Kurt Earl’s words are strong and urgent as Lincoln Christian’s football team finishes practice on a warm Saturday morning in August.

“Run to me, take a knee,” he shouts. “Run to me, take a knee.”

The coach and his 32 players huddle to close the first week of practice, a routine that will take them to their season opener and the start of Earl’s 10th season leading the team.

Part coach, part father figure, part preacher, Earl’s job, he’ll tell you, is really about preparing young men for life. But as he was doing that last fall, Earl himself was preparing for something far more devastating than a Friday-night loss.

“I think if you’d have asked me last year at this time what I was doing,” the coach says matter of factly, “in my heart of hearts, I was preparing to be a widower. We were just trying to get through each day.”

In late January 2024, Earl’s wife Da’Nelle — for some, the heart and soul of Lincoln Christian football — had a grand mal seizure. Two months later, she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an inoperable brain tumor that carries a life expectancy of 12 to 15 months.

Life suddenly looked very different for the Earls. They relied on their faith. And they came to terms with the very real possibility that the 2024 season would be Kurt and Da’Nelle’s last.

But as the weeks ticked by, Da’Nelle kept surprising her doctors. And the Crusaders, regular Class C-1 playoff contenders, kept winning.

It all felt a bit … miraculous.

Then the Crusaders’ season came to an end, short of a state title. Da’Nelle continued notching small victories.

“When my doctors see me, they are still shocked,” she said earlier this summer. “This is so uncommon. Our prayer warriors have been so unbelievable.”

Kurt and Da’Nelle were high school sweethearts in Longmont, Colorado. Standouts on the track team, Da’Nelle a senior and Kurt a sophomore.

“Saucy. Scandalous,” Da’Nelle jokes almost 30 years later.

After graduation, Da’Nelle was off to Liberty University in Virginia, where she was a star middle-distance runner. Two years behind, Kurt was looking for an opportunity to play football, run track and learn how to be a Christian teacher and coach.

“For reasons that we still can’t explain, I ended up at Concordia (University),” he said. “When I became a believer my junior year (of high school), I knew I wanted to be a teacher and coach. And I wanted to do it at some sort of Christian school. Seward is not anywhere like we grew up, but it was just a good fit.”

Da’Nelle was set to get her master’s after undergrad and did what any sane person would do with a boyfriend halfway across the country: She broke up with him.

It lasted only eight months. Da’Nelle had found a master’s program at one of the top schools for her area of study.

“How far are you from Omaha?” she asked the Concordia quarterback.

“About 70 miles,” he said.

They got engaged. Married a year later. Found an apartment in Lincoln. Kurt would drive west to be quarterback and Da’Nelle northeast to complete her master’s in exercise physiology and biomechanics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She did some personal training on the side to help make ends meet.

“I don’t know why we thought any of that was a good plan,” Kurt said.

Out of college, Kurt got a job at Lincoln Christian and Da’Nelle got on as a recruiting assistant for the Nebraska men’s and women’s track teams. Then her dream job came calling: An offer to teach and coach track at the University of Maine.

It was Kurt’s first semester at Lincoln Christian. He was ready for the adventure. But Da’Nelle was starting to love Lincoln. The job at Nebraska was fun, and coach Gary Pepin was able to get her a full-time role. They loved the community at Christian.

“I am much more a ‘pump the brakes’ kind of person,” Da’Nelle said. “We were loving the community here. It was closer to our families.”

“We had made a two-decade decision,” Kurt said.

“Raise your hand now if you think we have anyone on our team who is good enough to not give excellent effort,” Kurt Earl tells his players before launching into a new drill. The team ran it earlier in the week for the first time. This time around, the effort is much better.

“If we can focus on our effort level being high, we can win games,” he tells his troops.

And he means it. Despite rarely fielding the biggest and strongest players, Lincoln Christian has made the playoffs 11 of the 19 seasons Earl has been on the coaching staff. They’ve pulled it off by running a unique offense that makes them one of the most difficult teams for opponents to prepare for.

It took two months for the Earls to know what to prepare for in 2024. Then came the diagnosis.

All of a sudden, Da’Nelle Earl was fighting for her life. Six weeks of chemo, five days a week.

