Owatonna High School names Marc Achterkirch new activities director

Owatonna High School has named Marc Achterkirch to be its new activities director, the school announced on Friday in a news release.
Current activities director Ryan Swanson said he chose Achterkirch as his replacement because he puts the students first, he doesn’t get caught up in politics and he always does the right thing.
“He has obviously developed a reputation for myself,” Swanson said. “He’s gonna step right in there with instant respect from our coaching staffs and raise the bar. He’s going to do a great job. You couldn’t find a anybody better than [Achterkirch].”
Swanson is stepping down to pursue other opportunities and will do so near the end of July.
“My wife and I eventually going to be taking over her father’s farm,” Swanson said. “We are starting a six or seven year transition of acquiring equipment and those kind of things. It will be a long way down the road, but eventually we will probably move back there.”
Achterkirch has spent his entire 23-year career as a math teacher and coach at Owatonna. He was a three-sport athlete for the University of Minnesota-Duluth. 
Achterkirch will remain the defensive coordinator and associate head coach for Owatonna’s reigning Class 5A state champion football team.
Achterkirch has been instrumental in helping guide the program to six section championship, two state runners up and two state championship.
“We are really excited that he is going to be able to play the dual role,” Owatonna head football coach Jeff Williams said. “It going to take some work to figure out the balance, but he has a great work ethic and is highly organized. We’ll all figure out a way to make this work. He’s going to do a great job.”
Achterkirch has earned a many impressive accolades in his coaching career including the Minnesota High School Coaches Associations’s Coach of the Year, the Butch Nash Award for Coach of the Year and he has been selected twice to coach in the Minnesota State High School League All-Star Football Game.
“We are thrilled to have Marc lead our activities and look forward to his passion, enthusiasm, organization and leadership,” said Owatonna Principal Mark Randall in the news release. “Marc’s focus has always been on doing what is best for students and we look forward to him bringing this type of leadership to our activities department. Marc is simply an outstanding individual and we are thrilled to have him on our leadership team at Owatonna High School.”

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