Kevin Wright, Rick Streiff and Bob Schellinger are bound by the obvious – three high school football coaches, all vying for a state championship this weekend at Lucas Oil Stadium.
They are also connected in another way, a less obvious tie. All three coach teams that have been deeply affected by death. There is no guide, no chapter in the coaching manual on how to lead a group of teenagers through the loss of a teammate, classmate or parent.
“There’s no rules that tell you what to do next,” said Streiff, the Cathedral coach.
Yet all three coaches have guided their teams to the state championship, taking each respective tragedy and attempting to turn it into a teaching tool of unity, family and perseverance. There’s no scoreboard to measure how they’ve done.
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On Sept. 25, 2013, LaPorte football player Jake West collapsed on the practice field and died. It was later determined that West, a positive, popular 17-year-old linebacker and also a member of the lacrosse team, suffered from a heart condition called arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, which can result in cardiac arrest.
West would have been a senior this season.
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“We were running a seven-on-seven drill and (West) was walking to his position,” said Schellinger, in his 22nd season as LaPorte’s coach. “He just collapsed. He passed away right there on the field.”
West’s death could have happened anywhere. It wasn’t caused by football. But the fact that it happened on the field, in front of his teammates and close friends, made it all the more shocking. Schellinger becomes emotional, now 14 months later, recalling the vivid memory.
“When a (17-year-old) kid dies at your feet, with your team watching, it’s tough,” Schellinger said. “It was a tragedy that was very hard to overcome last year.”
LaPorte was 1-9 last season, its second consecutive one-win season. The Slicers started this year 3-5 and weren’t considered a state championship contender. Frankly, it would have been a special season even if it didn’t culminate at Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night. LaPorte has honored West with an orange hashmark on the 26-yard-line (26 was his number) on its home field and has rallied around the “Play for Jake” motto.
“It’s been a rallying cry for us,” Schellinger said. “Does it help us win games? Psychologically, I think absolutely. It has pulled us together for a common cause. I don’t know if it’s catapulted us, but it’s been something that’s been on everybody’s hearts and minds.”
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Streiff, whose Cathedral team will play the Slicers on Saturday night, can see in LaPorte what Schellinger sees.
“They rally around each other,” Streiff said. “They play really hard. There’s a chemistry there that is obvious. You can just tell. A lot of overcoming adversity and perseverance. A lot like us in a lot of ways.”
Cathedral has lost two students this year to suicide, an unimaginable tragedy for the families involved. One was a senior who had played football for three years and had many friends on the team. He died on Aug. 26, three days before Cathedral’s game against Warren Central.
“We were down 20-0 at halftime,” Streiff said. “I walked in at halftime and it was quiet. I just said, ‘Let’s go play the second half as hard as we can play. Let’s go out there and see what we can do.'”
Cathedral mounted a furious rally before losing, 20-17.
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That game, however, didn’t close the door on anything. Streiff said it’s difficult to know how each individual processes the grief. The second suicide happened just three weeks later and the game against Bishop Chatard was postponed a day.
Streiff said he’s become more cognizant of looking for various signs of emotion from his team.
“A lot of times we’ll say, ‘Let’s practice football for two-and-a-half hours and leave the rest of the world on the other side of that track,'” Streiff said. “We’ve tried to work though it like that. You try to be there for the kids and tell them to hang together because that’s what they’ve got.”
Streiff said there is a sadness that can never fully be relieved.
“Kids aren’t supposed to bury their classmates and parents aren’t supposed to bury their kids,” he said.
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Carmel coach Kevin Wright’s family story of football will be told by NBC as part of the NFL’s “Together We Make Football” contest the day of the Super Bowl.
Wright is the son of Sheridan coach Bud Wright, the state’s all-time coaching wins leader with 392 in 49 seasons. His brother, Kent, is the head coach at Lebanon. Another brother, Travis, is an assistant at Frankfort. A sister, Cheri, is an assistant athletic director at Sheridan.
A compelling portion of the video trailer touches on the 2003 suicide of Bud Wright’s wife, Jayne.
“Very emotional,” Kevin Wright said.
Wright was at Warren Central in 2003, his fourth year with the program. He called his mother the night of the Ben Davis game in September and asked her to tape the game on television. She committed suicide the next day.
“It does make me think about my own life and my own family,” said Wright, who has a 12-year-old daughter Trinity, and 9-year-old son, William, with wife Elizabeth. “I’ve thought about it more this year than probably any other year. Probably because of what’s happened in the past year at Carmel, seeing those kids lose their fathers.”
Three Carmel players – senior running back Shakir Paschall, senior linebacker Jesse Clifford and junior running back Stephen Watts – all lost their fathers in the last two years. Wright was envious off all three of them and how active they were in their sons’ lives.
“They were all involved in a very positive way, coaching them from the time they were in little league,” Wright said. “They’d come to practice to watch. They loved being a part of their kids’ lives. I’ve never been able to coach a sport my kids have been in.”
Paschall’s father, Eric, died after suffering a heart attack while in the bleachers at Carmel’s semistate game last year against Penn. Wright said what he went through losing his mom has helped him to better relate with his three Carmel players.
“I try to be real with them about what I went through and help them understand how important it is to be there for each other. You don’t to be left alone. You want to be surrounded by people who care about you. That’s how you get through.”
Steven Watts’ father, Steven Sr., passed away in August, nearly three weeks after a car accident. Wright arrived at Watts’ house that day after the family left the hospital. There were about 40 Carmel players there. When Wright found Steven Jr., he had Paschall on one side of him and Clifford on the other.
“It’s not all about football,” Wright said. “It’s about being there for each other.”
Follow Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep on Twitter: @KyleNeddenriep.
