MINOT, N.D. (AP) - High school athletics officials in North Dakota are mourning the death of a respected athletic director and football coach in a chain-reaction crash on a foggy U.S. Highway 83 south of Minot.
Lyne Enget died Monday morning in one of three crashes that involved more than 10 vehicles, including a semitrailer hauling an empty anhydrous ammonia tank, according to the Highway Patrol. Several other people, including Stanley-Powers Lake football coach Bob Bartz, were taken to a Minot hospital with unknown injuries.
Enget coached the Stanley-Powers Lake football team to three Class A state championships - in 1999, 2002 and 2011 - before retiring from coaching in 2011. He continued to serve as Stanley’s athletic director. He and Bartz were traveling to a regional coaches meeting.
“It just takes the wind out of your sails, with news like this,” Velva-Sawyer football coach Larry Sandy told the Minot Daily News.
Westhope High School athletic director Layne Fluhrer played for Enget during his prep career and later completed his student teaching under Enget following his graduation from the University of Jamestown.
“He is Blue Jay (Stanley) athletics,” Fluhrer said. “He’s been a part of that school for as long as I can remember. Everything that had to do with Stanley sports, he was involved. Just look at what he built. He helped build one of the greatest schools in the state. He was everything for Blue Jay athletics.”
Monday’s crashes shut down the highway that runs through central North Dakota for several hours. Several people involved played a role in the response, according to KXMC-TV.
Holly Mills and her mother were in one of the first vehicles slammed off the highway. They noticed that a man nearby was unconscious.
“I am a nurse, and we went running to help that person, and we did CPR until the ambulances arrived,” Mills said.
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This story has been corrected to show that the fatality victim’s first name is Lyne, not Lyle.
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