Bud Wright, state's all-time winningest coach, will miss game for first time in 60 years

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https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2024/08/23/sheridan-coach-bud-wright-will-miss-game-for-first-time-due-to-surgery/74912542007/

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For the first time in his six-decade high school football coaching career, Bud Wright will not be on the sidelines on Friday night. But win or lose, the result will still go on his tab.

“It will, surely,” Wright said Thursday night. “The whole game plan is mine.”

The state’s all-time winningest coach hopes to be on his iPad watching Sheridan’s season opener against Western Boone, but he will do so from his hospital room at Ascension St. Vincent on West 86^th Street.

“In 62 years of coaching, I’ve never missed a game,” Wright said. “I’ve only missed 14 or 15 practices. But it happens. All you can do is laugh about it. There’s nothing you can do.”

If Wright is laughing, it is through some intense pain. The 83-year-old Sheridan coach, who has 456 of his record 457 games at Sheridan in his 60^th season overall, broke the humerus bone in his right arm when Sheridan scrimmaged at Crawfordsville last Friday. Wright was standing about 10 yards behind one of Sheridan’s offensive plays when, well …

“Our offensive lineman missed a block and their 255-pound defensive lineman got through,” Wright said. “Our quarterback started to set up, then tried to scramble and retreated right back into me. It was a picture perfect tackle. He drove the quarterback right back into me.”

Wright laughs about it now. He turned his body to the right, so his head did not hit the turf, but took a hard fall. It not only broke his arm but jammed the “ball” in the ball-and-socket of his shoulder joint so he can’t move his shoulder. Wright said the Crawfordsville player who caused the commotion in the Sheridan backfield apologized profusely, multiple times.

“I told him he made a great play,” Wright said. “I told him he had done exactly what he should have done. He was apologizing all over the place, but he shouldn’t feel bad at all. He’s a really good player.”

Wright also pulled his groin in the fall, making it difficult to walk. He normally gets around at practices on a golf cart, which he plans to continue to do. In fact, Wright attended the coaches’ meeting on Sunday and did not miss a practice all week. The only reason he is missing Friday’s game is because he has no other choice.

After a trip to the emergency room on Friday night after the scrimmage, then a meeting with a trauma surgeon on Monday morning, Wright was told he needed surgery as soon as possible. The best he could do was 3 p.m. on Friday, just four hours before Class A third-ranked Sheridan is scheduled to open the season.

“(The doctor) told me he might be able to get me in Wednesday, then called back and said he wasn’t able to get it changed,” Wright said.

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This is the last game in the foreseeable future for the Western Boone-Sheridan rivalry, which has been played since 1997. Sheridan will pick up South Adams next season. Western Boone is moving into the Monon Athletic Conference starting in 2025.

Best of luck to Mr. Wright, and the hope of a speedy recovery.

Truly an Indiana Icon.