Tonganoxie High soccer coach Brian Kroll, aka Coach

Ask a Tonganoxie High soccer player what he thinks about Brian Kroll, and he likely will stare blankly back at you, clueless about whom you’re talking.

Ask a Chieftain about “Coach K,” though, and he will gush about the THS assistant soccer coach’s knowledge of the game and his ability to transfer that wisdom to the players.

What many of Tonganoxie’s soccer players don’t realize is that Kroll and K are the same.

Coach K joined head coach Ken Lott as his aide and junior varsity head coach this season, and from jump street the boisterous new assistant with dark shades and a backward, black visor has only been identified with that one letter.

It’s all part of his intense coaching persona. But why not tell the players his surname?

“He’s probably like in the witness-protection program,” senior Austin Smith jokingly guessed earlier this season.

Not quite, K countered.

“I’m their coach. I’m not their friend, I’m not their buddy,” he said in a warm tone that contradicted the coldness of the statement. “I’m there to teach them the game of soccer.”

But there’s more to it than that. Kroll started coaching his son’s youth soccer team years ago and has gone by “Coach K” on the sideline ever since. Not coincidentally, his coaching idol is Duke University men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, the world’s foremost Coach K.

When the new assistant asked to be known by his nickname, Lott had no problem.

“It’s just kind of a mysterious thing,” Lott said. “The kids are still trying to get to know him, and he’s keeping that on the side just so they have that curiosity and interest.”

Lott’s interest immediately was sparked the first time he saw Kroll in action. Already in search of a new assistant, Lott, working as an official at a youth recreational soccer league in the area, was impressed with the skill and demeanor displayed by all the young players on Kroll’s team. Upon meeting him, Lott said there was just something he liked about the enthusiastic coach without knowing exactly what it was. But soon a relationship was forged, and, before long, the two were working together on the Tonganoxie sideline. When Coach K arrived with Lott at preseason practices, players knew things were going to be different.

“He was intimidating at first,” senior Jamison Bloomer recalled. “Once you get to know him, he’s a good guy.”

Any intimidation likely came from the Kroll’s intensity, a drastic change from the laid-back Lott.

Coach K doesn’t mind being the staff mouthpiece.

“Coach Lott and I are extremely compatible when it comes to our coaching styles,” Kroll said. “The biggest difference is the delivery.”

Bloomer said Coach K’s approach works.

“He’s got a good way of teaching the game,” he said. “He loves it just as much as we do.”

The energetic assistant said the biggest reason the players have responded so well to a new voice was because Lott has been at THS long enough that the players became too comfortable with him. Then Coach K walked through the door and immediately made that comfort level disappear.

“No name. Just a letter,” as he put it.

Before the first junior varsity game of the season, he had the players doing push-ups.

Even though he has a Navy background, Coach K is not just a fiery drill sergeant. Sure, he punishes the players for mistakes, but he also rewards them for success. He has hooked the Chieftains up with Kansas City Wizards tickets and gone to Gambino’s with them for pizza.

“The things that he does off the field make us play better on the field,” Bloomer said.

Despite owning a losing record, the Chieftains are improving as they embark on the final six games of their regular-season schedule.

“Everything that coach (Lott) and I have been saying since the beginning of the season is starting to come to fruition,” Coach K said. “The light is starting to shine.”

Kroll said much of the me-first mentality that plagued the team before the season has disappeared.

Even though he “would love to be a head coach, eventually,” Kroll said he is happy at THS, and he does not have any immediate plans to leave.

“As long as the community, the kids, (and) the administration want me, I would love to be there,” he said.

Most of all, he is happy with the relationship he has with coach Lott and their tag-team approach. It is all a bit unbelievable for the Lansing native, who was a successful track athlete competing against THS in his prep days.

“I never, in a million years, ever would have dreamed I would be coaching for Tonganoxie,” Kroll said with a laugh. “I’m glad I am.”