Whether borrowing a motivational phrase from Dwight D. Eisenhower or the "Carpe Diem" quote from Robin Williams, Brad Engen had a way of coaxing the best from students in his middle school social studies classes and high school football teams.
Engen, 40, was a White Bear Lake teacher and coach who died Feb. 9 after a two-year battle with brain cancer. He is being remembered by relatives, friends and former students as a teacher who was as committed to the recluses in his class as the college-bound geniuses.
Sometimes inspiration came from the pop culture phrases he wrote on the blackboard. Other times it was his creative lessons — hiding paper plates with answers to geography or history questions around the grounds of Sunrise Park Middle School, or injecting humor with Bad Joke Fridays.
"He was the underdog when he was young, the smaller guy who had to work that much harder to be good at what he did," said his younger sister, Jodi Guse, of Ham Lake. "So he had some empathy and he understood. He reached so many kids."
Engen grew up as the coach's kid — studying the football games his father coached at Mounds View High School while other kids his age were goofing off below the bleachers.
Engen later coached sophomore football teams for White Bear Lake Area High School and girls track teams at Sunrise.
Engen's cancer was detected after he collapsed in class in December 2011. He later had surgery to remove a tumor from the frontal lobe of his brain and other treatments. He made repeated attempts to return to teaching and coaching, but setbacks in his health would disrupt them.
His mother learned of Engen's broad reach when she came to his Hugo home to care for him. She found a collection of creative student projects, along with two garbage bags full of paper plates with answers on them. She also found letters indicating that Engen had been nominated as teacher of the year, along with the entry forms he declined to fill out.
