograph signing last summer, and he said, Man, I talked to Mike Howek and be like, When? How?
So Kenny, he reunited us. We got to talking by phone, got to see each other there at the reunion. And I didn't realize he had sent me a picture from elementary school. And I'm like, wait, what? We went to elementary together.
And he's like, Kenny, I didn't even. Recognize, I'm recognized myself. I'm like, hey, is that me standing next to you, Mike? And he's like, yep. And so 55 years he and I have known each other.
And then one last little side caveat to that is, okay, is where when he left Gold Valley, he went into Greco-Roman Wrestling. and actually became a world champion Won a gold medal in the World Games in 1987. Ready for this, Kenny? Against a real Russian.
So he and I were laughing about. I'm like, oh, dude, I'm a fake Russian. I'm pretending to be a Russian, but you're wrestling a real Russian. You're winning a gold medal. You're a world champion.
I'm a world champion. Mike, who would have guessed back in fifth, sixth grade? You'd be a world champion wrestling. I'd be a world champion wrestling. You with the real stuff, me on the entertainment side of things.
So just crazy, right? Hey, random question for you.
So you said you loaded up your Impala. You had a Chevy Impala? Had a Chevy Impala.
So random. Fun fact. My very first car I bought in high school was a Chevy Impala from my older brother. Here you go. From my older brother, Glenn.
I bought a Chevy Impala.
So, how about they must have been good cars?
Okay. They sure were. Dependable, right? Dependable cars. Yeah, exactly.
That's all I needed. And, all right, so you had this amazing career at the University of Dubuque there in Iowa. And then I know you went on to get a master's at Texas Tech. How'd that happen? Nikita Koloff here and I am excited.
Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?
Well, maybe it's a minor announcement. Anyway, Facebook, go look up my new fan page, Nikita KoloffFans. And like it. And follow today. If you would like to support Koloff for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs: Adoration and Declaration.
For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.koloff.net. and donate today.
Well, honestly, a big story, and it's one of those times, Scott, when I look back and go. You know, if I had committed my life to Christ earlier, how much difference might it have been? And then the guy I'm going to talk about here for a minute actually has. Has assured me, dude, you're doing fine. Don't worry about it.
But our defensive coordinator, was from Texas. And he went down to a little uh Christian school In Lubbock, the same town as Texas Tech, called Lubbock Christian College, now it's Lubbock Christian University. And set it up with Texas Tech where if he could bring guys down to get. into their master's degree program in physical education. And coach for them that they could develop a combination thing there where, like, coach gave us an apartment.
And uh We got jobs as teaching assistants at the college, you know, at the university. And if you're in college, you're young, it's not hard to make ends meet.
So he invited me to come down and do that. I'm finished my degree in physical education in Minnesota in the mid seventies. It's not like there's people knocking my door down to give me a job or anything, you know.
So I said, jerk, coach, I'll come down. And Don Carthel was his name, Donnie Cartho. Uh, tremendous coach. I went from national playoffs to a school that had never won a game against an American team. They'd won one game when they went down and played a team in Mexico.
But that was the opposite side of the coin. We still keep in touch with Coach Carthell, and he's part of that big thread of guys that we connect with. And his son. Mm-hmm. Shoot, I'm not going to remember the name of the school.
His son is the head coach of a team that was in the Division, what is it, one AA now, or just right below FBS, FCS, or whatever it is. Was in the national playoffs. They did get beat by the national champion in the process. But his son, Colby Cartho, was the head coach down there.
So we were all trying to watch that game and cheering him on and things like that. And yeah. That's awesome. Just great traditions. And I told coach one time when I met him how because I I split from him over.
Uh another one of my uh arrogant stubborn decisions in life. And um And I told him, I said, coach, man, if I'd have just been a little more mature at that time. And can a longer view of things like Like, I could have kept coaching with you. Who knows? Yeah.
I might have ended up coaching. Right. What might have happened? Like, candy, candy, candy. Like, look at your life, man.
Look what you've done. I think you're just fine, man. You got a wife and kids that are all serving the Lord and following the Lord. You got. You did good.
That was a good conversation. Yeah, let's talk about that. There's so much of your story to cover, but let's talk about that because I know let me just highlight just very quickly now because I want to get to what you're doing now. And because what a life, yeah, I'm looking at what a life you had. You went and coached at Concordia St.
Paul there, became a head coach. But you mentioned you kind of got burned out on coaching and trying to make money, didn't really care about that. And I know you had said you, you know, you kind of partied through those years, but then you got married, had your first daughter. And Kenny said that led to sobriety uh and uh which which sent you on a whole different path that's where you truly found Jesus and and And what's amazing is, I'm looking like you were in Ecuador, you were in Austria, the director of a Christian school there, and And so take take a minute and just give us a snaps a snapshot of of some of that journey, the the sobriety, you know, getting married, how that led to s your first daughter's sobriety and and all of that. Yeah, man, it's uh It's amazing because, Scott, I'm a pretty simple guy.
I could have. lived and worked in South Minneapolis where I grew up my whole life and never you know, never never worried about it. I would have been a happy guy. But God had other plans. I um I got to Concordia and went from being a part-time assistant.
to getting a job in their admissions office and becoming a full-time staff football staff assistant. The head coach left. And all of a sudden, the athletic director is asking me if I want to be the head football coach. He said he would do it for a year to kind of transition and help me into it. But I'm still just twenty-seven years old.
