Schaack Van Deusen Retires as Baylor Wrestling Coach

 

William Shakespeare must have been a wrestler.

He labored over his work for countless hours until he had created a masterpiece.

For 40 years, longtime Baylor assistant coach Schaack Van Deusen has written and re-written masterpiece game plans for his wrestlers who have gone on to state and national titles.

Shakespeare put down the pen for a final time in 1613 after 154 sonnets and 38 plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet

This past Saturday night at the TSSAA state traditional championship at the Williamson County Ag & Expo Center (Franklin, Tenn.), Van Deusen wrote his last coaching masterpiece and presented a successful three-act play as a trio of Red Raiders – junior Brandon Brunner and seniors Zack Watson and Matthew Cate – won state championships with the hall of fame coach in the chair matside.

Dressed in his usual red sports jacket, carrying his fact-filled notes and peering over his glasses, the Lookout Mountain native sat matside for the last time.

"It's been a great 40 years coaching many great wrestlers (Notre Dame and Baylor), but it is time to step aside and let someone else be in the chair next to (Baylor head coach) Ben Nelson,” said Van Deusen who is a member of the Baylor School athletics hall of fame and has coached teams to state titles in a record six different decades (see list at end of story).

Shakepeare gave us classics in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet

Van Deusen has coached and taught young boys to be named among the great classics of the sport – Whatley, Lyle, Leen and Watson. 

Exit Stage Right: The former two-time city prep mat champion who later wrestled at the U.

of Virginia and U. of Chattanooga, also plans to retire this spring as a Baylor theater teacher where he has taught and developed hundreds of aspiring actors since joining the Baylor School faculty in the fall of 1977.  

“Schaack Van Deusen is the greatest teacher I have ever had the privilege of working with,” said Lizzie Chazen (’02). “He carries the rare gift of making his students want to strive for greatness.

 

“Not only does he teach his students how to be great actors, he gives them the deep appreciation and respect for the arts. There is no one like him!”

 

Julie Berke (’90) who recently starred as Alma in Tennessee Williams “Summer and Smoke” stated, “I have been very fortunate in my life to have the opportunity to study at some of the best acting schools in the country, but I have yet to have a teacher that inspires me half as much as Schaack Van Deuesen."

“I consider him a master teacher, an amazing director and a wonderful friend.  I am, however, very perturbed that he could not see fit to stick around for my son to be his student – he would only have to stick it out another 12 years!  Seriously, I wish for my son, to one day have a teacher that is as wonderful as Schaack.

Van Deusen on Stage: While Van Deusen teamed with head wrestling coaches Luke Worsham, Jim Morgan and Ben Nelson since 1978 to form a Southern prep wrestling power, for the past quarter century he has worked with Pete Robinson in producing top quality Baylor School plays.

 

“When all is said and done, Schaack is first and foremost an educator without peer.  He regarded his students' successes here as theirs, not his,” said Robinson who directs the set designs and production for all Baylor plays.

“This can be easily proven by how he is regarded by those whom he has taught.  A state champion wrestler (or for that matter a B-teamer who never made it to the varsity) and an actor who now plys his or her craft professionally, both love him and say the same things about him - that he cared about them.”  

Once called the Rogers and Hammerstein of high school theater, Van Deusen and Robinson will present their final play together – “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – in May.

Van Deusen’s baby boomer baseball friends might use legendary sports combos to describe these two; Koufax and Drysdale, Mantle and Maris, Fox and Aparicio – all but Maris are hall of famers.

At the conclusion of the final presentation on Sunday May 6 in the Roddy Performing Arts Center, Van Deusen just might get more curtain calls and standing ovations that any of the aforementioned hall of famers.

While Van Deusen – a four-sport letter winner at Baylor – won’t make it to Cooperstown (home of baseball’s hall of fame), he and his meticulous wrestling notes have already made it to Stillwater, Okla. – the national wrestling hall of fame.

Robinson went on to say, “I think, too, that one should regard his two major roles here with the same thoughts.  He has been successful as a wrestling coach for the same reasons that he has been a successful stage director: It is his attention to detail and his imagination that we have all been blessed with over the years.”

