“I’m going to miss seeing Coach Applebee on my visits to Murdo, and I remain deeply grateful for everything he taught me along the way.” Click here to watch the video.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0zp4AesihI&authuser=2 WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) today delivered the following remarks: Thune’s remarks below (as delivered): “Mr. President, last week, I received news that my high school basketball and track coach, Jerry Applebee, had died, and I want to take a moment here on the Senate floor to pay tribute to him. “He was a deeply formative figure for me in my teenage years, setting an example for us players of hard work, determination, and sportsmanship. “Together with my dad, also a coach, he founded the Jones County Invitational basketball tournament, which is my hometown’s annual regular season basketball tournament – the longest running tournament of its kind in South Dakota, started back in the 1960s – an event I played in and still love attending to this day. “Among the memories I have of Coach Applebee, a lot of them are around that auditorium. “And the floor there, the court, is called the Jerry Applebee Court, in his honor. “And as I recall my days playing basketball there, there was one thing that you never could miss in any game in which he was involved, and that was his loud voice bouncing off the ceiling in that auditorium. “That auditorium was built in 1954. “At the time, it was kind of the Taj Mahal among auditoriums, gymnasiums in my part of South Dakota. “And to this day, it continues to serve our school and the surrounding schools really well. “Some opposing teams refer to it as ‘the barn.’ “But the one thing you were always sure of is when Murdo, Jones County, was playing a basketball game, you could hear Coach Applebee anywhere in the gymnasium – because he had a raspy, strong, resonant, deep voice, and he was not afraid to use it. “I remember that in the basketball gymnasium, and I remember it on the track as well. “And one of my clearest memories of Coach Applebee, or ‘App,’ as we called him, happened during my senior year. “We were playing in the district championship game with a chance to go on in the playoffs and make it ultimately to the state tournament, which was every kid in my hometown’s aspiration. “Those of us who love sports always dreamed of playing in the state basketball tournament, something that I’d been, from the time I was a kindergartner, aspiring to have the opportunity to do. “When we got the last chance my senior year at the district championship game, we were playing our arch rival in Lyman County in their gymnasium, and as was typically the case, it was a back-and-forth game. “They were ahead by a point at the end of the first quarter, we were ahead by a point at halftime, they were ahead by point at the third quarter. “It got down to the end of the game, and we were down with – down one point with five seconds left on the clock. “And so Coach Applebee calls time out, we huddle on the sidelines, calls a play. “We break the huddle. “My teammates inbound the ball, I had a teammate, came down, set a screen for me on the baseline. “I came out to today what would be the three point line, although we didn’t have the three point line back in that day, and I fired off a shot that I would hope would go on to win the game and take us on to the regional playoffs. “Well, it came off the back of the rim, Mr. President. “It didn’t go down. “And there were a lot of people in the gym that thought it was going to, but it didn’t. “And so obviously, after the game, my last opportunity at pursuing a chance to play in the state basketball tournament, I was sitting in the locker room by myself. “Most of the team had gotten on the bus, and they were, you know, waiting for some of the rest of us and for the coaches. “And Coach Applebee came over to me, and he tapped me on the shoulder, and he said, ‘John,’ he said, ‘It’s time to get on the bus.’ “‘And by the way, track starts next week.’ “And he knew I wasn’t a big fan of track. “Track wasn’t my favorite sport, but he was sending an important message. “And that message is that, look, you gave it your best shot, you gave it everything you had, there’s always another sport, there’s another day, and you’re going to get another opportunity down the road to do what you want to do. “And so that was a really important message and very affirming to me at a time when, as a young athlete, who felt not only I’d let myself down, but I’d let my teammates down as well. “And I’ll never forget that comment he made to me at that critical time in what was my early- early in my sports career. “Well, I just remember, too, later that year, him coming and pulling me out of class, think it was an English class, to tell me that I had made the all-state basketball team, the first team. “And as he came out and kind of pointed at me and signaled this way, I thought, ‘Oh, no, what have I done now?’ “But we got out in the hallway, and he couldn’t have been more excited to share that news. “And it was an example, again, of how invested he was in the success of the players that he coached and the people, the young kids around him – he was also the principal of the high school – and wanted to see them succeed and do well in life. “Well, of course, track season was the next season. “In my hometown, there are oftentimes – if we had a, you know, a lot of snow in the winter, and sometimes it didn’t get dried up in the spring, or if we had a wet spring, for that matter, the track where we ran was a dirt track. “It was north of town, and it was in a fairly low spot, and so oftentimes the track was wet. “So to do our conditioning, particularly early in the season, we would run city blocks. “A block would be like the, you know, equivalent of about a 400 repeat, and we would run a series of those. “We would do our long warm-up runs, and then we would run city blocks. “The other thing we would do is we would go down to the airport south of town, and the airport south of town, the little landing strip, and, you know, it’s about a half a mile long. “My colleague, Senator Rounds here, has probably flown into it, he’s a pilot. “But we would run down there, it was about 2.2 miles to get down there, so that was kind of our warm-up run, and then we would do our workouts on the airport runway. “And we would all line up at one end of the runway, and Coach Applebee would be down at the other end of the runway. “And if you’ve ever seen, you know, a half mile on a straightaway, he looked like this little figure down there. “And we would all line up. “And sometimes you could even inch forward a little bit because he couldn’t see you, he was so far away. “But he always knew what you were up to, and you could hear him. “Even then you could hear him. “And I remember later that year, running at the state track meet in Sioux Falls, which is a lot larger outdoor place that we ran, and Howard Wood Field in Sioux Falls seats somewhere on the order of 12,000 people. “But even in a crowded outdoor arena, you could hear his voice up in the crowd. “It was unmistakable, and he was always barking something out – in many cases, admonishing you to do better, to run harder, to be more successful. “So Mr. President, I’m just grateful for the impact that he had on my life. “And as I think about, you know, the admonition to him, track starts next week, there is always another day, and we have to get up and do our work and make sure that we’re doing the best that we can to accomplish our work here on behalf of the American people. “So those are lessons that I’ve taken with me: accept your losses, get to work on the next thing. “It’s one of the many lessons that has stuck with me from Coach Applebee. “I’m going to miss seeing Coach Applebee on my visits to Murdo, and I remain deeply grateful for everything he taught me along the way. “And I want his family to know my thoughts and prayers are with them, with his loved ones, and I would just say, rest in peace Coach Applebee. “Mr. President, I yield the floor.”