Honoring Al

Tom Souder has been coaching for more than 40 years.

He’s won a bunch of games, and lost a few too.

But he’s never coached on the floor where he played high school with his dad, Al, in the stands.

Tonight the 61-year-old will get his chance at both.

Souder, son of legendary Fort Recovery High School boys basketball coach Al Souder, and his Worthington Kilbourne Wolves will play the Indians at Fort Site Fieldhouse.

“It’s very special because Fort Recovery has always been a special place for me,” said Tom Souder, a 1974 Fort Recovery graduate. “The people have been ultra supportive of me and my family. It is a special place.”

But Saturday is about more than just a basketball game.

Al Souder, 89, who guided the Indians to the school’s first state championship in 1971, has been battling Alzheimer’s for the last six years.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association website, more than five million Americans are affected by the neurological disease that worsens over time and is the sixth leading cause of death in the country. Every 66 seconds an American develops the disease and one-in-three seniors will die from it or another form of dementia.

The Worthington Kilbourne and Fort Recovery schools have joined forces with one another to have a benefit in honor of the Souder family. Money will be raised during the game on behalf of the Alzheimer’s Association’s “The Longest Day,” which was originally on the summer solstice; the longest day of the year.

Admission to the game — the junior varsity is set to tip at 6 p.m. — is free, but donations will be accepted at the gate in honor of the Souders.

“The Longest Day, it was perfect,” Rammel said. “It was a charity for any family that has any member with Alzheimer’s.

“What a perfect way to do that because if you think of the Souders and Fort Recovery, you think of basketball.”

For two years, Tom Souder approached FRHS athletics director Kurt Rammel about the opportunity to bring his suburban Columbus team to Fort Recovery for a game. There was simply not a date that would work.

Ahead of this year’s schedule, however, Rammel had an opening.

Tom Souder jumped at it.

“Number one, I wanted to give back,” he said. “Number two, I want my kids to know what places like (Fort Recovery) are about. Sometimes you get in your own bubble and you don’t get outside your own bubble.

“As a coach you have to push kids outside their bubbles.”

Al Souder, who has been inducted into both the Fort Recovery (2006) and Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association halls of fame (2009), began leading the Indians during a winless 1963-64 season.

Five years later, the Tribe was a state semifinalist before winning the state championship in his eighth season.

Souder’s Tribe teams captured five Mercer County championships and six sectional titles as he was 191-146 in 15 years at Fort Recovery.

Souder then coached for 10 more years at Paulding High School.

In his nearly three-decade career, he won 308 victories and was honored as the Associated Press Ohio High School coach of the year in 1967 and the District 8 Class A coach of the year in 1971.

Between the junior varsity and varsity contests tonight, there will be a ceremony for Souder to commemorate his time coaching Fort Recovery.

Players from both teams will also warm up in shooting shirts that will honor Souder.

Tom Souder got choked up multiple times talking about what it will mean for him and his family.

“You’re going to expect me to coach a basketball game after all this,” he asked rhetorically, half-laughing with an apparent frog in his throat. “I better get my assistants ready.”

Rammel had a much easier time speaking about the ceremony.

“Turned out to be a perfect situation,” he said. “Tom wanted to come back home before it was too late. It was a perfect storm that it worked out.

“This day is about raising money for Alzheimer’s, but we’re also going to be playing a basketball game.”

Souder said his Wolves team is young and struggling. It is 1-6, and the coach says it has a knack for finding a way to lose games rather than win them.

As the buzzer sounds to decide a winner and a loser tonight, the final score will be of little importance to those in attendance.

“There are things that are way more important than winning or losing a basketball game and (tonight) is one of those days,” he said. “We’re going to try to compete and win the game, but in the big picture it’s trying to support a cause of a disease that robs a lot of people of the people they love.

“Hopefully we can make some strides toward that and honoring a guy who … (Tom got choked up again) … not only was my coach but was my dad.”