John Noga receives another Hall of Fame induction, and he got it the old-school way

Nov. 29—John Noga has been around the block a time or two — or 90.

Born and raised in Bemidji, Noga spent his life in small-town sports. He graduated from Bemidji High School in 1979 as a three-sport athlete before playing football and baseball at Bemidji State. His eye-popping baseball career earned him an induction into the Bemidji State Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012. However, it was just the first of a few inductions.

Noga's love for athletics turned him from a player to a coach, leading 90 varsity seasons across a plethora of different high school sports in Akeley and Parkers Prairie.

Noga got involved in every sport he could get his hands on, but the one that stood out was girls basketball. By the time he retired at the end of the 2021-22 season, Noga had piled up 619 career wins over 38 seasons, 17 conference championships, five subsection championships, one section championship and a third-place finish in the 2010 Class A state tournament.

On Oct. 28, Noga was inducted into the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Already a member of the BSU and BHS groups of honored sports figures, it was another feather in the cap of a coaching career that began with humble beginnings.

"To me, it's been such a great ride," Noga said. "When I was still in college, I was asked by a couple of coaches at Bemidji High School ... to coach eighth-grade girls basketball. It was a nice way to make some extra cash, so I did it, and look at what it became. I'm very grateful."

Noga progressed to the helm of a freshman high school basketball team in Bemidji during his senior year at BSU. While coaching in a tournament hosted by Bemidji State, a team from Akeley caught his eye.

"I said to myself, 'Geez, I'd like to coach those guys someday,'" Noga continued. "I got lucky because I ended up getting to coach them for a couple of years."

Akeley gave him his start in 1984, where he spent two years before moving to Parkers Prairie. Before Akeley became a co-op program with Walker and Hackensack, it notched a 15-win season under Noga.

But when Akeley consolidated its athletic programs, Noga was on the outside looking in. His ambition to be a head coach pushed him to the Alexandria area in 1986. His move to Parkers Prairie wasn't permanent at the time, but the town's camaraderie made him feel at home.

"I liked the situation at Parkers," Noga said. "A few other places offered me jobs, but it was more junior high stuff. I had already coached at the varsity level and didn't want to take a step back. We liked the town, and it was close enough to Bemidji. We could see our relatives. And then we just fell in love with the place. Now Sari and Micaela both live here, and we're grandparents now."

Noga and his wife of 39 years, Nancy, raised two daughters in Parkers Prairie — Sari and Micaela. Sari scored 3,571 points for the Panthers before graduating in 2010. She played collegiately for the University of Minnesota until 2014. Micaela's high school resume led her to Minnesota Crookston from 2015-18. She scored 2,417 points before graduating high school in 2014.

"When I left Akeley for Parkers Prairie, I had a choice between coaching the boys or coaching the girls," Noga said. "I had a good experience coaching the girls, and my wife enjoys girls basketball, so I coached the girls. And I'm glad I did because I got the opportunity to coach both of my daughters and a lot of great young ladies over the years. It's been really a joy being able to do that."

But Noga isn't one to limit himself to the fruits of just one sport. Growing up in Bemidji, he tried everything. By the time he got to high school, football, basketball and baseball were how he stayed active year-round.

Parkers Prairie gave Noga the chance to stay involved. Two years after moving to the area, he and his wife started the fastpitch softball program. Noga was the team's only head coach before retiring in 2022. He also coached boys basketball, football and baseball, and still serves as the school's Director of Athletics even after his retirement from coaching.

"It's the way I grew up," Noga said. "You went from football season to basketball season to baseball season. I just continued on doing that through my teaching and coaching because I didn't know anything else. Honestly, I would've been bored if I hadn't done it.

"Over time, you started to see the kids play only one sport or two sports instead of three sports. I always liked the kids who played three sports. The community here has always backed the sports teams. The administration has backed the sports teams. There was never the negativity that you sometimes see or hear of from other places. They rooted for you and the kids."

After 38 accomplished seasons, Noga ended his coaching career in 2022. It was a heavy decision that he said came at the right time.

"When I was getting to that point where I was contemplating retirement, we had some younger people in place that I knew wanted and were ready to be head coaches," Noga said. "That's how I was at the time when I was younger. I sat down and thought to myself about how I coached 90 seasons across those sports at the varsity level. I just said to myself, 'It's time to be done.' I felt this calmness come over me. It was time to be done."

Noga said there are too many individual moments that stick out when asked about his favorite coaching memory. He gushed about getting the chance to coach his daughters, including the Panthers' trip to the state tournament in 2010. He loved seeing each player get their moment, no matter the significance of their role on the team. He loved the long bus rides to road games and the shoulder-to-shoulder atmosphere in the Parkers Prairie gym.

But the one thing that kept him coming back was the same thing that made him one of the all-time greats.

"My wife always told me that I seemed to get the best out of my players," Noga said. "I prided myself on that. It's taking one kid or a whole team and figuring out what we could do with each player to make the team the best it could be, whether that's a conference championship, section championship or a team that wins 10 games. It's just about reaching their full potential."