MOUNTAIN LAKE, MINN. – High school football players, wearing wrist tape bearing the initials T.K., sprinted against gusts of wind that ripped across the prairie.

Coach Tim Kirk, hands on his hips, watched from the sidelines, dictating practice for his Mountain Lake Wolverines, just as he’s done the past 21 years.

On Aug. 8, just days before football teams could begin practice, Kirk was diagnosed with Stage 4 gallbladder cancer after a biopsy that followed tests over the summer. This year will be his last season as head coach.

The shocking news reverberated quickly within Mountain Lake, a tightly-knit rural town with a population of about 1,900 nearly 50 miles southwest of Mankato. Kirk, a 56-year-old teacher at Mountain Lake for 25 years, taught generations of students in town and guided its Nine-Player football team to a 2019 state championship.

“The diagnosis has been pretty devastating to a lot of people,” said Travis Smith, who ran a fundraiser for Kirk at a local bar and grill.

Two days after the diagnosis, Kirk was at his son’s wedding in Wisconsin. Carter Kirk, 29, recalled his father’s speech, congratulating him. His father was telling him to be better than he ever was. But then his father, not known for showing emotion, stopped speaking and started sobbing.

The next day, Kirk told everyone about his diagnosis and how cancer had spread from his gallbladder into his liver and stomach. He was told the disease was incurable.

“It doesn’t really feel real,” Carter Kirk said. “You know, I hate just thinking about life without him.”