By Rodney Haas 

605 Sports 

WACONIA, Minn. — Imagine for a second you’re sitting in the doctor’s office and told your life is entering the final two minutes of the fourth quarter.

How would one react to the news of their own mortality staring at them in the mirror?  

Perhaps you would find inspiration from Tim McGraw’s song’ “Live Like You Were Dying.” 

For Mitchell native Carl Pierson, that’s exactly what he is doing. 

Pierson, a member of the Mitchell Kernels 1994 Class AA state championship team, and who on a winter night nearly 30 years ago at the Corn Palace, was called for goal-tending a free throw; was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after the release of his second book, “The Other Side of Glory” in Jan. 2022. 

Since then, Pierson has been engaged in a battle for his life, while also coming to grips with the realization the end game is near.   

“My initial thought was, they are going to take care of this and I’m going to be fine,” said Pierson from his home in Waconia where he’s lived for the past 12 years, and where he taught government and coached girls basketball. “Because we see that a lot with cancer. Doctors and modern medicine are able to do surgeries and effectively cure a lot of different types of cancer. So I wasn’t in panic mode.” 

In the weeks that followed the diagnoses, Pierson and his wife Jean struggled to sleep as the anxiety of not knowing started to sink in. 

“You start to think about your kids and all the bad things that could happen,” Pierson said. “So It didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks when I was told. I would say the anxiety accumulated over the course of the seven to 10 days after the diagnosis.”

A journey of optimism and coming to grips with a sober reality 

At first, the outlook was good. Pierson headed to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. on Feb. 14, about a month after his initial diagnosis where he would have radiation, chemo and prepare for surgery. 

However, as Pierson was getting hooked up for his first round of chemo, a physician's assistant walked in and said they had to put everything on hold. 

Tests had come back showing a tiny spot on his liver that might be cancerous. At the time Pierson didn’t know the difference between Stage 2 and Stage 4 but when the biopsy came back positive, he was told he was Stage 4 and surgery was no longer an option. 

“We went down there very hopeful, a few days before being told they would be able to cure me, and then everything changed,” Pierson said. “A few days later it was determined the spot in my liver was cancerous and now that’s when they had the talk with me that I was terminal.” 

Pierson added from Martin Luther King Day when he was first diagnosed to Feb. 21 when he was told his cancer was terminal, it was a roller coaster of emotions and feelings going from hopeful to terminal. 

What followed was a series of clinical trials between the Mayo Clinic and Cancer Treatment Centers in Chicago in an effort to find a miracle. 

One such clinical trial he participated in showed a lot of promise for other people, but unfortunately for Pierson, he was not one of them. 

He said after 30 days, his doctors told him he had considerably more cancer in his liver, while the other spots in his body had stayed the same.  

“The comment from my doctor is that you have innumerable lesions on your liver. That was pretty sobering,” Pierson said.

Throughout his cancer journey and the different clinical trials, Pierson and Jean have been updating their friends and family on their CaringBridge page.

In March, Jean wrote on the site how Pierson was getting ready to participate in CAR-T therapy. 

“The cancer journey is never straight — it’s a winding path with lots of hills and valleys — and getting to this point in the clinical trial was no exception,” Jean wrote on CaringBridge on March 23, 2023. “Multiple rounds of testing, finding out he was eligible for the trial but there were no spots available, getting the call that a spot became available, and several delays to the start of the trial. But we made it.”

As part of the trial, Pierson received modified t-cells and was required to remain in the hospital to monitor any side effects. 

According to Jean’s post, she wrote one of the cognitive tests doctors had Pierson do was write the same sentence every four hours to monitor his handwriting and he needed to choose a short sentence. 

“For those of you that know Carl, you know how much he loves his quotes and thoughts for the day, so he wrestled with settling on the right one,” Jean wrote. “Carl has chosen to write, ‘Never tell me the odds,’ which continues his positive trajectory on this journey.”    

