Dennis Rueter has seen a lot in his 37 years coaching basketball at Gibault Catholic High School, but he recently hit a milestone most coaches can only dream of: winning his 700th game.
"Well, obviously, you've been around a long time when you get to that number," he told the SE Illinois News. "I don't know if it was 699 or 698, if it makes a whole lot of difference. Just the fact that I've been there a long time, I've had a fair bit of success, and we've been pretty consistent. It's been nice because all the players came back, and that was kind of a neat thing, but it doesn't really change anything. You just go about your business and try to move on."
Winning that 700th game came close to not happening. When Rueter's youngest son graduated and had to leave the team, Rueter struggled and thought a lot about his career. But when he came back to the court and the season's routine set in, he knew he would keep at it because he gets to be around kids he loves to teach.
"I struggled a little bit with motivation in the spring last year," he said. "I didn't know if I was motivated to coach anymore. But by the time we got to summer and got started, and then once the season started, I didn't have any problems with motivation."
Rueter's coaching philosophy is centered around teaching work ethic and consistency to his student-athletes. That attitude is ingrained in the basketball program.
"We feel like we're not going to get outworked," he said. "We work at it pretty hard. We're pretty old school, pretty basic in terms of, we think we have to guard people and take good shots. That's the key to being successful. We just come at it with an approach ... my parents taught me that you come every day, you come prepared to give it your best shot and just kind of see where it takes you from there. One of my players said in another article, 'We don't take any shortcuts.' I'd like to think that we don't. We just go about it day after day."
Rueter's longevity has also given him the gift of perspective. He knows what's important and believes that teaching the kids more than just basketball has led him to his achievements.
"I think that as you get older, you hope that you remember often what it's about," he said. "Sometimes you can get lost and think it's about winning a bunch of games. It's not about that. It's about having kids every year and trying to help them become better people, and the way to help them become better people is to work at something the best you can and try to win. But you always understand that it's a lot bigger than that. It's more important than that. The number of wins, games or championships doesn't really make that much difference. It's about affecting some kids, and that's what we're here for. If you're a teacher, that's what we're told to do."
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