EDWARDSVILLE – For someone who grew up near Granite City and even started out as a sportswriter, coaching and Mike Waldo has been a very good fit.
Waldo reached a major milestone with Edwardsville's 73-52 win over DeSmet at Lucco-Jackson Gym Tuesday night – his 700th career win in a career that began at Marquette Catholic in Alton in 1983 and arrived to Edwardsville in 1987.
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“I'm just thankful to get to coach the kids,” Waldo said following the win. “I like sports and I like the kids and we've had some really good guys and they've won a lot of games; they've done good, they've worked hard and they've paid the price. That makes me think of that.
“I'm happy to have been able to done it this long; we've had an awful lot of good guys play. That makes me think of that.”
To have been able to coach as long as Waldo has done over the years has required much sacrifice and understanding. “I'm also very thankful that my wife (Diane) has been willing to be a single mom from November to March every year,” Waldo said. “That's allowed me to coach basketball the way I want to, and I'm very thankful to her that she's got the heart and the determination and the perseverance to be a single mom for 4-5 months out of every year.
“I think that takes a lot and I really admire that she, like a lot of single moms, that she just dug in there and, 'well, Mike's not here, by God, I'll do it all', and she did and never made me feel guilty about doing it. I'm very thankful to her that I've been able to last this long. That's a very admirable thing to being able to raise those kids by yourself.”
Before going into coaching at Granite City North, Waldo tried his hand at sportswriting for a local Granite City newspaper. “I wasn't a good sportswriter,” Waldo remembered. “You gotta work too fast and you had to have it done in an hour; I couldn't think that fast, so I wasn't good enough to be a sportswriter.”
Waldo's dad, Gayland (he and his mom, Pat, were on hand for Tuesday's milestone win), would watch all kinds of sporting events with Waldo when he was growing up in Mitchell. “My dad and I grew up watching sports together,” Waldo recalled. “We watched all kinds of sports together; I remember watching the Ice Bowl (the famed 1967 NFL Championship Game in Green Bay between the Packers and Dallas Cowboys) together. I remember watching Wilt Chamberlain play (for the Philadelphia 76ers and later the Los Angeles Lakers).
“They used to advertise Stag beer when the St. Louis Hawks played; I just remember watching sports with my dad my whole life and I can remember dad – I was the first guy on Fleming Street (in Mitchell) to have a basket. Dad put up a basket and he forgot we had a large glass garage door and the first day I shot, I broke the window – the next day, he had a bar across it and he had a light on it.
“Dad put up a basket for me and we always shared sports together. Having dad here was good – he's a great man, the toughest, best man I know. My mom is the greatest lady I know.”
For all his achievements on the bench, Waldo realizes that there are more important occupations out there. “I'm not a soldier, I'm not a nurse, I'm not a caregiver for a disabled person; I'm just a coach. I don't think that's something to be revered – not like those things are – but I'm thankful that I've had the opportunity to work with a bunch of really good guys. I'm thankful for that.”
Waldo recalled his first-ever coaching win over old St. Henry Prep of Belleville in 1983 when he took over the Marquette program. “We had Kenny Taylor, Chris Taylor, Steve Frank, Billy Pohlman – I had a lot of guys,” Waldo recalled. “We lost our first game to Gillespie, then lost to Metro East Lutheran.”
When Waldo began coaching at Granite North following playing college basketball at Lewis and Clark and SIU-Edwardsville – having been brought in by one-time Granite City South basketball coach Bryan Wilkinson – he may not have thought about the career that lay ahead for him. “I just like sports and I wanted to learn how to coach,” Waldo said. “I had a lot of good guys that really helped me over the years learn how to coach. I'm not saying I know everything now – I don't – but I had some really good guys. It's just one day to the next; I never really thought about that. I'm just thankful we get to play the next one.”
