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Friday, September 5, 2008
A Woodbury Cycle
St. Paul, MN
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By: John Richards
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Photo(s) By: John Richards
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Back when Tim and Michele Thone began their high school athletic careers, the city of Woodbury was a far simpler - and smaller - place. In fact, Michele walked home to a farm just a few hundred feet from Woodbury High School on land that is now occupied by an assortment of housing.
“It was a small town,” Tim said. “The entire place was
maybe about 3,000 people.” Both lifetime Woodbury resi- dents, Tim and Michele played on some of the very first sports teams to bear the community’s name on their chests. Tim was on WHS’s first football, golf and hockey teams before graduating in 1977, his eventual wife played basketball, softball and was a cheerleader before earning her diploma two years later.
“It sure looked a lot different around here back then,” Tim said as he looked out of his home’s living room window, taking in a view of nearly endless housing tracts - many of which he had a hand in developing in his post-graduate days. “I think there’s about 68,000 here now,” he said. “Barely anyone
who lives in Woodbury now has been here their whole life.”
As the Thones have seen the town grow up around them, they witnessed their family grow as well. First born was Jordan; soon came Tom and ben. Finally, Jessica finished off the run in the late 80’s.
Now, some of the trails that Tim used to ride a snowmobile on have become streets bearing the names of his progeny and like their parents, the next generation of Thones have left
their mark on the Royals sports teams. “We’ve been to literally thousands of games,” Tim said. Jordan, now a senior at the University of St. Thomas, was a founding member of the Woodbury High School boys lacrosse club. That team evolved into the current Royals varsity team. Not only did Jordan help put the team together, he also recruited its first goaltender - younger brother Tom. “I told him to just stand in the net,” Jordan said.
While he began his lacrosse career as a stopgap, Tom’s game developed over the next two years and now can be
witnessed manning the net for the St. Thomas collegiate squad, which qualified for Nationals last spring. “He’s the reason I played,” Tom said of Jordan. “If he hadn’t made me get in that goal, I wouldn’t have played.” The third brother Ben, spent his springs not on the pitch, but on the diamond as a pitcher and occasional first baseman for the Royals baseball team and is planning on going out for the horsehiders at St. Mary’s University next year.
Ben spent last fall and winter avidly supporting the Royals teams and their players - especially so his lil’ sister, who developed into a star guard for the WHS basketball team. Jessica honed her skills in her younger days playing against her three older brothers and father. “I was the biggest tomboy growing up,” she said. Admittedly, however, a rough-and- tumble childhood helped create the player she is today. “There were some brutal games on the asphalt in the past,” Tim said.
“Now, she beats everyone in horse - except her dad.” With Jessica having just her senior year left to go with the Royals, the days of Tim and Michele hustling the kids to the ballparks and gymnasiums for WHS athletics is pretty much at an end.
“It’s going to be heaven,” Tim joked. “I can sleep.” Yet, neither mother nor father have any plans to stop going to games, either at their native WHS or the soon-to-come East Ridge High School - set to open on Woodbury’s southern border in 2009. “We’ve been going to games for 30 years,” Michele said. “There’s really a feeling of belonging to the community when you’re there - we’ve met most of our adult friends through athletics. It’s been very special
to us.”•
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