Luther Klenke likes to say that Concordia has been with him since birth because, well, his mother’s name was Concordia. Fittingly, Luther graduated from Concordia High School of Fort Wayne, Ind., and then from Concordia College of Seward while preparing for decades of dedicated service. A fixture of Concordia Nebraska from 1968 through 2001, Klenke symbolizes what makes the campus community uniquely special.
Klenke was known for white-knuckling team buses through storms and for being an advocate and a cheerleader for Concordia student-athletes. His presence provided a calming and comforting feeling for Bulldog athletes for more than 30 years.
Wrote Klenke of his special memories of his time as a staff member, “Working with athletics, I came to appreciate how committed coaches and players are to the team. Reinforcing that commitment allows for growth and strength on the playing field and faith life.”
For roughly 25 minutes, as part of his Concordia Athletics Hall of Fame speech on Sept. 22, Klenke provided greater detail on his experiences within athletics and recalled fond memories he shared with coaches and student-athletes. In his official service to Concordia for those 33 years, Klenke did a little bit of everything. He was recognized in 2014 with a Concordia Lifetime Service Alumni Award. He spent his professional days as one of those behind-the-scenes figures who was instrumental in the operations of the institution. With athletics specifically, Klenke not only drove team buses, he operated scoreboards, worked concession stands, participated in halftime shows, filmed football games in frigid weather and a whole lot more.
As Klenke joked, he “survived 11 presidents on this campus” and was afraid of only one of them. Surely each of those past presidents appreciated how Luther helped make students feel at home in his role as Director of Campus Center and Student Activities. Concordia yearbooks are filled with photos of Luther participating in events like homecoming, spring weekend, athletic events and many additional student activities. In one particularly humorous photo, Luther is shown holding a ball, whistle in mouth, while laying soaked in a pool of water, likely inspiring smiles from students of the time.
To this day, the 1968 Concordia graduate allows his dry sense of humor to shine through. He even found humor in some of those stressful bus trips on cold winter nights. In one instance, Luther had picked up a women’s team from Midland Lutheran (as it was called then). Said Luther, “As we were driving along, we ran into a snowstorm. Here I was, the only male and everybody else was female on the bus.” Luther produced laughs from the gathered Hall of Fame audience in continuing, “I was stuck at a truck stop with these women – it was okay. We couldn’t go anywhere.”
It was a regular occurrence for Luther to drive teams to the Concordia Invitational Tournament. On some of those longer CIT trips, Luther would wake up at 3 a.m. to go retrieve the bus. One year, CIT fell on the same weekend as Super Bowl Sunday. As a result, the Bulldog players requested Luther to slam the accelerator. The only problem was the interstate speed limit was only 55 miles per hour at the time. Luther enjoyed these interactions. He was also smart enough to always have a fan ready and some air freshener spray because you never knew what sort of smells might permeate the bus.
At one point in Luther’s hall of fame speech, he asked that anyone who had ever ridden on one of his bus trips stand up. Dozens of former athletes rose to acknowledge his request. Many of those who did so were former men’s basketball players under Head Coach Grant Schmidt. Luther proceeded to tell of the time he drove Schmidt’s group back from Black Hills State University in South Dakota.
“I couldn’t see two feet in front of me,” Luther said. “My wife came off the seat and stood by the door and looked out the window. She was telling me, ‘I see that little line right there.’ On this side, I had to watch so nothing was coming this way. I slowed down and made a turn and guess who comes by me? A semi. I tell you what. That side mirror, I missed it by this much. We got to a motel, but it was full. We went to a restaurant and had a little hamburger. One thing about that trip, they won the tournament.”
As part of his service to athletic teams, Luther used to climb on top of Brommer Hall in order to film football games. The film that exists within Concordia’s archives of the 1970 conference championship team are compliments of Luther, who captured fellow hall of famer Rod Giesselmann slinging the ball around the field. Luther sometimes had to brave inclement weather to produce the film the coaches needed to study each game.
As Luther explained of the process in continuing his deadpan style, “I took on my back, all the camera equipment, and had my one hand free. I went up that ladder with one hand. It was a wooden ladder. There was one rung broken. I had to step over it. When I got in the middle, I said, ‘Lord, yes or no?’ I climbed up there very slowly and got to the top. When I got to the top, there was a drop off too, and I had to get a little higher and step into that pit. The temperature was cold up there. I could not use gloves running the film. The coaches better not say anything about the filming because if they did, you go up there and film.”
Luther continued on with another story from a bus trip and afterwards warned the crowd, “Don’t let this stuff go out that door!” In other words, those stories are between you and me. You got it, Luther, our lips are sealed.
Everything else is fair game. Luther drew a resounding applause from the crowd of hall of fame attendees when he made a point to announce that he and his wife were celebrating 63 years of marriage. The themes in life for Luther have been Concordia and family. In the present day, he can laugh when retelling the story of his daughter Annette once moving the athletic department vans all across campus. One of three children to Luther and Nancy, Annette became a professor at Concordia. She has two brothers, Timonthy and Nathan. The youngest son played one year of basketball as a Bulldog and was coached by Tom Baack.
Each of them grew up with Concordia in the backdrop. To this day, Luther lives in Seward and continues to be one of the Bulldogs’ biggest fans. In turn, he’s appreciated by many, such as coaches like Grant Schmidt and Courtney Meyer, and former Concordia President Brian Friedrich, who played a role in Luther gaining entry into the Concordia Athletics Hall of Fame.
Says Luther, “Concordia is always with me, all the time, since birth. I loved everything I did here with the students. The students were helpers and did this and that for me. I was very happy with the coaches and everybody else. Concordia is always, always on my mind.”