The voice on the phone required no introduction. That voice is burned into my brain, still snapping me to attention all these years later.

High school coaches have that effect.

“Hello, Mr. Scoggins,” said the man who has seen me laugh, cry, scream, curse, succeed, fail and puke into a trash can.

Coach Z and I hadn’t spoken in years. As players, we shortened his last name to one letter out of convenience. And no matter how old I become, I could never, ever call him by his first name. He will forever be Coach.

Coach Z called recently to talk about something happening at our old basketball program. Both of us are long gone from the school, but like fabric in a quilt, that’s still our program. And I have a letter jacket to prove it.

Naturally, the conversation shifted to our time together. We talked about specific games, favorite memories and a possible reunion.

Time is undefeated in life, except when it is matched up against our recall of the glory years of high school sports. I can barely remember my age, but almost four decades later I still remember nicknames my teammates gave each other, our inside jokes, the special way we gave high fives, the song we sang in the locker room after we qualified for the state tournament on a buzzer-beating shot by a teammate we called Skeeter and the tears we shed together after the final loss, knowing our magical ride was over.

That is why we love high school sports. Relationships. Competition. School spirit. Community pride. Togetherness.

High school sports provide value on so many levels, which is why the Minnesota Star Tribune is expanding and leaning fully into our rebranded coverage. The unveiling of Strib Varsity reflects our collective desire to know more about teams, athletes, trends and important issues across the entire state.

This is a cool endeavor.

High school sports are deeply personal because they represent communities in which we choose to live. Those are our kids out there competing. Our neighbors, our best friend’s child, the family we know from church. We have watched them since they were babies in ECFE classes, through elementary and middle school, in-house and travel ball, and now look at them, all grown up and competing like crazy on varsity.

And if you were lucky enough to have coached any of those young people in youth sports, goodness, what a thrill. The joy in knowing you played a small part in their personal and athletic development is immeasurable.

Don’t be mistaken, high school sports aren’t perfect. Far from it. The ugly side of sports reveals itself at this level as well. Misplaced values create a negative undercurrent that can ruin the experience, often at the hands of adults. Those stories need to be investigated and told, too.

The good outweighs the bad by a ton, though. For most kids, high school sports represent a final stop, the culmination of an athletic journey that often begins before they learn to tie shoes. A small percentage continue their careers in college, but the rest are seeking fulfillment with childhood friends before moving on to the next stage in life.

Playing sports takes more than talent and athleticism. It requires guts and mental toughness, a willingness to put yourself onstage in front of family and classmates knowing there is a chance of failure.

We are just days away from getting to see all of this come to life again in another school year — another school year featuring an endless number of great stories.

Stories like the one provided by Luke Vlatkovich as a junior basketball player at Holy Angels in 2001. Vlatkovich was a role player on varsity that season with an emphasis on defense and, in his words, “team enthusiasm.”

Holy Angels played DeLaSalle in the section championship. His team trailing by three points in the final seconds, Vlatkovich secured the rebound on a teammate’s miss and was fouled while shooting a desperation three-pointer at the buzzer.

The kid tasked with bringing “team enthusiasm” had not scored a point in the game but suddenly found himself all alone at the foul line with no time on the clock and DeLaSalle fans screaming as loud as humanly possible.

The situation left him zero wiggle room. Make all three free throws or the season is over.

Swish. Swish. Swish.

Cool Hand Luke hit nothing but net on all three shots, sending the game to overtime.

His team ultimately lost in OT, but watching Vlatkovich show so much poise under intense pressure was one of the coolest things I have witnessed in more than three decades as a professional sportswriter.

“In the moment of shooting, I wasn’t really thinking about anything,” he recalled. “You practice a lot to let your body just do what it’s naturally going to do.”

I tracked down Vlatkovich recently to talk about that moment. He’s 41 now, married with two young kids and living in suburban Chicago. He has carved out a successful business career after earning his undergraduate degree from St. Thomas and his MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

He was a 4.0 student and president of Holy Angels’ chapter of the National Honor Society when he made those free throws, a perfect example of a teenager balancing priorities.

Vlatkovich said he doesn’t reflect on that moment very often, but when he does, it’s “something that always brings a smile.”

He remembers having a delayed emotional reaction, followed by a brief celebration with teammates and the student section before getting refocused for overtime. He experienced the widest range of emotions possible in a matter of minutes. Making three free throws to force overtime, then having the season end in OT.

Lessons learned as a high school athlete are “immeasurable in what kind of impact it has” on a person’s adult life, Vlatkovich said.

He didn’t have all that big-picture stuff in mind when he stepped to the free-throw line nearly a quarter of a century ago. He just told himself to remember all the free throws he had taken before that moment. And then he reminded us that high school sports produce memories that last a lifetime.