Coach Scheidegger

I was deeply saddened to hear the news about my former girls basketball coach at Sterling High School.

Bruce Scheidegger is a man who I had been forever in debt to, for giving me the opportunity that launched a love of mine - high school sports.

Coach Scheidegger, after leaving Sterling, took the athletics director position at Carl Sandburg H.S. in Orland Park. After seeing his Lady Eagles compete at the IHSA State Bowling Meet in Rockford on Saturday, and seeing Eagle senior Nicole Powell finish in the top 10 individually, Coach would never make it back to his captain's chair at Sandburg.

Back home in Carroll County, where he was born and raised, Coach's car went off the road.

He was 54 years old.

My thoughts are with Deb, Samantha, Kristin and Molly at this time.

***

I will never forget his kindness, his dedication, passion for the game of basketball and high school sports, as well as his sense of humor.

During health class one day, I got a message from the school's messaging service (kind of like mail). The piece of paper was folded in half and stapled at the bottom. It was a request from Coach to meet with me to see if I would be a part of his varsity girls baskeball team.

After 11 years, I still have the letter. I was looking at it a couple of days ago, as it is shuffled in a lock box with a bunch of notes and papers in it. This note would find its way stuffed at the bottom of my school locker that year. Then I found it at the end of the year. I kept it. Why? This was an experience I'll never forget.

It is a little "different" for a girls sports team to have a male manager. At one of the first practices, coach had a drill planned for me too. That drill was that, if I needed to go into the girls locker room, I had to knock on the metal sign outside the door and yell "coming in ..." All four of the male coaches had to do this as well. But of course, special emphasis was on me because I was so young.

One day at the Dixon Tournament I accidentally forgot to knock on the door. He let me know about it.

Coach cared about his managers. I was one of two, and the other wasn't able to do much work that year. He cared so much that he eventually put me on the district's payroll. Yep. I was paid to tape games and take stats on occasion.

When we won the New-Mor-Roc-Ster that year, I was quite shocked when Coach called me down to the gym floor to recieve a medal. Before our final game against RF, he told me to tape the medal presentation after the game (I guess he was confident we'd win). So my mind's on taping this - I had never taped something like that before - and I hear a pause in the announcing of names before "and manager, Cody Cutter."

During the applause, I kind of raised my hand before Coach raised his hands and waved them toward me, telling me to come on down and get a medal. That was a cool moment.

In one of the first pages of our season scrapbook, coach cut out a picture of me recieving my medal and shaking hands with Scott and Pat (our assistant coaches). He typed the words "The Three Wise Men" on the picture.

Sometimes I was in charge of carrying the trophies on the bus rides. I carried the plaque that we won after defeating Mother MacAuley at the Amboy Shootout. I also carried a really large third-place trophy back from Dixon. It was taller than I thought, and accidentally bumped the top of it on the bus ceiling. Coach tried to hound me about it, jokingly reminding me that it could be our season right there.

He knew I was a bit on the shy side, while somehow finding a way to gain respect from the upperclassmen at SHS. On some of the funnier moments on the bus rides, he would throw me into the discussion sometimes. I was a bit embarassed at first, but grew to like these moments.

One of our weirdest bus rides - and only the coaches and I know this - was our trip to Guilford. It was a slow drive and we feared being late. I made a suggestion to coach and the bus driver to take a shortcut because the road we were about to drive on was a mess with construction. To my surprise, Coach acted on my suggestion and proceeded to put any blame on me and me only if something were to go wrong. We ended up making it in time, and I recall some of the sophomore girls being in awe at the height of Guilford's 7-foot-1 Woody Julian outside the school entrance.

Because of coach's efforts to make his manager a true part of the team, I was sometimes able to make it to after-game pizza parties, such as Kim's. The graciousness was something I appreciated so much that, come Valentine's Day, I donated a lot of money into the Prom fundraiser by buying roses for them. One thing led to another, and they've become people I'll never forget.

Thank you, Bruce.

And apparently he liked what I was taping at the games. (I personally thought I was sub-par and feared the girls wouldn't learn anything from my "poor" taping skills). Those tapes were sent to Prep Sports Online for inclusion on a season DVD.

That was the start of a sports media career that I still have to this day.

Thank you, Bruce.

Even though my roles at SHS became more fluid in the coming years, he still had trust in me to either operate the scoreboard or serve as PA announcer at freshman games.

Thank you, Bruce.

He had been in the area sports spotlight since a terrific high school career at Chadwick, which led to being picked by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1976 MLB Draft as a pitcher.

Coach started his career at Tonica before moving to Prophetstown, where he led the 1982 Prophets to a regional title. After that, he briefly coach boys at Dixon before a long stint as girl's coach there and at Sterling. He became athletic director at SHS later on, and did such a fine job that the door would open for him at Carl Sandburg.

Coach and I have only talked once since he moved, and that was when our 2001-02 team was inducted into the SHS Athletic Hall of Fame. He jokingly asked if I was going to tape the ceremony.

I have, however, seen Coach at times when Carl Sandburg is competing. He was at the Dvorak wrestling tournament cheering on his wrestlers at the prestigous meet at Harlem. The last time I saw him was when Sandburg won the Class 3A Team Wrestling title in Bloomington almost a year ago.

I am told that many, many kids at Sandburg loved him and were thankful for his support. We take that for granted in northwest Illinois, and for him to have such an impact on these kids as well is another thing that I'll remember him by.

If I would have taken that path out East professionally, my destination would have been somewhere near Orland Park.

Bruce was one of the best in the high school sports world. And I will miss him greatly.

Thank you, Bruce, for having such a great impact on my life. I know my basketball friends and many others share the same feeling.

Cody Cutter (SHS '05)
Girls Basketball Student Manager - 2001-2004