“Everyday at 2:30,” Kurt said. “We brought people with us all but two days. People had timers to pray for us at 2:30.”

By the end of the 2024 school year, she was done with treatment for a month. The Earls decided on a road trip to Arizona. Then in mid-June, a regimen of five days of chemo (all pills) and 23 days off. Out of the 28 days, 10 were extremely difficult.

The 2024 football season was a fog for both Earls. Da’Nelle got about one good hour a day to be with friends. She had missed one game since Kurt became head coach in 2016, but missed two in 2024.

She barely remembers the games she did make it to. Kurt barely remembers the practices. Even a few of the games are hazy.

“I was trying to do everything,” he said. “And I can’t cook.”

His team, though, did everything he asked. When they beat Platteview in October, the Crusaders were 7-2, with narrow losses to eventual semifinalist Auburn and finalist Central City. The Class C-1 playoffs were calling.

“In the day to day, it didn’t feel like we were making any meaningful progress,” Kurt said. “When we went through last season, it felt like the last time we would go through it together.”

But with the playoffs — and a long trip to Chadron — came unexpected good news. On a chilly Wednesday the week of the playoffs, Da’Nelle’s doctors called. Her MRI showed partial remission.

Two days later, Chadron whipped Lincoln Christian 42-18. Too many miscues for Coach Earl’s team.

But in the midst of defeat — and the end of the hardest season of their lives — there was hope.

It’s Family Day at practice on Saturday morning. Moms and dads. Little brothers and sisters. Even dogs. The “team talk” before practice centers on the litmus test of influence.

“Why are we playing football? Who are we playing football for? What is your real purpose during your time here? It can’t be just football,” coach Kurt Earl says.

Saturday is the beginning of a long day for the Crusaders. An early film session, then practice and in the afternoon, their first-ever media day and then Leadership Camp.

With about an hour left in practice, a joyful, happy face makes an appearance: Da’Nelle Earl. It’s Family Day after all. She’s excited for the 2025 football season.

In mid-May, she finished that year of chemo. Her scans stayed with the best news the Earls will ever get: partial remission. She and Kurt took a cruise to Alaska for their anniversary. Her most recent MRI was just a few weeks ago; the next one is scheduled for November — playoff time.

Da’Nelle Earl is ready and thankful.

“Just being there,” she said. “Being able to understand what is going on again. So many people helped us last year, and that was a blessing. I love football. I watch more football than Kurt does on television. … There are so many times I just enjoy watching him coach, and I don’t remember any of that last year.”

The 2025 season didn’t start the way Da’Nelle or coach Earl had hoped: a 34-12 loss to a much improved Lincoln Lutheran on Aug. 29. The Crusaders face Wilber Clatonia in Week 2.

“It’s a great week to rebound, learn, grow and get better,” the coach wrote on social media previewing the matchup.

Grow is a word the Earls use routinely, particularly when it comes to their faith — the bedrock that has provided stability and comfort through the turmoil of the past year and a half.

“Change is a hard word,” Da’Nelle said of their faith. “I think growth is a better word. You understand things in a different perspective now.”

Kurt shared something similar when reflecting on his faith and books in the Bible like Ecclesiastes, Psalms and Philippians.

“You can better understand the dependence on the Lord,” he said.

“We are all hopeless without him, it’s now just whether we are aware of it in the moment.”

The Earls know the cancer won’t go away for good.

“There is only one lady that they talk about who has survived this more than 10 years,” Kurt said. “So you are still dealing with that. It’s out there. But, the reality is she is getting better all the time.”

Even knowing that, both consider life as it is right now to be a blessing.

“Our time frame and God’s time frame are so different,” Da’Nelle said. “If I live five years — and I am doing well in five years — on paper everybody would say that is a miracle. But even if I make it five years and I am not doing well, it can still be a miracle.”

Kurt Earl’s football teams have long relied on a simple rallying cry. It’s a motto that may equally apply to Da’Nelle and Kurt’s life outside of football.

“One team. One goal. One God.”

And, now, one more season — a season of hope.

This story was originally published by Flatwater Free Press, an independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories in Nebraska that matter. Read the article at: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/lincoln-coach-readied-for-final-season-wi...