Sports Link Riverside Basketball Exchange Program Provides Way For Cousins To Arrange Yearlong Stays In Germany

Sports have helped one extended north Spokane County family maintain a link with Germany.

Four cousins have stayed or will stay for a year in the country their great-great-grandfather left when he immigrated to the United States decades ago.

Riverside’s basketball exchange program was their way of making it happen.

Three of the cousins played basketball at Riverside High School. The trailblazer was Ken Zentz, who lived in Brake, Germany, five years ago following his high school graduation.

Todd Koesel (kay-sel) and Jeremy Hare followed upon their graduation in 1994, staying in Brake and Meppen, Germany, respectively.

Chris Koesel is leaving this month to become the fourth family member to make the trek. He will live in Meppen.

Riverside basketball coach Brent Monroe was the catalyst for their stays through the exchange program he developed. Zentz played with a team that visited here and was looking for a player.

The following summer Riverside students, the Koesels included, took their first exchange trip to Germany.

“Before my senior year I traveled with the exchange team,” Todd Koesel said. “I picked up on Ken on the 1993 tour, and he had some influence, but I kind of decided when I was there to go.

“I had no desire for college right away so I said, let’s go and see what happens.”

Chris had also enjoyed the experience.

“I thought it was pretty cool,” he said. “When Todd said he was going to stay there, I thought, why not me? Where else can you get a nine-month vacation?”

Todd and Chris are sons of Deer Park veterinarians Dennis and Dean Koesel and their wives Nola and Anna.

The Koesel brothers live next to each other on part of 400 acres their father purchased for a dairy farm when he moved here in 1951.

Anna as well as Chris’ sister Tracy also have been part of the exchange program and recently returned from the second exchange trip to Europe.

Todd’s athletics in high school were somewhat limited because of a heart defect. He didn’t play sports until after his freshman year following surgery to install an artificial aortic valve.

In Meppen he played on a junior team and wound up coaching the men’s team in the town’s club system.

“In the system, if you don’t like the coach, get a new one,” he said.

“The players were in the 25-30-year range. They listened to me, but I didn’t have a lot of authority.”

Chris was a three-sport athlete at Riverside, the Frontier League’s sixth-leading receiver last fall, a player on the Rams playoff basketball team and 10-goal scorer for the district runner-up soccer team.

“I’ll definitely play basketball and will try to get into a soccer league over there,” he said.

Although sports have been an important part of their lives, the cultural experience of living in Germany is more so.

Todd immersed himself in the German language so successfully that, when he came home, his mother, Nola, said, “We had a German man living with us for two months.”

He lived with a family that had daughters ages 5 and 7 who spoke no English. By babysitting them and watching German television, he learned the language within a month.

“It was a tough adjustment when I got back home,” he said. “Sometimes I couldn’t explain what I was trying to say in English.”

Known as an exchange student when he arrived in Meppen, within three or four months he was considered “one of the guys.”

Todd partook of the social life and traveled throughout Europe. He spent 10 days in London and went to Gdansk, Poland, on a mission with the Red Cross.

“In general, the personalities of the Germans are pretty much like us,” he said. “They are involved in schools, sports and chasing girls.”

Chris, who took a year of German while at Riverside, said he has an advantage over his cousins. Todd has told him what to expect, and he knows families there from the Riverside-Meppen exchanges.

“Both families I’m staying with came here to visit,” he said.

Todd added that he will probably return for a visit while Chris is there. The stay is something he recommends.

So, too, does Chris’ mother.

“It’s a real good cultural exchange,” Anna said. “You get to see how people live and a different lifestyle.”

Will Tracy, who is going to be a sophomore at Riverside, be the next to go?

“I don’t know if she’s thinking about the one-year deal or not,” said Anna. “We’ll have to think about that one.”

, DataTimes