Former Iowa coach, 'Fabulous Five' member Scheuerman dies at 76

Sharm Scheuerman was a man who never lost faith.

From the tests he faced as a competitor and young coach to a year-long battle with cancer that ended late Monday, the Rock Island native is remembered by friends as an individual who embraced life and the challenges it threw his way.

A starter on Iowa's legendary “Fabulous Five'' basketball team who later became the youngest head basketball coach in Big Ten history days after his 24th birthday, Scheuerman died Monday night at the age of 76 in suburban Denver.

Long-time friend Al Schallau, an attorney from Palos Verde, Calif., visited Scheuerman late last week.

He left knowing it would likely be the last time he would see a friend he shot baskets with as a teenager at the Iowa Field House when Scheuerman, then a senior in college, befriended the 14-year old still working on his game.

“He told me ‘The Lord is going to be relocating me in the very near future for another purpose.' ... I never saw anyone who had such a complete lack of fear of dying,'' Schallau said. “All of the rest of us have at least some sort of fear of death. He does not.''

Scheuerman underwent chemotherapy late last year after he was diagnosed with cancer, but requested shortly before the holidays and end to the treatments.

He spent his final months surrounded by the things that mattered most to him - faith, family and basketball.

GALLERY: Sharm Scheuerman through the years

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Scheuerman's last work dealt with heading faith-based youth basketball organizations in inner cities, an extension of the time he spent working with the Athletes in Action organization both as a coach and as a general manager.

He joined that organization in 1991, two years after coaching an Athletes in Action team on a month-long tour of Poland and Greece.

“It was the most meaningful month of my life,'' Scheuerman said prior to his induction into the Quad-City Sports Hall of Fame in 2000. “I was back working with kids as a coach and watching them develop spiritually. It was great.''

The opportunity to work with the Athletes in Action program, a division of the Campus Crusade for Christ, came 25 years after Scheuerman had coached his last college game but it allowed him to blend his passion for basketball and with his religious beliefs.

“I've never met a better guy than Sharm Scheuerman is,'' Schallau said. “I'm going to miss him so much.''

Recently-retired Big Ten associate commissioner Rich Falk considers Scheuerman “one of the truest gentlemen and greatest sportsmen I have ever known.''

Falk, who grew up in Galva, Ill., was recruited by Scheuerman to play for the Hawkeyes but eventually went on to star at Northwestern where he was coaching when Scheuerman worked as a color commentator for locally-produced Iowa basketball telecasts in the early 1980s.

“He stepped into a very difficult coaching situation at Iowa following the tragic death of Bucky O'Connor, but he handled it as well as anybody could have,'' Falk said. “His character and personality had a lot to do with that. He's always been an individual of strong faith and I'm sure that guided him during that time.''

Scheuerman was a three-sport standout as a high school athlete at Rock Island, where he dreamed of a career in major-league baseball.

“I liked all the sports in their seasons,'' Scheuerman said in 2000. “… I really thought my best chance to make it in the big time might be in baseball. I always wanted to play center field for the Chicago Cubs.''

Instead, Scheuerman arrived at Iowa as a football and basketball recruit although he eventually started in both basketball and baseball for the Hawkeyes.

It was on the court at the Field House were Scheuerman excelled, joining Carl Cain, Bill Schoof, Bill Logan and Moline's Bill Seaberg in O'Connor's lineup midway through his sophomore season.

The group, whose numbers have all been retired by Iowa, became known as the “Fabulous Five'' and Scheuerman was its quarterback on the court.

Iowa won a Big Ten title and reached the Final Four during Scheuerman's junior season, falling to LaSalle in the semifinals.

As seniors, a 65-64 loss to Michigan State in the Big Ten opener left the Hawkeyes at 3-5 on the season.

Iowa then reeled off 17 straight wins, repeated as league champions and reached the Final Four title game for the only time in school history before Bill Russell and San Francisco ended the Hawkeyes' season with a 12-point loss.

Scheuerman, who averaged 10.1 points as a senior, had been asked during his junior season by O'Connor to remain as Iowa as an assistant once his playing days were over.

In the spring of 1958, Scheuerman unexpectedly became the Hawkeyes' head coach when O'Connor was killed in an automobile accident while on his way to a speaking engagement in Waterloo, Iowa.

“I was two years out of college and here I am recruiting and speaking to large groups,'' Scheuerman said in 2000. “… I had to grow up very quickly. I knew what I was doing from an X and O standpoint. Basketball-wise, I had no problem. It was all the politics and ancillary things.''

In 1961, his third team got off to a 12-1 start and was ranked fifth in the nation before four starters were declared academically ineligible at midyear. The team recovered, winning six of its last nine games to tie for second in the Big Ten and finished 18-6.

Scheuerman resigned three years later following an 8-15 season, his second straight under .500, to begin a career in real estate sales.