Pierson’s words “Never tell me the odds,” were later made into a T-shirt by a Mitchell High School classmate and sold to help raise money for his family. 

But while at first the trial showed signs of success as it held things in check and slowed the progression, by October it was a different story. 

A CT scan showed the cancer was back and spreading — leaving Pierson with limited options. 

A few weeks ago, Pierson had a procedure done in which doctors inserted a stint in his liver so he could get back onto chemo.   

“I’m really down to two options left and they’ve (doctors) acknowledged there’s a reason why they keep these at the bottom of the list,” Pierson said. “They don’t work or they don’t work long. So my goal is to get through the holidays. If they get in there and determine they can’t put a stint, then it’s probably starting hospice.”

For Pierson, Jean and their two boys Boston, 14, and Colton, 11, this Thanksgiving and Christmas will be filled with a lot of emotions. 

“We update our sons but we don’t necessarily give all the details all the time. We were trying to keep life as normal for them for as long as we can,” Pierson said of how his family is handling his illness. “I think my wife, I think she was still in denial until about a month ago. She was thinking ‘Oh we’re going to find something that’s going to work’ and now I think she’s come to the realization that’s probably not going to be the case and I think she’s preparing herself for the inevitable like I’ve been for the last several months.” 

Pierson added he took the time to make videos for his sons — telling them stories he had long planned to tell them as they got older, and videos to allow him to be there when his sons get their drivers’ license and when they graduate high school. 

But while the videos will allow Pierson to be with his family during those future moments, it’s the past moments and the journey of crossing bucket list items off the list that will last a lifetime for both Pierson and his family.  

 

Carl Pierson and his family stand in front of the left field Green Monster scoreboard at Fenway Park in Boston during an April, 2022 trip.

 

A summer of love of baseball and family 

Growing up in Mitchell, Pierson was an avid baseball fan. So much so he considered it a religion. He later played VFW teener and American League baseball and played for the Mitchell Commercial Bank amateur team. In 1996 as player/manager, Pierson led the Bankers to the Sunshine League title but fell to the Mitchell Moonlite Bar in the city playoffs. 

“That still hurts,” said Pierson of the Bankers’ playoff loss 27 years later. “Scott Giblin had two of his three career home runs and one of them came in Game 3 to beat us.”  

After graduating from Mitchell High, Pierson attended college at Northern State University in Aberdeen before settling in the Twin-Cities area. 

But throughout Pierson’s journeys in life, the one constant thing for him has been baseball. 

“Baseball has always been my first love,” he said. “It connects generations like no other sport can or does because it’s been such a huge part of our country’s culture for so much longer than any other sport.” 

For a high school government teacher and an avid baseball fan, Pierson and his family would embark on a must-see buck list of ballparks and cities, all the while trying to catch as many Minnesota Twins games as they can. 

“It’s been beyond special,” Pierson said of his travels with his family. “Our oldest son doesn't just dislike sports, he has the deepest disdain for it. He does not like sports at all. So on all these trips we’ve done other things too besides going to the ballpark.

“I know for myself and my other son who’s 11 and absolutely loves baseball. Visiting those ballparks has been the highlight of those trips for us.”

Pierson’s bucket list travels took him and his family to Boston’s Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium in New York to close out the 2022 baseball season. They resumed their travels this past season with trips to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and Oracle Park in San Francisco. 

In August, Pierson and his family made their last trip to Philadelphia for a Phillies-Twins game. It was there where the Philadelphia sports fan almost got to Carl before the cancer could.  

“Seeing the Twins win in Philadelphia was fantastic,” Pierson said. “He and (my youngest son Colton) standing up and cheering and getting booed by the Phillies fans. Me doing the Hulk Hogan and egging them on. I was waving my hand and putting it up to my ear. Let me hear, yeah. Then people started giving me the finger. I just loved it. 

“Our oldest son goes, ‘Dad, you have to calm down. You can’t possibility fight all these people.”’

