After a year-long battle with cancer, Lynden High School's football coach Curt Kramme died over the weekend.
He coached football for 26 years at Lynden, while also teaching weight lifting and mathematics.
"He was a leader, one of the greatest leaders I can think of," said Tanner Steele, a senior and co-captain of the football team. "The way he'd want to be remembered is as a good coach, but more for his character. He was more than a coach. He was a teacher in the classroom and he taught us how to be men. It wasn't just winning football. It was about acting the right way on and off the field."
"He taught me a lot of life lessons," said Edward Andrews, also a senior and co-captain. "We didn't know if he'd be able to coach this year. That really motivated us. We wanted this season for him. Made it all the way to semi finals for him."
Steele and Andrews said Kramme attended their games and practices even while undergoing treatment for cancer.
Kramme also coached the girls' golf team.
"He meant a lot to me," said Jade Ming, a junior on the team. "He had a saying, 'don't count your chickens before they hatch.'"
Kramme also had a saying for the football team: setback, comeback.
"Every time in your life you have a setback, you have to come back," said Andrews. "Whether that be on the football field, in school, job life, he always told us - you're going to have setbacks in life. The setbacks don't matter as much as how hard or how well you come back."
