Wolken has been splitting time between St. Joseph, Ill. and College Station, Texas, for the past five years.
Courtesy of St. Joseph-Ogden Yearbook
This spring will be much less hectic for the Wolken family, because they have moved back home after living in College Station, Texas, for five years. It was a very unusual situation. His wife, Lana, had taken a job as director of transportation at Texas A&M University and they lived there together for eight months. However, each February he would return to St. Joseph, Ill., to coach softball.
"It was a long commute," he understated. "Some weekends she would fly here. It was not an easy situation. I loved softball."
Randy and Lana were high school sweethearts. They started dating after they were crowned king and queen, respectively, at St. Joseph-Ogden. You might say it was "love at first crowning."
Anyways, they have two children and five grandchildren and have been married for more than 41 years.
Wolken had given up his basketball coaching after 25 years with the Spartans and retired as a math teacher seven years ago.
Wolken retired as a math teacher seven
years ago.
Courtesy of St. Joseph-Ogden Yearbook
He explained that he dropped basketball because it was such a long season.
"I had to compete in the whole summer and it was a huge time commitment," he said. "It overlapped a little bit and I'd have pitchers working on the side while basketball practice was going on."
Though he's obviously a great coach, Wolken was also an outstanding math teacher for 34 years and he always went the extra mile for his students.
"Randy didn't take a lunch break," said Winchester. "He would take a sack lunch and sit in his room surrounded by students. They'd come in and he'd help them with their math. He was a good teacher and had good rapport with the kids. Kids also would come up to him on the bus for away games and he'd help them."
How much does he love his students?
Just ask Brooke Earl, a former right-handed pitcher. She had a serious brain injury from a freak accident. While she was in a coma, he made a special promise to her: If she would get well, he would fulfill one of her goals that year and give up one of his favorite coaching antics.
His girls always knew when he was really mad, because he would take off his hat, throw it on the ground and kick it. Well, she did recover, and Winchester said that though Wolken sometimes doffs his hat, he has never kicked it since then.
Wolken recalled, "I had to get a new hat every year, because it got pretty messed up. I was just letting off steam. It's a little bit tough not to throw it. I'm getting milder. In basketball, it was my sports coat. I threw it a couple times in the stands."
When he's not coaching, he's probably attending St. Louis Cardinals baseball games or growing tomatoes in his garden. Presently, however, he's got four solid returning starters for 2013. And don't expect him to retire soon, because softball has obviously gained a powerful grip on him over the years.