Pierson was able to escape Citizens Bank Ballpark with his life and the next day the government teacher took hold when he took his kids to Independence Hall the place where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution where signed.  

“It was just a great trip for the game and the great history of our country I was able to share with our sons, " Pierson said.

 

Carl Pierson with his wife Jean, and sons Boston and Colton during a Phillies-Twins game at Citizens Bank Ballpark in Philadelphia. (Photo courtesy of Carl Pierson facebook)
:

In addition to visiting Fenway Park, Pierson and his family would also visit another legendary baseball cathedral in Chicago’s Wrigley Field before heading to the Field of Dreams movie site  near Dyersville, Iowa. 

“Visiting Fenway and Wrigley could rightfully be described as a religious experience for me,” Pierson said. “Both (ballparks) moved me to tears.” 

While the site of Fenway Park’s Green Monster and the ivy covered outfield wall of Wrigley Field brought Pierson to tears, it was the experience of playing catch with his sons — on a movie site made famous for a son having a catch with his dad that brought Pierson peace.   

“It was a dream come true,” he said while holding back tears. “To get some video of me playing catch with my boys, even the one that doesn’t play baseball. He put on a glove and played catch with me. I know that is something that they are going to appreciate years from now. When they watch that movie, they will remember that we were there together and that we did that. That was really special.” 

Pierson and his family made the trip to Iowa during a time when he quickly realized there would be no corn. Perhaps it was a disappointment for him to not get the full experience, but the baseball gods would make it up to him by allowing him, Jean, Colton and Boston to have the place to themselves for about a half hour. 

“It was just me and my sons and my wife. It was almost spiritual,” Pierson said.  

Perhaps it was heaven? 

“Maybe it was a sneak preview. I don’t know,” he said, choking up with emotions. 

The coaching bug bites 

While baseball has been Pierson’s first love, perhaps his second love would be coaching, a bug that bit him during his junior year at Mitchell High when he realized being a lawyer and politician was not in the cards for him. 

“I thought to myself if politics doesn't work. What happens if you lose. Do you want to go back to being a lawyer for the rest of my life? Not really,” Pierson said. “Then the other thing that happened my junior year is I realized I’m no good at basketball. So I didn’t go out for basketball my junior year but instead I coached fifth and sixth grade park and rec basketball with Jason Christensen and absolutely fell in love with it. That was my first coaching experience and I just loved every second of it. That’s when I realized I’m going to be a high school teacher and a coach.”

Pierson would return to the basketball floor for his senior year and made a deal with coach Gary Munsen where he would never complain about playing time and would always bust his butt in practice. Because for Pierson, it wasn’t about getting in the game, it was about sitting on the bench and learning from a legendary coach. 

“I don’t have a lot of family members that have passed away. I kinda hope that coach Munsen is there to greet me when I go,” he said, holding back tears. “He’s always felt like a family member. He always treated me and all of his other players that way. But he certainly opened the door for a lot of opportunities.” 

Pierson would return to Mitchell following his freshman year in college and coach VFW teeners and junior legion baseball. 

After graduating college, Pierson would land a teaching job in Red Wing, Minnesota, before eventually settling in Waconia where he taught for the past 12 years. This year, he started his 13th year at the school before his illness caused him to walk out of the classroom for the final time in September.   

“I loved my job,” Pierson said. “I loved teaching and considered myself exceptionally fortunate to get to go to school everyday and have fun and help kids understand really important topics. 

“I had told my wife years ago. I had no intention of retiring. I couldn’t even imagine what I could do in retirement. I guess this is the only way they could get me out of the classroom.” 

 

Through out his teaching career, Carl Pierson would make it a point to write an inspiration quote on the whiteboard. Pictured is the quote he left his students when he walked out of the classroom for the final time in September. (Photo courtesy of Carl Pierson facebook)
:

 

Pierson spent the first eight years at Waconia as the head girls basketball coach, which included a trip back to Mitchell during his final season when his team played at the Hoop City Classic in the Corn Palace.  

