BILLINGS — A chorus of good-natured boos cascaded onto John Krebs after his name was announced during pre-match introductions to Thursday’s girls soccer contest at Lockwood High School
Krebs, the Billings Central coach, tipped off beforehand that he would be met with such a greeting, turned toward the source of the refrain in the stadium stands, flashed a big grin, and gave a gentle wave.
Just as the booing subsided, a lone voice called out, “We love you, John!”
That’s the kind of evening it was at Lockwood’s soccer field, a night of mixed emotions and, yes, some fun. Especially when the match was over, a 4-1 Central win. That’s when a sense of relief washed over John and his daughters, Maycee and Kennady, an ending to a game that the Krebs family had been anxiously tiptoeing around for some time.
After all, it isn’t very often that a father coaches and tries to win a contest against his offspring. Kennady is a senior and Maycee a freshman on the Lockwood team.
“Today, I was super stressed, and I kept thinking about it, you know,” John said following the match. “And in fact, when I got here today, I told my assistant coach, I feel like I want to throw up.”
Spoiler alert: He didn’t. But it doesn’t change the fact that none of the Krebs truly knew how they would process such a unique occurrence.
It all came about when John switched jobs. He spent the prior season as coach of the boys’ program at Lockwood, the school where Kennady had played for the previous three seasons. Maycee played for the Lions last year as an eighth grader.
But when the girls’ job at Billings Central came open this spring, John figured he had to make the move, if possible. John had coached many of the Rams players during club season and he felt comfortable within that context. It just seemed like a better fit.
When offered the job, John took it, creating somewhat of a dilemma for his daughters. Due to the 90-day transfer rule, Kennady and Maycee would be ineligible to play for the Rams if they followed their father to Billings Central.
In the final analysis, it didn’t matter. Kennady was determined to play out her senior season with her high school teammates, and Maycee wanted to play with her sister in Kennady’s final year.
And so came Thursday night.
“From the beginning, I went through our schedule, and it sucks that our (Billings Central and Lockwood) schedules line up so much,” Kennady said. “We played six games and he's only been able to come to one. So, like, that's been hard. But, yeah, I've been, like, not dreading it, but I haven't been like, excited to play them.”
Both Kennady and Maycee acquitted themselves well in defeat. Kennady made plenty of saves, including four during a five-minute stretch in the second half to keep the game deadlocked at 1-1. Maycee, a holding midfielder, helped the Lions hold Billings Central at bay until the final 19 minutes when the Rams, who are one of the most potent teams in Class A, finally opened the floodgates.
John appeared to be dispassionate early in the match, almost as if he were processing what was happening, and he sat passively on a foldout seat when the Rams scored just 30 seconds into the match.
As the match remained tight throughout the remainder of the first half and much of the second, he warmed up to his coaching role and became immersed in the task at hand. But with each subsequent goal his team scored, he kept his celebrations to a minimum. He was happy his team scored, for sure, but also didn’t want to betray his daughters on the other side.
“I've never done this before, so it's that fine line of being supportive to my team, but also, you know, in the back of your head, you're always thinking about your kids,” he said. “And so, I didn't want to show too much emotion. But normally I'm super supportive of my team.”
Kennady had no trouble showing her emotions. From her spot in goal, she was continually directing her defensive teammates, and after each big save, pounded her chest, certainly mentally if not literally. And she vociferously exuded her teammates to keep pushing on as the teams reached their respective sidelines at halftime, tied 1-1.
Kennady took the match almost personally, given her position on the field, compared to Maycee, who is part of an overall defensive unit.
“I think the hardest part was knowing he was on the other side, going against me, like his goal was to score on me,” Kennady said, emphasizing the word me each time. “This is the first time I've ever played against him, like he's always been my coach, or my parent, never the opposing team. So, I mean, that was a little weird.”
At least the weirdness is over, for now. The teams will have to play again at least one more time later this season, perhaps twice, depending on how the playoff situation turns out.
It’s been a lot of buildup, and it hit particularly this week as the match date came down to days instead of weeks and months.
They could all tell themselves how they thought they were going to feel. Now the Krebs know how it actually felt.
“I just had so many emotions,” Kennady said. “I was sad that he was coaching against me and, I did think about it, how he's literally trying to go against me, like he's trying to make his girls score on me. … But I think it'll be still hard, but probably easier (the next game). We know what it feels like.”
For John, it was the best of both worlds. His new team won, and yet his daughters played to the best of their abilities in trying to prevent that.
“By the end, it was super fun, glad we got to play a good, hard-fought game,” he said. “I'm super proud of how my team did, and I'm super proud of how my girls did.”
Earlier in the week, John’s wife Bridget told him she was going to boo him for fun, so he had an inclination of what was going to happen at the introductions. After the match, John learned that the family’s youngest daughter, 9-year-old Blakely, was recruiting Lockwood followers to boo her father.
Talk about a tough crowd.
“I didn’t think it was going to be as loud as it was,” John said. “I love to have fun like that and enjoyed how enthusiastic they were with it. We like to keep things light, if you couldn’t tell.”
Kennady does have a fun feistiness about her, referring to her father once or twice as the “enemy.” When both father and daughter were home for lunch on matchday, Kennady told John, “I shouldn’t be talking to you right now.”
By the end of Thursday night, there were smiles all around as the three gathered for a group photo under the Lockwood stadium lights. The families’ good-natured ribbing can slide back into the background for a couple more weeks and normalcy can return.
John just has to be ready to eat his lunch in silence on Oct. 10.
