Published: August 19, 2005
By KATE ROWLAND
Of the News-Register
McMInnville, Oregon
Not many assistant coaches have a fieldhouse named after them, but
Linfield College's Ad Rutschman does.
Not many coaches have been inducted in five Halls of Fame, awarded
five Man of the Year awards and twelve Coach of the Year honors. And
there are no other coaches who have won national championships in both
football and baseball.
But Ad Rutschman, currently an assistant coach for the Linfield
Wildcats football team, has done all of that.
Soft-spoken and personable, Rutschman has a resume chock full of
honors most coaches can only dream about.
As head football coach at Linfield, he won NAIA Division II national
football titles in 1982, '84 and '86. His overall football record from
1968 to 1991 was 183-48-3.
Rutschman coached baseball at Linfield from 1971 to 1983 and amassed
an overall record of 154-72. He led Linfield to the 1971 NAIA World
Series baseball title in his first year as head coach.
Linfield's Rutschman Fieldhouse was named after Ad and his wife, Joan.
Both were inducted in Linfield's Hall of Fame, Rutschman in 1998 and
Joan in 1999.
But ask Rutschman what he is most proud of and he will tell you that
although winning kept him in coaching, the greatest satisfaction he
got out of it was seeing the kids he coached becoming better people.
He tried to help them develop a work ethic, a commitment to excellence
and learn how to deal with adversity.
"I feel good about the honors but that's it," he said. "Then it's over
with. I don't dwell on it. But seeing people improve personally and
then watching them go out and become successful in their lives is what
I enjoy most. And our people, by and large, have enjoyed great
success."
Rutschman said he'd like to believe that athletics was a part of that
success. He feels he had the best classroom for teaching success
skills — on the playing fields at Linfield College.
"I'm not talking about computer skills or writing skills or surgery
skills but just plain success skills," he said. "People talk about how
important the work ethic is, getting along with people, a commitment
to excellence, leadership, ability to follow, cooperation, team work,
how important those qualities are to success and the response I get
from everybody is that it's everything. Where can you develop those
things anywhere better than team sports?"
For 13 years Rutschman was the athletic director, the head baseball
coach, the head football coach and taught at least three physical
education classes all at the same time. He also is understandably
proud of that accomplishment.
"You just don't see that kind of thing anymore," he said. "It was a
very heavy load. We didn't take a vacation for 24 years, my wife and
I.
"I don't know how I ended up with all three jobs. It's just kind of
one of those things. At that time, you did what people asked you to
do. If you could be helpful then you did it. Although if I could do it
differently I'd probably ask for more money," he said with a big
laugh.
Playing the game
Rutschman grew up on a farm in rural Hillsboro. He played sports, but
primarily softball.
"I'm not sure I even knew football existed until I was in about the
sixth grade," he said. "We didn't have television. We played softball
and the older people played baseball."
When his family moved into town in the fourth or fifth grade, he
started getting involved in other sports. But there were no sports
camps or programs for kids at that time.
Rutschman ended up playing football, basketball and baseball in high
school. He made the varsity as a freshman in baseball, the varsity as
a sophomore in basketball and he lettered in football as a junior.
He liked all sports. He didn't have a favorite.
"People have asked me what my favorite sport was since I was growing
up," he said. "Basically it was whatever sport was in season. I just
liked playing."
Rutschman said he has many fond memories of playing. He was lucky to
have had outstanding coaches.
"They had a big influence on me and that was the thing that made it as
much fun as anything else," he said. "I just loved playing for them."
His teams were very successful. In his first year in baseball as a
freshman his coach was Don Kirsch, who went on to become an
outstanding baseball coach at the University of Oregon.
"My football coach also was very good," he said. "He became a
principal and later hired me back to Hillsboro as a coach. My
basketball coach in high school became the athletic director so I
played for both of those people as an athlete and then went back and
worked for them as a coach."
Rutschman played second base and the outfield in baseball and was a
guard in basketball. They didn't have point guards back then, he said.
"People weren't as big as they are now," he said. "We had a kid who
was 6-foot-5 as a center and he was a pretty good size kid but he was
about the only one we had in school who was that tall."
Rutschman had a scholarship to play football at Oregon State
University but they told him he could play baseball in the spring only
if he participated in spring football practice. They would release him
from football practice to play in the baseball games. He didn't figure
that would work for him.
