Coach Yeagle, left us way too soon; still, Yeagle won eight (8) titles in 15-years with an incredible 87% win rate
"Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Norman Maclean, "A River Runs Through It," University of Chicago Press, 1976
Mike Yeagle prepped at Beechwood High School before traveling up into Ohio to play collegiately for Muskingum University‘s “Fighting Muskies.” A Muskie is a relative of the Pike and can be caught on flies, while fly fishing. “A River Runs Through It,” first a book published by Norman Maclean, a professor at the University of Chicago, and then made a movie released in 1992 and starring Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer as the brothers Maclean (Paul and Norman respectively) and Tom Skerritt as their Presbyterian minister father, has some scenes which appear poignant here. Fishing allegories aside, Yeagle may have been the finest coach in KHSAA history and who knows what kind of career he would have enjoyed had he not retired when he did, nor passed at 62-years of age in 2024. In the end, I guess all I can say about Yeagle is Yeagle was a fine football coach; but, he was much more than that. Yeagle was beautiful.
HB Lyon, Scouting Director, “KPGFootball”
Fort Mitchell, KY: There is a tendency to overlook coaches who steer machine-like programs. Trinity, St. Xavier, Male, Highlands, Mayfield, Danville, Boyle County, Belfry and all other similar programs with loads of titles, fall prey to this type stereotyping, this type thinking.
Beechwood High has 18-titles. The Tigers are certainly a machine.
Mike Yeagle took the reins of his alma mater in 1991. At that time, Beechwood was a program which had struck lightening in a bottle on one prior occasion.
In 1984, Bernie Barre beat Randy Reese’s Paris Greyhound squad for Beechwood’s only football crown. Since 1991, the Tigers have won 17-additional titles.
It isn’t fair to exclude a coach from immortality because he coached at a great location for championships. The program may be a title producing “machine.” Shouldn’t Yeagle get some credit for constructing the machine?
We think he should. That is the purpose for this feature in this particular series.
Yeagle won 8-titles in 15-years and 87% of his games
Friday Night Fletch, KHSAA Statistical Website
Yeagle led the Tiger football fortunes from 1991-2005. Over those 15-seasons, the team which had a single title prior to his arrival, won eight (8) titles (1991, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’96, ’97, ’99, 2004).
Yeagle was the first coach in the KHSAA to win four (4) consecutive titles (1991-1994). Yeagle won 183 games against 27-losses over his 15-year career. Yeagle averaged slightly more than 12-wins a season (12.2) and lost slightly fewer than two (2) games a year (1.8).
Yeagle had an overall winning percentage slightly exceeding 87%. Slightly more than 53% of the seasons in which he coached ended in a KHSAA title.
Yeagle won seven championships in the 90s. One would be hard pressed to find a decade where any one team so thoroughly dominated its competition in any sport, much less football.
Yeagle played for the Tigers prior to coaching his school. Yeagle didn’t know how winning a HS title, as a player, felt. Matter of fact, Yeagle’s Muskingum “Fighting Muskies” college team didn’t fare too well with him on the varsity roster.
Yeagle taught himself how to be a champion first. Then, he taught scores of “others.”
Yeagle left Muskingum with a “ticket to the game.” Yeagle earned his bachelor’s degree at Muskingum, his master’s degree from St. Xavier University, and embarked on a one of a kind coaching and teaching career back home in Fort Mitchell.
For those who don’t know, Yeagle’s college mascot was [and still is] the “Fighting Muskies.” We have alluded to that fact several places in this article.
A “Muskie,” short for muskellunge, is a species of large freshwater predatory fish native to North America. It is the largest member of the pike family (Esocidae).
You can fly fish for muskie but it is challenging. Fly fishing for muskie requires specialized tackle, techniques, and knowledge of muskie characteristics.
It is different from traditional fly fishing for trout, like what was depicted in the 1992 movie, “A River Runs Through It,” starring Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer as the brothers Maclean (Paul and Norman respectively), and Tom Skerritt as their Presbyterian minister father.
The movie and novel was written masterfully. It has one of the all-time, poetic endings. It was crafted, much like Yeagle crafted schemes, game plans, and strategies to win championships.
At the end of the movie, we are treated to the following, to wit:
“Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t. Like many fly fisherman in western Montana, where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise."
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs."
I am haunted by waters.”
Norman Maclean, "A River Runs Through It," University of Chicago Press, 1976
There is a scene from the movie adapted from the book, of the same title, published in 1976 and written by the real-life Norman Maclean. This particular part of the movie always makes me think of Mike Yeagle, particularly since Yeagle was a “Fighting Muskie” from Muskingum University.
In the movie, Paul Maclean, haunted by demons and vices he struggled with managing, turned up dead, dying at a very young age way too soon to die naturally. The family struggled to overcome the death.
His father, the minister, particularly struggled. Paul was the baby and a person who he admired both for his skill as a sportswriter for the local newspaper and as an accomplished fly fisherman.
The story goes that Norman, as an older man and esteemed member of the University of Chicago faculty, tells the reader and the viewer, “As time passed, my father struggled for more to hold on to, asking me again and again: had I told him everything.”
Maclean continues, “And finally I said to him, ‘maybe all I know about Paul is that he was a fine fisherman.'”
“You know more than that,” Rev. Maclean said, “he was beautiful.”
We can pour over the facts and circumstances surrounding the early retirement and untimate demise of one of the KHSAA’s greatest football coaches in its history all we want. Perhaps, in the end, it is enough to know he was, absolutely, a fine football coach.
For those of us who knew and cherished Mike Yeagle, he was much more than just that. Yeagle was beautiful.
We might never again speak on his death. Let us never forget the warm, soothing sunlight of his coaching example.
This is Friday Night Fletch, reporting for KPGFootball, reminding you to PLAY THROUGH THE WHISTLE!
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