And the football side of it, I felt pretty good about. What I didn't know about was the administrative side of being a head football coach. And I just was not ready for that at all. And then that's where the one of the first times the partying and there were other times too, where I have to look back and say I probably let teammates down and let other people down with my choices of how I live my life. But Um the party in and personal life.
Combined with the challenge and the stress of being a head football coach, just got to be too much for me. And I bailed out. It's like, yeah, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm quitting coaching. It takes too much.
Time and effort, I don't make any money, it's not worth it. Yeah, and uh, it's probably the one thing I've done, you know, I do best in the world. If I probably stayed in coaching, in my view, of what I think I'm good at. I probably would, uh, you know would have would have done well. But Um got out of it and um You know, eventually put some pieces together, had a great girlfriend that we eventually got married.
Both knew Jesus, but Jesus was uh. You know, kind of a Sideline part of our life. You know, we went to church and did things, but he wasn't in the middle. And my wife is, yeah, yeah. My wife is uh is really capable, really talented woman.
So never felt like, hey, if if it's not for me, she's she's gonna be in trouble. But then I have my little girl And this is the story of giving up alcohol right here. We played in a softball tournament over Memorial Day weekend. We lost eventually. We had a bunch of beer left.
Most people went home. I didn't ended up making it home, passing out on the couch, just being a mess. And uh And my wife somehow put up with it. uh the very next uh day Next night, my daughter, who was at that point, probably August to May, what is that, six, six, eight months old, has an ear infection and We just can't get her to sleep. And it's at night, you know, it's hospital rooms.
We don't want to take her to an emergency room, all this and that. we get the idea that, well, she falls asleep right away when we take her out driving.
So we do. We don't drive more than three blocks Nikita and she's asleep. Bring her home, get her to bed, get her to sleep. um you know, take her into the doctor the next day and we get on track. And I realized that the night before, I could not have done that.
And I. I turned to Jesus and I just said, Lord God, I do not want to be this dad. Like, you've got to help me. And Scott, it was or excuse me, Nikita, it was amazing. I turned around it was like I turned around and Jesus was waiting there to grab me in his arms and wrap me up.
I never did any rehab. I never did any treatment. I just never That was it. An about face. You did an about face.
Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, he wrapped me up, picked me up. Really, you know, my friends really struggle with it. Oh, Kenny's going to start partying again, this and that. And little by little, we went back and forth with that.
So I've got. relationship with a lot of those guys still, but it's You know, it's different. And that was it. That's what led me into my committed relationship with him. which then that opened up the door to getting out to Crown College and coaching, which led to going into teaching and coaching.
and eventually administrative work at international Christian schools. And the whole rest of my path just kind of opened up from that and Uh Nikita, most of the most of it has been me being given opportunities. That I think God presents and being willing to say, say yes.
Okay, I'll give it a try, Lord. I just think I'm ready, but I'll give it a try. And then him stepping in and doing what he does. Doing what he does best.
So how long you been married now, Kenny? Uh thirty Eight years. And how many kids? She had a daughter. How many kids?
Got four kids. Um and uh six grandchildren. Uh my my oldest well, my wife, Is a vice president at Central Lakes College up here in Brainerd, where we live and I work now. My oldest daughter is a professor at Clown College, Dr. Alexis Jones.
Wow, come on. Her uh her her uh husband Taylor was a thousand point scorer in basketball at Crown back in the day and And he he's a softball coach there at the college. My middle daughter, Shelby, and her husband Clark, they're missionaries with YWAM, Youth With a Mission. They run a base up in Canada. And my oldest daughter has three boys and my my middle daughter has uh three girls.
So we we get to see the boys quite a bit. They're close by. The girls are up in Canada. It breaks my heart to not get to see them, but they're serving the Lord.
So, amen. And what a blessing that is, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yes.
Yeah, I mean, that ties into our relationship with my mom when we were overseas, where she was one of our biggest supporters. And then my son, who. who actually just bought a house last night. We went through the final negotiations, and he and his wife just got married a year ago, September. And so just over a year, they bought a house And he's had some really hard things.
happened in his life. And so he's he's still wrestling with With his relationship with the Lord. Yeah, with his spirit. We're claiming. We're claiming, you know, raise a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old, he won't depart from it.
Amen. And we're counting on that happening. Amen. And then my youngest is just a superstar. She's adopted from when we were in Ecuador, and she teaches at Hope Academy, which is where I just left.
to come up here to Brainerd. I was I was working there. And she's a fourth grade teacher. She's absolutely amazing. And um And yeah, that completes my family.
Wow. That's amazing. But we're out of time, but we squeezed it all in, Kenny. We didn't get to. It's going to have to have you back sometime.
We didn't get to what you're presently doing, but we will. We will, okay? And so what a testimony, though, Kenny. Kenny Norman, man, old college buddy, and what a story, but God, right? How God can intervene and we turn it all over to him and just what your family is doing, Kenny.
Thank you. Man, I'm so thrilled that the Lord reconnected us, reunited us together. I appreciate you being a part of the show today. Hey, man, I appreciate you. Thanks a ton.
And for all you out there, you know, you're so faithful week in and week out to listen to it's time to man up. And I want to encourage you too, we do a secondary show called QA with Koloff on the podcast platform.
So download the Truth Radio at. App and you get access to all that and so much, so much more. Uh, hope you're enjoying these stories. Hope you've enjoyed Kenny's story today. Kenny Norman up in Brainerd, Minnesota, former college football buddy.
What a testimony of the faithfulness of God. I encourage you to go out today and just have a God feel, live a God bless you.
