Late in Waseca’s 21-13 victory over St. Peter, Bluejays head coach Brad Wendland collapsed on the sideline. His heart had stopped. Athletic trainers from both teams and a nurse in the crowd immediately responded, tending to the 48-year-old Wendland’s health until paramedics arrived. After a stretch of chest compressions and a jolt from a defibrillator, Wendland came to.

He was transported to the hospital and, roughly an hour after the game — which both teams agreed to play to its conclusion — came word via the Twitter account of the Waseca activities department that Wendland was “stable, conscious and talking.”

Wendland recounted his memory of the occurrence. “I said, ‘I want to get up,’ and a friend of mine said no,” he told Chad Courrier of the Mankato Free Press. “I said, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ but then I saw the ambulance and realized what had just happened.”

In his 16th season as Bluejays head coach, Wendland is expected to remain in a hospital in Mankato for much of this week. He said he will take about a month off from teaching and doesn’t think he will coach again this season. “I really want to go back to the classroom because I love teaching,” he told the Free Press. “I’m right where I need to be. I just need some time for self-reflection.”

Waseca Activities Director Joe Hedervare is expected to assume Wendland’s head coaching duties.