Somebody up there must like Mike Alquist.

The Slidell resident and former St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s deputy is a volunteer coach with the Slidell Bantam Baseball Association. He has met more than his share of bodily harm but has rarely missed a game.

In 2005, a FEMA debris removal truck hit him when the driver decided to stop in the middle of an intersection and back up. With a van directly behind him, Alquist was trapped.

MIKE ALQUIST

The truck, an 18-wheeler mounted with a crane arm, kept coming.

“I jumped into the back seat when my windshield shattered,” he said. “My car was pushed 40 feet.”

A chief investigator for Michael Hingle and Associates, Alquist swung into action, not realizing the extent of his injuries. He hopped out of the car and took about 60 pictures, declining medical attention, and it wasn’t until he returned to his office that he realized he needed to go to the hospital.

Alquist sustained several injuries to his knees, back and neck, eventually requiring multiple surgeries. Throughout it all he kept coaching and actually showed up to some games in a wheelchair or on crutches, including a football game the morning after knee surgery.

Alquist spent four years with the office’s Search and Rescue unit of the sheriff’s Special Operations division. Prior to joining the Sheriff’s Office he spent time on the Slidell police force.

His mother is a former federal agent and his father a retired San Antonio police officer, so law enforcement runs in the family. His dad was also a coach in the Slidell leagues when Alquist was a boy.

“I played in the same park for years when I was a kid,” he said. “I guess I’m just carrying on the tradition.”

Alquist played football at Slidell High School and says sports are “in his blood.” He began coaching in 1998, when his 5-year-old son started playing. He said coaching takes one’s mind off of bills and work and that it’s rewarding when his former players approach him.

“It’s the coolest thing to be out somewhere and have the older kids come up and say ‘Hey, Coach’,” he said.

Alquist said the kids become like an adopted family, and the only time he missed a game was because he was in the hospital. He doesn’t think that his dedication is unusual, noting there are a dozen other coaches who would probably keep going like he has, despite physical hardships.

Some might beg to differ. In addition to the 2005 accident, he underwent a hip replacement in the early 1990s after a car accident and once broke his leg in six places when he was thrown from a friend’s boat and landed headfirst in the mud. He also lost three fingers, but doctors were only able to reattach two.

Still he keeps coaching.

“You either have to do it 110 percent, or not at all,” he said.

Alquist prefers coaching the younger children, saying they get a little too competitive as they get older. Now that his younger son is 8, he said he’s thought about hanging it up. A friend just became the proud father of a baby boy, however, so he figures he’ll stay with it a while longer.

The walls of his office are covered with awards of appreciation, get well cards signed by players and team photos. Noting how much time it requires of him, Alquist is also especially grateful his employer grants him time off from work to devote to the youngsters.

He continues to live life to the fullest, noting he just purchased a motorcycle with a personalized plate reading “9 LIVES,” an act that didn’t go over too well with his wife.

“I figure the Lord keeps me here for a reason, and that’s to give something back,” said Alquist. “This could be my last call, but I’m not going to stop now.”