After Friday’s come and gone, and Jennifer Nauertc’s efforts are done, she’ll have every chance to step back and catch her breath.
She has no intention of doing so.
“I’m gonna be on pins and needles until we find out the results,” she told the Register in a telephone interview.
Nauertc, the former Jennifer Freeman, has spearheaded concerted efforts since last October to get her father — retired high school football coach Bill Freeman — elected to the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Voting concludes Friday, although the 2014 inductees won’t be announced until early this summer. That’s when Nauertc will learn whether her countless emails, letters and phone calls were fruitful.
A glimpse at her father’s statistics should make his election a no-brainer. In 36 years, including a stint at Le Roy High School, his teams had a 242-81-3 record, with eight state championships.
Freeman won fictional state titles in Osawatomie (2) and Le Roy (1) before the state playoff system was introduced in 1969.
His heyday, however, came as head coach at Lawrence High School, where his teams won five state championships between 1979 and 1989.
Among those he coached were future NFL players, including Lynn Dickey, Derrick Jensen, Jeff Wright, Bucky Scribner and Keith DeLong. Freeman also coached Lawrence High track and field teams to state titles in 1989 and 1990.
On the sidelines or in the stands for most of them was his doting daughter.
“I was at almost every game from 1974 to 1990,” she recalled.
Almost.
Nauertc recalled one Halloween night when she had a choice of watching her father coach or going trick-or-treating.
She chose the latter. Her father’s team lost.
“He blamed me for that one,” she said with a chuckle. “He didn’t have his good luck charm. I didn’t miss another one.”
It was connecting with her father’s former players that has made Nauertc’s efforts these past several months most enjoyable, she said.
She recalled traveling with her father to Oakland to visit Jensen, who was a standout special teams player who scored a touchdown after blocking a punt in Super Bowl XVIII.
