Death of Volunteer Coach Leaves Void in KU Wrestling

COURTESY OF HERALD AND NEWS- Dave Coker took a step back.His eyes began to well up slightly.“We became pretty close,” the Klamath Union wrestling coach said when talking about Shawn Scott, better known as “Coach Tiny,” who had helped the Pelicans over the past three years after one season at Chiloquin.

The last couple weeks of the season were difficult.

Scott, 48, died at his home in Klamath falls on Feb. 17. It was between the regional and state tournaments.

“I saw him at a tournament and he told me he missed coaching, so I said: ‘Dude, come on down,’ ” Coker said, recalling the 48-year-old whose services were last Saturday. “I knew he cared about kids, and that is what he was about.

“No other person I ever saw truly wanted kids to be cared for like that,” he said.

Coker sees more than a few young people who need help because of his job at Klamath Basin Behavioral Health, so he gladly took on Scott as a volunteer coach.

When Scott needed some help, he was invited to live with the Cokers (including wife Carol) until he could get some elements of his life back in order.

“We became more like brothers,” Coker said of a gregarious man who knew when to present tough love, and who had been credited by his siblings for, basically, raising them, according to the veteran KU coach.

“He was their glue,” Coker said of Scott and his siblings.

With the Pelicans, Scott was what Coker called a rock.

“What I learned afterward (following his death and the recent state championships) is that he would do anything for his kids and I learned they would do anything for him,” Coker said. “To see how those kids responded showed me the impact he had on their lives.”

Far too volunteers get credit for what they do, and their impact on others.

The rewards are legion, but may not be realized until years, even decades, later.

“He leaves not only a physical hole in Klamath Union wrestling, but an emotional hole,” Coker said. “He was just a humble guy. He was just a good guy who worked hard. He worked at his job because he had to, but kids were his life.”

Amazingly adroit words for someone who had no children of his own.

His siblings, though, said if there was one thing their older brother totally understood, it was the value of spending time with those individuals for who someone truly, completely care about.

Death hits all of us hard at some time in our life, and those individuals who made a major impact on helping us become the people we are expected to become, and do become, makes those moments intensely more difficult to understand.