BELLEVILLE — The Sparta High School head football coach was struck and killed by a train about 1 p.m. Monday in Belleville in an apparent suicide, authorities said.
St. Clair County Coroner Rick Stone identified the victim as Phillip Watson, 50, of 105 N. Market St., Sparta.
Watson was struck by an eastbound train at Illinois 159 and Douglas Avenue at the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks. He was pronounced dead due to blunt force trauma at the scene at 1:33 p.m. by Deputy Coroner Dan Haskenhoff.
“It is believed that he was experiencing some personal problems,” Stone said.
Belleville Police Capt. Donald Sax said Watson had been reported missing and possibly suicidal and was last seen Sunday. Sax said the victim laid down on the tracks in front of the train engine.
Belleville emergency workers covered the body with a yellow plastic blanket. The train was several hundred yards down the tracks, northeast of the intersection and next to North End Park in Belleville.
The collision did not close either of the roads.
Watson’s teams were 0-17 at Sparta, a struggling program he took over in 2009. The Bulldogs’ last game under Watson was a 49-8 loss at Nashville on Friday night. They will close out the season Friday, as scheduled, at home against Red Bud.
Watson built the Wesclin High football program from the ground up in 2001, with the Warriors playing their first varsity schedule in 2003 with a 4-5 record. The Warriors made their first state playoff appearance in 2004 with an 8-3 team, then added two more appearances for a string of three in a row.
Wesclin was 26-14 in four seasons under Watson.
“To start a program from scratch, most schools are lucky if they win a game or two in three or four years,” Wesclin High Athletic Director Tom Hund said. “What he did to get that program off and running from the go was really amazing.
“He was really a motivator of young men. It was kind of a perfect fit to start a program and get the kids excited about football.”
Nick Fuhler, who played for Watson before he graduated in 2006 from Wesclin, said he’s talked to dozens of former players after hearing of Watson’s death.
“We’re spread out across the country now, and we’re just heartbroken tonight,” Fuhler said. “We all agree on one thing: Coach Watson’s the standout coach in all of our lives.”
Fuhler played for McKendree University after high school. He is now teaching and coaching in Orlando, and on the verge of starting a new high school football team.
“I’ll be able to start something like he did. It’s just a painful irony right now,” Fuhler said.
Obie Farmer played for Watson on Wesclin’s offensive and defensive lines until he graduated in 2007.
“He not only taught us how to play, but how to live our lives in society,” Farmer said. “He was really a community based individual. He told us, ’Live life how you want it to treat you.’ He was always a role model to me.”
The summer after graduation, Farmer helped Watson coach in Centralia. During that summer, Farmer told Watson about the doubts he had of his future in sports. With Watson’s help, Farmer went on to play for Blackburn College.
“He told me I had the potential to play on the next level. I wouldn’t have even considered it if it wasn’t for his encouragement,” Farmer said.
Watson’s emotional coaching style made him a favorite of his players. At several Sparta basketball games last season, he wore an old basketball uniform and carried a school flag, leading the team onto the court.
At Wesclin, he helped with a group known as “Wacky Warriors” that tried to boost student attendance at basketball games.
A standout player at Freeburg High School, Watson went on to play college football at Culver-Stockton. After college, Watson returned as a Freeburg assistant coach and defensive coordinator.
Former Freeburg High School football coach Dennis Dalke worked with Watson as a player and later had him on his coaching staff for four years.
“He was the father of the term ’Blue Rage,’” Dalke said. “We had those good defenses back then, and he came up with that.
“When he stepped onto a football field, he knew what he was doing and he did a great job,” Dalke said.
What made Watson so popular with his players?
“He always related well to the kids, and one of the reasons was he was so intense,” Dalke said. “When he worked under me at Freeburg, he got the most out of the kids that he worked with. They loved his intensity and his enthusiasm.”
After two winless seasons at Centralia, traditionally a basketball town, Watson moved on to take the head coaching job at Sparta.
Sparta Lincoln Middle School Principal Laura Woodworth said Watson taught physical education at the middle school, where his stepdaughter was a student, in the mornings before going over to the high school.
“He was a very likeable guy,” Woodworth said. “He always wanted to do what’s best for the kids.”
Grief counselors will be at the schools today, Woodworth said.
Watson also was the lead singer for Buzz the Dawg, a four-piece ensemble that had performed in March in Freeburg.
Three other people were hit by trains this year, one in Belleville and two in Granite City.
Terry W. Sicka, 47, was hit and killed Sept. 12 by a Norfolk Southern train near the 2400 block of West Main Street in Belleville.
In Granite City, a 21-year-old Pontoon Beach man, who police did not identify, on June 12 was hit by a freight train but survived. Hope E. Crooks, 37, of Belleville, was hit and killed May 28 while walking in an area of Granite City with multiple train tracks.