The former national assistant coach of the year has not only taught young people to stand tall and succeed on stage, but also in one of the toughest athletic arenas known to a teenager – the wrestling mat where your mama isn’t going to come save you when you opponent has you in trouble.  

"I was a member and captain of Schaack's first Baylor team and state champion in 1978,” said Doug Dyer former Baylor state champion (’78) and UTC wrestler. “What I remember most about Schaack is he humbled you as a wrestler. He was always about TEAM and if you forgot it, he had no problem reminding you"

 

This past weekend, he cheered, coached and yelled encouragement and even though his competitive days on the mat ended as a University of Chattanooga wrestler in the mid-1960s, he wrestled every minute of all 55 matches involving his 14 Red Raiders in their bid for another state championship.

 

Although, Baylor took home a second place team trophy on Saturday night, Van Deusen’s 40- year record is impressive as he coached 10 individual state champions at Notre Dame (1966-70) and 80 at Baylor (1978-2012) along with two team titles for the Irish (1968, 70) and all but one of the Red Raiders 21 state duals and traditional team state crowns.

“Schaack is a great teacher on and off the mat,” said coach Nelson. ”He has spent the better part of his life developing young people and the last thing he has ever wanted is personal recognition.

“The proud Baylor wrestling tradition has had many successful seasons, and it is no coincidence that 20 of 21of the state championships have come under Schaack's direction. He has been an exceptional mentor and friend to me as I have adjusted my roles at Baylor. I look forward to having him come cheer on the team in the future, when his golf game permits.”

From his first state champion (Howard Chronologar) at Notre Dame to his last state champion (Matthew Cate) at Baylor and from the first group of aspiring actors in 1978 to the seasoned-stage veterans who graduate this spring, Robinson said of his friend and co-worker, “That Schaack challenged them. That he held them to an incredibly high and rigorous standard.  That he required hard work, honesty, dependability, responsibility and the honorable pride of being a Baylor student.”

Quotes

“Schaack Van Deusen is synonymous with Baylor Wrestling.  He is the epitome of everything that Baylor Wrestling stands for – hard work, class, success.

 

“He has been that stabilizer in the program as we have transitioned from Luke Worsham to Jim Morgan, and to Ben Nelson. His rare combination of being a drama teacher and wrestling coach has allowed him to impact hundreds of young men and women on our campus.  He will be sorely missed.”

-- Thad Lepcio, Baylor School athletics director

“Schaack 's passion and enthusiasm is unequaled and it has been consistent since his beginning days at Notre Dame. He is a fierce competitor who deserves respect and admiration. While, he has legendary numbers in terms of championships and victories, his real legacy is his dedication and commitment to his students and athletes.

“You can rest assured that he does everything he can to make them the best that they can be.

A noteworthy legacy for an extraordinary person.”
-- Yogi Anderson, 1968 Notre Dame state champion

 

“Schaack and I have known each other since being Kindergarten classmates at Lookout Mountain School. We have been neighbors, rivals on the mat in McCallie-Baylor matches (Schaack won their lone meeting), teammates at the University of Virginia and rival coaches.

“He is a great tribute to the sport of wrestling.”

-- John McCall, McCallie faculty member

 

 

Coaches with State Championships in the Most Decades (8)
6 - Schaack Van Deusen (Notre Dame/Baylor) - 60s-70s-80s-90s-2000s-2010s

 

4 - Pat Simpson (Father Ryan) - 80s-90s-2000s-2010s
4 - Gordon Connell (Hixson/McCallie) - 70s-80s-90s-2000s

 

3 - Luke Worsham (Baylor) - 1960s-70s-80s
3 - Al Miller (Cleveland)- 80s-90s-2010s
3 - Jim Morgan (Bradley Central) - 90s-2000s-2010s
3 - Steve Logsdon (Bradley Central) - 90s-2000s-2010s
3 - Steve Henry (Soddy Daisy) - 80s-2000s-2010s

contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net