Glasser reflects on 37 years spent in education

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Jim Glasser has been an educator nearly four decades.

After all that time — 37 years to be exact — the Dickinson High School physical education teacher and department chair is almost at a loss for words when he begins talking about his retirement at the end of this school year.

“Thirty-seven years ago,” Glasser said with a smirk and a longing gaze. “That seems like a long time.”

Glasser started teaching in 1972, spending his first nine years teaching and coaching boys basketball at New Town. He then went to New England St. Mary’s to teach and coach for three years before joining the staff at DHS, where he has spent the past 25 years.

At DHS, Glasser spent time in both the physical education and mathematics departments, sometimes teaching both in the same years.

However, one of his biggest loves during his time at the school was his nine-year stint as head boys basketball coach. Glasser coached the Midgets from his arrival in 1984 until 1993.

He looks back on those years as some of the best of his career.

“The camaraderie with the coaches in the league and coaching all the different style of kids is what you remember the most,” Glasser said.

Glasser said the one basketball game that still sticks out in his mind is a loss. Specifically, the Midgets’ overtime loss to eventual state champion Fargo South in the opening round of the 1989 Class A state tournament.

That Fargo South team went on to win the state championship and had five players go on to play college basketball. They are considered one of the best basketball teams in North Dakota history.

“No one could beat them but we had them and took them into overtime,” Glasser said.

After he left coaching, Glasser became more involved with basketball officiating, which he says he’ll continue doing along with his new job working as a surveyor for Highland Engineering & Surveying in Dickinson.

DHS Principal Ron Dockter says he became better friends with Glasser through their years of officiating together. He knows Glasser’s absence will leave quite a gap in the school’s faculty.

“Jim is just a class act,” Dockter said. “Anything you ask him, it gets done and it gets done well. He’s more than willing to help out in any way.”

Glasser calls his 37 years of teaching and his 25 years at DHS “outstanding” and said he’ll not only miss being around the students, but also the school’s faculty.

“Twenty-five years here, that’s the thing you remember the most here is the people you worked with every day and, of course, the students that you teach,” Glasser said.

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