“Boy I’m really glad I (quit coaching when he did) because I got two years to just be a dad and a husband and before that diagnosis came,” Pierson said. “When you’re coaching it’s just so time consuming. I will always be grateful that I stepped aside when I did and got to focus on just being a dad and a husband.” 

In addition to being a husband, father, school teacher, coach, Pierson became a published author in 2011 when he wrote “The Politics of Coaching.”

It was an idea that came to him following a visit with a friend who had just been fired from his coaching position. 

Pierson said this is a guy who did everything right. He was successful on the court, worked with his youth program and had an outstanding summer off season program. 

“When he got fired it came as a huge shock to him and to a lot of us,” Pierson said. “But then when I spent the weekend with him to kinda talk it over. Being a political science major and someone who has been involved in politics my whole life, I realized there were a lot of red flags that he missed out on. There were things going on away from basketball. He just kept his focus on coaching, but there were warning signs of people that were out to get him and people that were out to get him fired.”

Pierson added after the conversation with his friend, he realized the same thing was probably happening to thousands of coaches across the country. Because of this, he decided to write the book to help equip coaches to prevent those political problems and to prevail when they do come up. 

“That’s what the Politics of Coaching is,” he said. “It’s not a book about how to reach the moral high ground in coaching. It’s a book about how to survive.” 

In the 12 years it's been out, the book has been sold globally and according to Pierson, he’s confident it's been read by at least 10,000 coaches. 

“Far better than I ever dreamed,” he said of the success of the book.  “When I wrote it, I thought if I could sell 500 of these that would be pretty cool. At last check I’m knocking on the door of 10,000 sold. That’s actually new copies sold. There’s used copies out there that coaches are buying which I don’t get any money for. So buy a new copy.” 

With the success of his first book, Pierson decided to write a second book titled “The Other Side of Glory” which chronicles the Waconia 2019 team and how they overcame a heartbreaking loss that kept them from reaching the state tournament for the first time in school history, to finishing the job the following season. 

“My JV coach took over as head coach,” Pierson said. “We had come 20 seconds away from making the state tournament for the first time in school history in my last year and he finally got them over the hump and got them to state.”

While Pierson was writing the book and spending time with his family, he got a chance to live out at least one dream when he was elected to the Waconia City Council — serving until his illness forced him to resign in July 2022.  

“I’ve alway been interested in politics and government and running for office was something that I always intended to do at some point,” Pierson said. “City council was a good fit because of the age of our sons. It was only two or three meetings a month. It wasn’t going to take a lot away from my family. But it was still a chance to serve and to get involved. And I really enjoyed it. For the 18 months that I got to do it, I thoroughly enjoyed it.” 

In October 2022, Pierson was inducted into the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. 

 

Carl Pierson wrote two books the Politics of coaching which came out in 2011 and The Other side of Glory which was published in 2021. (Photo courtesy of Carl Pierson facebook)
:

Pierson’s legendary night at the Corn Palace 

Shortly before his diagnosis, Pierson began sketching out plans for a third book that would chronicle some of the great games and stories from the Corn Palace. 

Stories that are still talked about 30 years later and have made the players legends in their own right. Such as the time when a Sioux Falls Washington player scored his only career point thanks to a goal-tend by Pierson.   

“As I said before I wasn’t any good at basketball,” Pierson said of his famous night at the Palace. “I was really lucky to be on the team my senior year. But there were three things that I could do really well. I could jump really well and I was a pretty good shot blocker and I took a lot of pride in that. I could set really good screens. If you needed me to run into a guy on the other team to get Ryan Miller open. I would truck that guy.” 

Pierson took pride in his shot blocking abilities and dreamed of one day sending a ball into the soft seats of Corn Palace. 

However, he knew what his role was for the Kernels and knew his playing time depended upon how big Mitchell’s lead was and if Munsen trusted the game in Pierson's hands. 

Pierson finally got his chance in the Kernels’ final game of the regular season at the Corn Palace against Sioux Falls Washington. 

