Sports Illustrated Article

[WhiteHall_Billiken]

There's a nice article on former Coach Randall in this week's issue, the one with Albert on the cover(hoping for no jinx).

[Box and Won]

I just read it last night - great column by Steve Rushin.

[courtside]

HEADLINE: It's a Wonderful Life Story

BYLINE: Steve Rushin

Steve Randall is a small man making small money in small towns, a 5'6" high

school basketball coach who climbed a short professional ladder from Turtle Lake

to Montfort to Oshkosh, Wis. He drives a banana-yellow Caprice Classic that cost

$200 used, a car so mortifying that his three daughters put a for sale sign in

the window whenever it's parked in the driveway.

Lance Randall, Steve's only son, is a bigger man whose bigger plans draw him

to bigger cities. At 25 he becomes the head coach at Webster University, whose

streak of 13 losing seasons is broken his first season. Then he coaches the

Birmingham Bullets in England, grounding himself in the professional game.

Homesick after 9/11, Lance returns to the States as a D-I assistant at Saint

Louis University, an ambitious young coach on the rise.

In October 2004, 53-year-old Steve is poised for his 16th season at Oshkosh

West High. During a routine angioplasty, doctors nick one of his arteries. A

week later, while watching a Cardinals-Dodgers playoff game on TV, Steve tells

his wife, Cindy, that he doesn't feel well. He lies down on the couch and dies.

Lance, by now 33, and the father of a one-year-old girl, drives to Oshkosh

for the wake and is struck dumb: A line extends for three blocks outside the

funeral home, which stays open three extra hours to accommodate the mourners.

"When 3,000 people show up at a high school phys-ed teacher's wake," he says,

"you suddenly see the effect a simple man has had on so many people."

The Oshkosh Northwestern receives hundreds of tributes to Coach Randall, from

around the country and overseas. At the funeral players speak of his indelible

impact on their lives. "That's when I had the epiphany," says Lance. "I had to

do this."

What Lance had to do was leave Saint Louis, walk away from his $56,000

salary, move his family in with his mother and accept a $4,000 part-time

coaching stipend to take over his father's team at Oshkosh West, which already

had a locker labeled randall.

It means finding a full-time job that allows him to leave at 3 p.m. "I don't

want to make the team practice at seven because the coach is doing double shifts

at the Quik-Mart," says Lance, who signs on as a fund-raiser for the

Experimental Aircraft Association.

His first season is a fairy tale. Oshkosh West is ranked No. 1 in the state

for the first time and takes an unbeaten record into the playoffs. "There was a

fairy-tale ending to be written," says Lance. "But a lot of kids--not just

ours--dream of winning state." West is upset in the sectional semis and sees

two of its best players graduate. There is no happily ever after.

This season the Wildcats' starting point guard is lost to suspension in

December, but they are unbeaten. Over Christmas, West renames its home floor the

Steven L. Randall Court and is touched by a strange magic. In early January

senior Andy Polka--the quintessential Wisconsin name--makes a 75-foot heave at

the buzzer to keep the Wildcats unbeaten. A teammate jumps up and down so hard

in celebration that his shorts fall down, a spectacle spot-shadowed on

SportsCenter.

West continues to win, skating through sectionals, making it to Madison for

the state tournament, where a metropolitan power from Milwaukee or Madison

always wins. But that hardly matters. The Wildcats get to stay in Steve

Randall's favorite Madison hotel, the InnTowner, where he and Lance holed up

every year as state tourney spectators. And Oshkosh brings the tournament's

biggest party of fans, bigger even than Madison's own Memorial High, West's

powerhouse opponent for the state championship.

With two minutes to go, Polka dunks to give West a 12-point lead. The crowd

chants "STE-ven RAN-dall," reducing his widow to tears.

The team buses back to Oshkosh that night, escorted by police and fire

trucks, past congratulatory bedsheets. They are met at West End Pizza by a

spontaneous pep rally for the new state champions.

"I've been blessed beyond imagination," says Lance. "If I took over at Duke

or won an NBA championship, it couldn't surpass what I've been a part of at

Oshkosh West."

Turns out, the small time is the big time. "They say 'Don't sweat the small

stuff,'" Lance says. "But my dad has shown me, even in death, that the small

stuff is what's important." Steve Randall so loved his players (and vice versa)

that he cried at every postseason banquet. I tell him his dad reminds me of

George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life.

"You're the first person outside the family to mention that movie," says

Lance. "It's my favorite. My parents gave it to me when I was little. I cry just

taking it out of the box." The son inhales deeply and says, "You're exactly

right: My dad was the richest man in town."

[billikenmetz]

Great story. Good to know that there are some good people out there who care about doing the right thing.

[Major Majerus]

Thanks for posting it!