Coach Collapses In Locker Room Prior To Game, Dies

December 15, 2010 /
The Joplin Globe (Mo.)

Doug Weatherly, a fixture in coaching at Pierce City High School for more than 20 years, died on Monday night.

Weatherly, the junior varsity girls basketball coach and assistant for Chelsea Perry, collapsed in the locker room at Granby near the finish of the preliminary jayvee game between East Newton and Wheaton.

Weatherly, who would have been 45 on Jan. 18, graduated from Marionville High School in 1984. Weatherly, also a middle school social studies teacher, spent his entire coaching career at Pierce City.

His duties with the Eagles included three seasons as the Pierce City head boys basketball coach (1991-94).  He also was defensive coordinator for Mac Whitehead this past football season.

Pierce City Superintendent Russ Moreland was at East Newton on Monday night.

“There’s no way to capture what Coach Weatherly meant to our school and kids,” Moreland said on Tuesday. “The kids loved him. He loved the kids. He had a personal connection with each of them. He treated everyone with respect.

“He liked the role of an assistant coach and (for example) doing his thing on defense,” Moreland said. “It leaves a huge hole. He was one of a kind. He was a special guy and a special teacher.”

Said Marionville activities director Todd Bassore: “To me, Coach Weatherly is, as much as anyone after 22 years, the face of Pierce City athletics.”

Weatherly, who lived in Monett, was a junior at Marionville when current Marionville boys basketball coach Ted Young was a senior athlete for the Comets.

“We played together a year in football,” Young said. “Doug also was a sophomore on our state championship basketball team.

“We lost a good person,” Young said. “We frequently talked. He always was friendly. He always was smiling. He always was good for kids. He was good around children even in high school.

“I still think of him — and always will — as a Comet,” Young said. “He did an outstanding job at Pierce City.”

Dave Stuckey, now coaching football at Class 2 Grandview, near Hillsboro, Mo., was head coach at Pierce City for four years in the early 2000s and Weatherly was his defensive coordinator.

Said Stuckey: “He (Weatherly) was a genuine teddy bear … a big, ole teddy bear. He would do anything for a student. He had a concern that was unique.”

Perry, of course, was the latest Eagle coach to have Weatherly as an ally and it was more than suggesting a play.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better assistant,” she said. “When I was nervous before a game, he’d crack a joke. Honestly, once you got to know him, he would tell all kinds of stories.

“Definitely, he was a great guy,” Perry said. “He’ll be greatly missed.

“You can’t find anyone who will say anything negative about him,” Perry said. “They — top to the bottom — the players, the community and the people at school loved the guy. He loved the players.”


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