“As I’m going out there for warmups. Munsen is talking with (Tom) Maxwell and Tim Smith,” Pierson recalled.  “As I walk by, (Munsen says) ‘this Pierson kid says he’s going to goal-tend a shot. They all started laughing and now I’m really pissed. I’m thinking, all I need is that chance. Just put me in.” 

With the Kernels up big and the game entering the final minutes, Pierson finally got his chance. 

For the next three and half minutes Pierson would watch as opportunities would slip by. 

Feeling the pressure, Pierson decided to take matters into his own hands with eight seconds left. 

“I’m really frustrated now and this kid comes driving down the lane and I just clobber him,” Pierson said. “I just deck him. It was out of frustration. Because I said I was going to do this and it’s not looking like it’s going to happen. Then he steps to the free-throw line for the first of two shots. I noticed that the first shot he took was pretty flat and there wasn’t a lot of arch on it. And I thought, ‘I think I can get that.’ 

“So on his second shot as soon as he let it go, I stepped into the lane and jumped up and just before it got to the rim. I sweated it toward the Washington bench.”

Pierson said the reaction of the 2,000 people left at the Corn Palace that night was of disbelief as to what happened and left the referee of not knowing what to call.  

While Pierson was celebrating his moment, he failed to take into account the reaction from the other team. But unbeknownst to him at the time, he did that player a favor. 

“We go into the locker room and when Muns comes in the first thing he says. ‘Carl their coach wanted me to tell you thanks,’ ” Pierson said. “I got confused and I said ‘Why? (Munsen said) ‘That’s the only point that kid scored all season.’ ”

While the Kernels had closed out the regular season with a win, after the game Pierson’s play was still the talk of the Palace that night.

“After the game, KMIT would give out the Arby’s player of the game award and Ryan Miller had 26 points and 14 rebounds and I had two points and a goal-tend and I was the Arby’s player of the game,” Pierson said. “All through college when we were roommates, you better believe I never let him forget it.” 

While upstaging the current Creighton University assistant men’s basketball coach was a highlight for Pierson, the best part of the night came after the game when his parents told him the reaction of some of the fans in attendance that night. 

“My parents were at the game and they didn’t come to very many games, because why would you. I never played,” Pierson said. “But they were at the game and there were these four old ladies sitting in front of them and they didn’t know them and the ladies didn’t know my parents. 

But they said when I goal-tend the shot, one of the old ladies looked at her four friends and went ‘Oh that poor kid. He never plays. He must not know the rules.’ ”

Facing the end game 

Pierson’s legendary night is something that is still talked about nearly 30 years after, and will be talked about long after he’s gone. 

But in the meantime Pierson is enjoying the days he has left, with the people he loves and remembering a life that was well lived, even if cancer has cut it short.  

He added how all his life he wanted to go the way his grandfather did with a sudden heart attack. He said he didn’t want to be languishing and suffering for months. However, he admits his illness and knowing he’s in the bottom of the ninth inning of life has been a blessing. 

As a result, he’s been able to cross bucket list items off the list while preparing his wife and sons for life without him. 

“To be able to do those things has really helped me feel at peace for whenever my time comes,” Pierson said. “I had the chance to do those things. Where if life ended abruptly like it did for my grandfather, all that stuff would’ve been hanging out there and I wouldn’t have the chance to kind of prepare the way I have.”

So how does one face their own mortality? If you are Pierson, who spent the better part of 24  years as a school teacher, you use it as a teachable moment for your students. 

“There’s two things about that,” he said about facing his own mortality. “The first is I said this to one of my classes last spring. ‘You hear people say ‘Don’t take life for granted.’ I said, ‘I disagree with that. By all means take it for granted. That’s a wonderful gift to be able to take your life for granted. I’m in a position where I’m faced with my mortality everyday. What I wouldn't give to take life for granted again and not have this haunting me or lurking over me every single day. I think being able to take life for granted is a blessing.’ ”