[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 2 (Monday, January 6, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S31-S32]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING JERRY APPLEBEE

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, last week I received news that my high 
school basketball and track coach, Jerry Applebee, had died. I want to 
take a moment here on the Senate floor to pay tribute to him.
  He was a deeply formative figure for me in my teenage years, setting 
an example for us players of hard work, determination, and 
sportsmanship. Together with my dad, also a coach, he founded the Jones 
County Invitational Basketball Tournament, which is my hometown's 
annual regular-season basketball tournament--the longest running 
tournament of its kind in South Dakota, started back in the 1960s--an 
event I played in and still love attending to this day.
  Among the memories I have of Coach Applebee, a lot of them are around 
that auditorium. And the floor there--the court--is called the Jerry 
Applebee Court in his honor. As I recall my days playing basketball 
there, there was one thing that you never could miss in any game in 
which he was involved, and that was his loud voice bouncing off the 
ceiling in that auditorium. That auditorium was built in 1954. At the 
time, it was kind of the Taj Mahal among auditoriums--gymnasiums--in my 
part of South Dakota, and, to this day, it continues to serve our 
school

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and the surrounding schools really well. Some opposing teams refer to 
it as ``the barn.'' But the one thing you were always sure of when 
Murdo-Jones County was playing a basketball game, you could hear Coach 
Applebee anywhere in the gymnasium because he had a raspy, strong, 
resonant, deep voice, and he was not afraid to use it. I remember that 
in the basketball gymnasium, and I remember it on the track as well.
  One of my clearest memories of Coach Applebee--or ``App,'' as we 
called him--happened during my senior year. We were playing in the 
district championship game with a chance to go on in the playoffs and 
make it, ultimately, to the State tournament, which was every kid in my 
hometown's aspiration. Those of us who loved sports always dreamed of 
playing in the State basketball tournament--something that I had been, 
from the time I was a kindergartner, aspiring to have the opportunity 
to do.
  We got the last chance my senior year, in a district championship 
game. We were playing our archrival, Lyman County, in their gymnasium. 
As was typically the case, it was a back-and-forth game. They were 
ahead by a point at the end of the first quarter, we were ahead by a 
point at halftime, and they were ahead by a point in the third quarter.
  It got down to the end of the game. We were down 1 point, with 5 
seconds left on the clock. So Coach Applebee calls time-out. We huddle 
on the sidelines. He calls the play. We break the huddle. My teammates 
inbound the ball. I had a teammate that came down and set a screen for 
me on the baseline. I came out--today, to what would be the 3-point 
line, although we didn't have the 3-point line back in that day--and I 
fired off a shot that I would hope was going to win the game and take 
us on to the regional playoffs.
  Well, it came off the back of the rim. It didn't go down. There were 
a lot of people in the gym that thought it was going to, but it didn't.
  Obviously, after the game--my last opportunity at pursuing a chance 
to play in the State basketball tournament--I was sitting in the locker 
room by myself. Most of the team had gotten on the bus, and they were 
waiting for some of the rest of us and for the coaches.
  Coach Applebee came over to me, and he tapped me on the shoulder, and 
he said: ``John, it's time to get on the bus. And, by the way, track 
starts next week.'' He knew I wasn't a big fan of track. Track wasn't 
my favorite sport, but he was sending an important message. That 
message is: Look, you gave it your best shot. You gave it everything 
you had. There is always another sport, another day, and you will have 
another opportunity down the road to do what you want to do.
  So that was a really important message and very affirming to me at a 
time as a young athlete who felt not only had I let myself down but I 
had let my teammates down as well. I will never forget that comment he 
made to me at that critical time in what was early, early in my sports 
career.
  Well, I just remembered, too, later that year, his coming and pulling 
me out of class--I think it was an English class--to tell me that I had 
made the all-State basketball team's first team. As he came out and 
kind of pointed at me and signaled this way, I thought, ``Oh, no. What 
have I done now?'' But we got out in the hallway, and he couldn't have 
been more excited to share that news. It was an example, again, of how 
invested he was in the success of the players he coached and the 
people--the young kids--around him. He was also the principal of the 
high school and wanted to see them succeed and do well in life.
  Well, of course, track season was the next season. In my hometown, 
oftentimes, we had, you know, a lot of snow in the winter, and 
sometimes it didn't get dried up in the spring or if we had a wet 
spring, for that matter--the track where we ran was a dirt track. It 
was north of town, and it was a fairly low spot. So, oftentimes, the 
track was wet. To do our conditioning, particularly early in the 
season, we would run city blocks. A block would be like the equivalent 
of about a 400 repeat, and we would run a series of those. We would do 
our long warmup runs, and we would run city blocks.
  The other thing we would do is we would go down to the airport south 
of town. The airport south of town has a little landing strip, and it 
is about a half a mile long. My colleague Senator Rounds here has 
probably flown into it. He is a pilot. But we would run down. There was 
about 2.2 miles to get down there, so that was kind of our warmup run, 
and then we would do our workouts on the airport runway. We would all 
line up at one end of the runway, and Coach Applebee would be down at 
the other end of the runway. If you have ever seen a half mile along a 
straightaway, he looked like this little figure down there. And we 
would all line up, and sometimes you could even inch forward a little 
bit because he couldn't see you--he was so far away--but he always knew 
what you were up to, and you could hear him. Even then, you could hear 
him.
  I remember, later that year, running at the State track meet in Sioux 
Falls, which is a lot larger outdoor place that we ran, and Howard Wood 
Field in Sioux Falls seats somewhere on the order of 12,000 people, but 
even in a crowded outdoor arena, you could hear his voice up in the 
crowd. It was unmistakable. He was always barking something out--in 
many cases, admonishing you to do better, to run harder, to be more 
successful.
  So I am just grateful for the impact that he had on my life, and as I 
think about the admonition from him of ``track starts next week,'' 
there is always another day. We have to get up and do our work and make 
sure that we are doing the best that we can to accomplish our work here 
on behalf of the American people.
  So those are the lessons that I have taken with me: Accept your 
losses, and get to work on the next thing. It is one of the many 
lessons that has stuck with me from Coach Applebee. I am going to miss 
seeing Coach Applebee on my visits to Murdo, and I remain deeply 
grateful for everything he taught me along the way. And I want his 
family to know my thoughts and prayers are with them, with his loved 
ones.
  And I will just say: Rest in peace, Coach Applebee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate majority leader.

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