Knowing he would go head-to-head with his own former high school coach in Jeff Waugh, currently at Carlisle? Check.
Walking into the teachers lounge for the first time? Not so fast.
“The only awkwardness is teaching with some of the people that taught you,” Buehner said. “They tell you to call them by the first name and you still can’t do it.”
He’s not alone. As the sectional tournament tips off this week, eight of the 14 Southwestern Buckeye League coaches will guide the schools where they also played and graduated from into the one-and-done season.
“Growing up in a small town you develop a real sense of community and school pride,” Milton-Union coach Andy Grudich said. “To have the opportunity to come back and be a head coach is something special.”
They had game
A memo to the SWBL players: Listen up, your coaches know what they’re talking about.
They’re a collection of 1,000-point scoring, all-league earning, record-holding hoopsters.
Carlisle’s Waugh was even named a Dayton Daily News/Journal Herald all-star before the two newspapers merged.
“Now that’s old school right there,” Waugh said, chuckling at the memory.
Waugh, Bellbrook’s Perry Caldwell and Waynesville’s Todd Cook are among those who battled each other on the court back in the late 1980s. Today they share scouting reports and lend support when they can and even enjoy coaching against each other, as Cook and Waugh did in the Spartans’ win Friday.
“This has been a dream of mine to come back, winning a league championship and putting together a great season,” said Cook, whose Spartans captured the SWBL Buckeye title. “The program is doing very, very good.”
School spirit
Franklin coach Brian Bales spent a couple of seasons at Miamisburg before returning to his old stomping grounds, leading the Wildcats to the SWBL Southwestern title.
“I know personally when I walk in this gym at 2:30 p.m., I have an invested passion in this place,” said Bales. “I get a little emotional before the games because I love this place.”
Eaton’s Denny Shepherd teaches at Valley View and coached there for a few years before taking over the Eagles. There’s something special about returning to the home court.
“I had a great experience growing up in Eaton. ... I wanted to do this for the kids and give back to the community and the teachers that helped me.”
Coming from the same environment and background has its benefits, which Northridge coach Eric Glover uses to relate to his players.
“I grew up in the same community and we all have a lot in common,” Glover said. “I really do have the desire in my heart to turn the program around, get us on the right track.”
Waugh, with help of an assistant, helped return the program’s tradition of running out of a wooden teepee before games just like he used to do.
Dream job
Other jobs may come along, but those eight coaches already feel like they’ve found their dream jobs.
“I kid — I kid — that the next basketball coaching job I take would be the seventh-grade job at Bellbrook because I taught middle school forever,” Caldwell said. “I think my next step will be down rather than up. I still love this community and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Waugh takes the philosphy of lengendary college coach Don Meyer, who could be referring to any of those eight SWBL alma mater coaches.
“The big time,” Waugh said, “is where you’re at.”
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