At the same time, he had made up his mind that he wanted to go into
teaching and coaching. He figured playing in more than one sport would
better prepare him for coaching.
It didn't hurt that then football coach Paul Durham and baseball coach
Roy Helser actively recruited him for Linfield College.
So Rutschman came to Linfield where he lettered in three sports.
In football, he earned the nickname "The Flying Dutchman" and still
holds Linfield career rushing records. He won championships in
baseball. Coach Roy Helser was very successful, he said.
Rutschman enjoyed himself at Linfield but said the best playing
experience he had was playing for a semi-professional team in Southern
Oregon. Helser was hired to put together a team and Rutschman's team
dominated the league.
From player to coach
Rutschman said he probably had more fun playing than coaching. But
that didn't stop him from turning down a professional contract with
the NFL's Detroit Lions. He had his mind made up to teach and coach
sports.
He got his degree in physical education and started teaching at
Hillsboro High School immediately afterward. He was an assistant coach
first and in his second year, in 1956, he became the head baseball
coach. He became the head football coach three years after that.
Rutschman won one state football championship and three state baseball
championships while at Hillsboro High but his coaching career had a
shaky start. His first year as the head baseball coach at Hillsboro
was terrible. His win-loss record was not good.
"I remember going into our principal and saying that if I have to go
through very many years like that, he was going to have to look for
another coach because I didn't care for that," he said with a laugh.
"Thank heavens things changed and we ended up having a lot of success.
We started playing a lot better ball."
When Rutschman began coaching at Hillsboro there were four Little
League teams. When he left, there were 41.
"We got a lot of kids playing," he said. "Some of the kids that played
ball for me in high school ended up being Little League coaches
themselves and they started teaching the kids the same things that we
were teaching them at the high school level. That's when the program
really took off."
After 13 years at Hillsboro, Helser and Durham approached Rutschman
about the head football coaching job at Linfield. Durham was leaving
to take the athletic director job at the University of Hawaii and they
wanted Rutschman to step in.
The job was offered to him and he talked it over with his wife and
they decided to do it. Three years later, Helser wanted him to take
the baseball coaching job. Two years after that, when Helser wanted to
retire, Rutschman stepped into the athletic director's position as
well.
Rutschman's legacy
Rutschman was the head Wildcat football coach for 23 years. He coached
the baseball team for 12 years. He had a major impact on the players
he coached and over 120 of them have gone on to become head coaches
themselves.
"It's amazing, over the years, the number of student athletes who, by
Ad's example, went on to be coaches," said Scott Carnahan, current
Linfield athletic director. "Ad's mentoring has influenced how they
coach.
"He's got a very dynamic personality and he's taught success oriented
skills for years. He feels sports is a good arena for those values. He
feels athletics, especially team sports, may be the best classroom for
teaching success oriented skills. Like how to get along with people
and how to develop a good work ethic."
Carnahan played for and coached with Rutschman and has heard him say
those things over and over, he said. The kids are a great testimony to
the kind of influence he's had.
"Ad Rutschman has probably influenced more people than anyone I know
as far as his coaching philosophy," Carnahan added. "He's had a
tremendous impact here and we continue to use his coaching principles
today."
Rutschman said he liked to feel that he's had such an impact on so many kids.
"I just went to a reunion with some of my Hillsboro ball players this
last week and it was just very nice some of the things they said about
the impact I had on their lives," he said.
Rutschman credits his work ethic for some of his success. And he said
people have to believe in something.
Rutschman believes that things are either right or they're wrong. And
then he makes his stand. He said he believes that people base their
decisions either on power, positioning or principles.
"It's either 'I'm the boss, you do it my way.' Or positioning would be
if someone gave me $10,000 so 'I have to be careful how I vote on this
issue now'," he said. "There's too many decisions being made in
America today that are positioning decisions. To me, a decision should
be made based upon principles. And I always try to do that.
"Once in a while, when people don't agree with you, you might make
people angry at you. But you hope that some place down along the line,
they come to understand why you did that. To me, that's the way
leadership ought to be."
And Rutschman expected the same type of principles from his coaches
and players. He coached to his principles. For instance, he doesn't
believe in taunting or showboating in the end zone after a touchdown.
