Aberdeen Christian has a new track and field coach, but he is not a stranger to the squad.

Sam Bjorkman served as an assistant for the Knights last season and is now the head coach of the team.

Bjorkman, who grew up and competed in track and field while at Canistota, had ties to the school before joining the squad. His wife is a 2009 graduate of Aberdeen Christian, while his mother-in-law was a longtime educator at the school.

The Bjorkmans, who both went to Westpoint, moved back to the state in 2018.

“Moving back I knew it would be awesome to able to work with the kids of the school,” Bjorkman said. “That’s kind of been my heart for the last few years.”

Bjorkman served as an assistant last season and has now moved into the position of head coach of the Knights.

To put it mildly, Bjorkman has hit the ground running.

He has gone to coaching clinics and was able to secure funding for a new running mat that simulates running on an actual track.

“I don’t do many things 75 or 50 percent,” Bjorkman said. “If I’m going to do something, I’m going to put my best foot forward.”

Aberdeen Christian does not have a training area specifically designed for track and field. The Knights do have an opportunity to join Aberdeen Roncalli athletes at their new practice facility. And now, for the first time, Christian athletes have a runway that allows them to get up to full sprinter speed while practicing indoors.

“We can do top speed training, rain, snow, sunshine, 50-mile-per hour winds, whatever it it is,” Bjorkman said. “We can spike up, we can get on the mat right here and do speed work, jump approaches.”

While items like the running mat have provided the obvious physical benefits for the athletes, Bjorkman said the added attention to the track and field program also sends a message to the athletes that helps them to believe somebody is heavily invested in their lives.

“The team from what I saw last spring, and what I’ve seen this spring and over the off season, they’ll be as invested as they perceive somebody else is,” Bjorkman said. “Previously, it’s a small school, not a lot resources in track generally – every school is under resourced, under coached generally – but it was interesting to see the response when there was somebody investing more time in it, somebody who had that time and effort and energy to be able to put into it.”

While Bjorkman is just getting his feet wet in his first year as a varsity head coach, he is anxious to put his military background to good use and see how it will work with teenage athletes.

He said that will be the biggest challenge of transitioning from an assistant to a head coach.

“There’s just a lot of balls in the air. I love the leadership challenge, honestly. I was a platoon leader in the Army,” Bjorkman said. “I got done with my time in the Army and I kind of looked back and said I wish I could start over, because now I actually know something about leading. So it’s been kind of a fun transition.”

Bjorkman got to know the athletes last season and many of them return to the program this spring.

That alone should make the transition a bit more seamless. While the Knights have yet to have an official outdoor meet under Bjorkman’s tutelage, he is enjoying the experience of being a head coach so far.

“I’m just really excited about the opportunity. It’s been fun,” Bjorkman said. “I love getting to work with these kids and the most important thing to me is to make an impact on their lives long term.”