By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
It was the shortest, simplest of announcements Tuesday. After 13 years at Covington Catholic, basketball coach and teacher Scott Ruthsatz was moving on. Here’s the entire press release:
Park Hills, KY – Covington Catholic High School head basketball coach and teacher Scott Ruthsatz is leaving the school and the coaching profession to concentrate on the family business.
“We are actively searching for a new head basketball coach,” said Bob Rowe, principal. “I thank Coach Ruthsatz for his years of service at Covington Catholic.”
Current varsity assistant coach Matt Stevens will serve as the interim head coach and will continue to manage basketball operations. All basketball activities including practices and camps will continue as scheduled. Rowe said the school hopes to name a new head basketball coach soon.
That was it. After winning the school’s first two state championships in basketball – both with his sons as point guard, in 2014 and 2018 — and six regional titles, Scott Ruthsatz would be moving on. To the family business.
But there’s more to the story since very few really knew much about the family businesses – actually two of them – back home in Sandusky, Ohio, where Scott’s trip to Northern Kentucky began. The first stop was in Jersey City, New Jersey, and an assistant’s spot under the legendary Bob Hurley Sr. at St. Anthony’s High School. And then on to Park Hills.
“It was always a part of my life,” Scott says of the two businesses his father, now 90, started in his basement back in Sandusky in 1962, and Scott bought from his dad in 2002. “Nobody knew I had these businesses,” Scott said, “I’m something of a private person. And I was never going to let my businesses affect basketball, so basketball affected the businesses.”
The two family businesses are Polar Pure, a bulk CO2 and beverage tank distributing and service company and Ruthsatz Management Co., a real estate and management company which has warehouses with freezer space after they sold the ice company part of the business. “And we’re developing some property,” Scott says.
Essentially, the company supplies the beverage tanks and services “for mom-and-pop companies” as well as to their No. 1 customer, Cedar Point Amusement Park – “like Kings Island on steroids,” Scott says of the long-time classic park in Sandusky where “we have 200 tanks.”
With the companies located four hours away, Scott hasn’t been back since his dad’s 90th birthday party Dec. 31. “Everything is back there,” he said, but coaching basketball – from August on through the end of the season is more than a 24/7 job – certainly the way Scott Ruthsatz does it.
“I talked with my wife, we weighed all the options and decided it was time . . . We’ll stay here” and the plan is for the younger three to stay in school starting with Nolan at CovCath and eighth-grader Aaron and sixth-grader Colleen remaining in their grade schools.
But now the annual meet-the-coach get-together for CovCath alums, fans and boosters set for June 14 will be more of a going-away party for Scott.
“I put all my blood, sweat and tears into coaching basketball,” Scott says of his time at CovCath. “My kids expected that of me,” just as Scott expected that from them. “The businesses always took the hit.”
With a family business, there comes a time for asking, Scott says: “Will my sons and daughter take over the family business?” With basketball, “you don’t have that freedom. You’re locked in, it doesn’t really stop. You can’t. You’d be short-changing your kids. That’s been my whole focus for 17 years.”
And yes, “you’re going to miss the relationships with the players,” Scott says, “and always raising the bar, something he picked up from Coach Hurley, whose son – Danny – won his second NCAA championship this spring.
“We were always, always trying to raise the bar, taking a kid from average to good and from special to great,” Ruthsatz says. “We won at a high level and those memories are great. We never lowered the bar.”
And now raising that bar will be a challenge for someone else. Scott will have a whole different set of challenges.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.