Rutschman and his staff didn't tolerate behavior like that.
"If our kids did those things, it didn't make any difference how good
they were, they were going to sit on the bench," he said. "They
learned. If they wanted to play, and most of them wanted to play, then
they conformed. Pretty soon, you don't have to remind people about
that, the players take care of that themselves.
"If you're going to develop people, they've got to learn to do things
the right way. You don't see any business people who had a great day
going out in front of their competitors and taunting on the sidewalks,
so why should they do it here?"
Current Linfield head football coach Jay Locey said he had the
privilege of working with Rutschman for nine years.
"Ad is a tremendous motivator," Locey said. "He teaches the kids to
understand that if they work hard and prepare, then they can
accomplish anything they put their minds to. He focuses strongly on
attitude. He's very influential.
"He's in coaching for the right reasons. His number one goal is to
develop people and that makes people want to emulate him. He's
impacted them and they want to emulate that. They want to have the
same kind of impact. Anybody who works with him is touched by him.
He's a very special, influential person."
Into retirement
After a long and successful career as coach, Rutschman said he burned
out on the head coaching job so he stepped down in 1991. He officially
retired from Linfield, along with his wife, in 1996.
Thinking back, Rutschman said he'd been pretty fortunate to have good
help along the way.
"You have to have good assistant coaches," he said. "All the way from
high school up to college, I have just been blessed with great
assistant coaches. Then I had players who bought into what we're
trying to do. They believed in it and that makes it possible. Then my
wife has been such a help. And I'm proud of all of our kids. Our kids
turned out to be wonderful young adults."
Wife Joan was always referred to her as 'Mama Cat.' Rutschman said if
she had not been there, he couldn't have done the athletic director
job.
"She did an awful lot that I got credit for," he said. "And I never
would have seen her."
Their days were 15 hour days, 365 days out of a year. Without her
there he couldn't have done the job, he said.
"We wouldn't have had a marriage, that's for sure," he said. "She did
a tremendous amount of the athletic director job. After she was there
for so many years, she knew things as well as I did. She was able to
do things. I probably got credit for it but it was her."
Rutschman said he and his wife manage to take vacations now that
they're retired.
"We do things but we're not big travelers," he said. "We took a trip
down the coast this summer and we took a trip up the coast this
summer. We took some short trips. We're blessed in that four of our
five kids live here in McMinnville."
Rutschman still keeps his hand in the coaching profession. He is an
assistant football coach for the Wildcats and helps out Greg McAnally
at McMinnville High School primarily in the preseason.
Rutschman began helping out at McMinnville when his son, Don, was the
head football coach there.
"I got a lot of enjoyment working with my son," he said. "But there
came a point when Don wanted to get out of the coaching
responsibilities. And ever since then, coach McAnally has asked me to
be involved with working with their quarterbacks in the preseason. I
like their staff, I think a great deal of their staff, so I enjoy
doing it. I enjoy working with them."
Locey came to Rutschman and asked him to come and work with the
kickoff return team about five years ago and he's done so ever since.
Rutschman isn't involved in the recruiting process anymore and so he
isn't as close to the team as he could be. But he thinks the Wildcats
are going to be very good this year.
"I'm only over there about two or three days a week and only for a
short time," he said. "I'm not there for the whole practice. I enjoy
what I'm doing there but now I have time to spend time with my wife
and I like to fish in the fall. I can do some of those things if I'm
not totally dedicated to it."
Rutschman is proud of Linfield. He said that Linfield had been good to
his family.
"There is a great tradition at Linfield," he said. "Notre Dame has an
unbelievable tradition. Well, I think Linfield, on a smaller scale, is
the same. There's something about Linfield that is unique.
"Winning is important but I think that by and large, the football
coaches here care about people. Every coach in the country talks about
caring about people but in an awful lot of cases, that's lip service.
Here, it's a fact. They care about their players.
"My No. 1 goal always was to make a better person out of each person I
came in contact with. That's what I tried to do. My No. 2 goal was to
make them a better athlete and to make the program a better program.
Basically in that order. I think that there's a similar attitude with
the present staff."
There's no denying that Linfield football has an impressive legacy.
And Ad Rutschman's legacy will carry on as well.
