Good Sports - a final campaign for Sam Sides

Sam Sides, Saxony Lutheran girls basketball coach since 2008, instructs his team during a game earlier this season.

Tyler Graef ~ tgraef@semissourian.com

Good Sports is a weekly feature appearing in the Southeast Missourian and online at Semoball.com. It profiles the life of a person connected to sports and allows readers the opportunity to know the people who are impacting athletics throughout Southeast Missouri in a deeper way. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Today: Sam Sides, 65, head girls basketball coach and athletic director (A.D), Saxony Lutheran High School. A Jackson alum, Sides coached at Leopold, Meadow Heights and his alma mater before coming to Saxony in 2008, a school with a total current enrollment of 235 in grades 9-12. His Lady Crusaders are 7-3 (1-0, SEMO Conference) this season and have won six of their last seven games. Saxony has posted 20-win seasons for seven consecutive years. The Crusaders, under Sides’ leadership, have been Class 3 District 2 champs seven times – 2013-2019; state runner-up in 2016; and in the final four at state in 2014. Last year in the district championship game, Sides achieved 500 total career varsity wins coaching girls and boys combined.

You’re a Jackson boy. Tell us something about your childhood.

I’m the youngest of four kids – my parents had three boys and a girl. My dad had a Gulf service station at Main and Hope streets, where the uptown Jackson roundabout is now. My brothers and I worked with our father there. The gas station is where I learned to communicate and where my smart-aleck mouth comes from, I suspect. You hear lots of stories while pumping gas and I have good memories. My brothers went to Vietnam but the government had quit the draft by the time I turned 18. The service station closed in 1974 and Mom and Dad are both gone now.

You say you got married young.

I married Barbara Ford when I was 20 in 1975 and our son, our only child, Ty, is a middle school principal today in Hallsville, Mo. We’ll celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary in April.

Leopold was your first coaching experience, yes?

Professionally, yes – but actually, no. I coached a summer league baseball team when I was 16 – and have been coaching ever since.

You are a Southeast graduate.

Graduated in 1978 with a degree in physical education but I’ve also taught science – earth science, physical science, biology. College took me a little longer because I was married with a child and was working three jobs while going to classes.

Take us through your coaching career, please.

I’ve done a little bit of most everything. Six years in Leopold starting in ’78, coaching boys basketball, girls softball, boys baseball and in junior high, volleyball and boys hoops. Seven years at Meadow Heights, boys basketball and baseball plus junior high basketball. Then onto Jackson for 18 years.

It was in Jackson that you started to coach girls hoops, yes?

But not right away. I got to Jackson in the 1990-91 academic year and was an assistant at the varsity level for the Indians in baseball and girls basketball. I got to coach football at Jackson – and was junior high head coach. I liked football, liked the atmosphere. I played the game as a teenager.

When did you make the jump to being a girls basketball head coach?

It was 2004 when I became head coach of girls basketball and kept that role until I retired from Jackson R-2 in 2008. After retirement, I looked around a bit and actually had an offer in the Columbia area. Then I saw Saxony had an opening so I came right over. I’ve been in coaching, one team or another, one sport or another, for 42 years.

Your principal is Mark Ruark, who is a former A.D. at Cape Central.

It’s a benefit for me to have Mark because he understands my job and is more sympathetic because he’s been in athletics. Some (school) administrators don’t have a lot of interest in extracurricular activities.

You had four losing seasons to start out at Saxony but it’s been 20-win seasons since. What’s been the difference?

We had a really athletic class in 2013, when we went 25-3 and won our first district title. We’ve had some really exceptional athletes. Maddie Brune (sister of current Crusader Emma Brune) went to Troy in Alabama and played four years of soccer there. Grace Mirly also went to Troy and she played basketball and softball at Saxony. I’ve had about six girls go on to play hoops in college – Columbia College, Lindenwood, Webster, Mineral Area.

Emma (Brune) is your current star.

No question. She can dial it up and take over. But we have unselfish players here and smart kids. Smart is a weapon.

Sam Sides, Saxony Lutheran Crusaders girls basketball coach. Tyler Graef ~ tgraef@semissourian.com

What do you talk about with your team?

I tend to talk all the time. When I talk less and my players say more, then I know we’re getting somewhere.

Do you have a philosophy? Is there a “Sam Sides” culture?

I want them to play fearless. Focus on the process, not on the outcome. If we outhustle and outwork our opponent, the outcome will take care of itself. Also, and I say this all the time – play as hard as you can for as long as you can.

When Sam Sides is pleased with a team, how do we know it?

If I hear someone say, “Your girls played hard,” that makes me happy. I don’t like to play too slow. If we have the personnel, I like to play the whole court, up and down.

You had a recent game at Sikeston (a 75-68 win Monday) which particularly pleased you.

We were down by 15 at one point and down by 11 in the fourth quarter and we came back to win. I enjoy seeing my kids show grit and determination.

What makes you displeased as a coach?

Losing. I’m a poor loser. No doubt about it. I’m pretty competitive. But I’ll tell you something. I’d rather play and lose than not play at all. If I don’t think people are hustling, and this includes officials, I can lose my mind once in awhile. I can get loud and lose my temper. In recent years, I’ve calmed down but have also become much more emotional.

You’ve had a lot of experience in public schools. What is different about coaching in a private school environment?

Despite our success, our numbers sometimes work against us. We’re small. But we don’t get the discipline problems here that I’ve seen earlier in my career. In the public school, there is always a tier of kids – a distinct minority – who don’t want to be there. We simply don’t have this at Saxony. We have fewer distractions, I think. Kids seem more serious about their schooling and about how much they care about each other.

What makes your heart hurt as a coach?

When a student-athlete you once coached passes away. My very first season at Leopold, 1978-79, I had a boy named Leroy Jansen. When he played for me, he was 17 and I was 23. When you lose a kid who played for you, that’s a bad feeling and (the loss) shows you perspective.

Have you ever thought about coaching at the next level?

No. I had no interest in it and no one has ever approached me. I don’t know there’s a better job than the one I’ve got.

You look pretty intimidating when you’re on the sideline.

Yes, I’ve heard. My players don’t really know how much I enjoy being around them.

You’re an older coach. How much longer do you intend to coach?

My plan is to stop after this year. I’ve been considering it for several years and there is no good time to stop, but I think this is it for me.