Kohs siblings remember their late father Art a year after his passing
MIDDLETOWN — Mike Kohs said he had given the wonderfully emotional scenario a lot of thought.
Tim Kohs said he has tried to keep it at an arm’s length.
The possibility of the Xavier boys and the Mercy girls both playing for the state basketball championship at Mohegan Sun on the first anniversary of their dad’s death?
“For me, it was probably more emotional than for Timmy,” said Mike, the Xavier boys coach. “Timmy has been here and won several state championships with Mercy. For Xavier, we haven’t been. We got very close. One game away.
“It was on my mind quite a bit. I would have loved to have gotten here this weekend, because of my dad, because of my brother being here as well.
It would have been special. It just wasn’t meant to be. We ran into a buzzsaw in St. Bernard.”
Xavier fell to St. Bernard, 76-53, Wednesday night in the Division II semifinals at the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven. Mercy, which has won three state titles and been to seven finals under Tim, defeated Daniel Hand, 50-27, in the Class MM semis on March 10 to advance to Sunday night’s 8:15 p.m. title game against New London.
“Obviously, it is a challenge to get there every year,” said Tim Kohs, who doubles as Mercy athletic director. “It’s great for the kids. It’s great for the program. It’s a little weird when you think about that’s it a year ago this weekend that my dad passed away. I try not to think about it.
“You don’t dwell on the day. Your dad is gone. You miss him. You wish it wasn’t the case. I know it’s coming up. Maybe it will be a little different when we’re down there.”
It was Sunday afternoon, March 20, 2022. The brothers were in the stands together just after
the tip of the second half of the Class MM finals between Sacred Heart Academy and St. Joseph at Mohegan Sun Arena.
They had been chatting with Dave Rudini, who they hadn't seen in years. Rudini's dad Frank had coached football with Larry McHugh at Xavier and his own daughter Katherine was playing for St. Joseph's.
Mike's cell phone rang. It was his wife Robin. “What's up,” Mike said. “It's dad,” she said. Art Kohs was the founding father of Xavier athletics, a passionate supporter of Xavier and its sister school Mercy. Even calling Art a legend along the two-mile patch of Randolph Road between the two schools seems inadequate.
“He was supposed to go to lunch with a friend,” Mike said.
Robin received a call. Art hadn't shown up.
Robin tried herself. Art didn't pick up the phone. She went to his place in Cromwell. His car was there. Robin knocked on the door. She could hear the dog barking. She had passed a policeman directing traffic nearby, so she went back to him.
“They did a wellness check,” Tim said. “He was on the floor. It mostly likely was a heart attack. He had been slowing down, wasn't moving around very well. But he had been fine. It was completely unexpected.”
Arthur Kohs was 84. “My father was the first hire at Xavier,” Mike said. “The founding father of Xavier athletics. We'll call
him the patriarch.”
His nickname was the King.
To say he was there at Xavier from the start is not an overstatement. He interviewed for the job at St. Pius Church because the school was still under construction.
Art picked the Xavier colors, black and white. He picked the nickname, the Falcons. He initiated the athletic programs. As AD he hired the coaches. At the start, he coached soccer, basketball and baseball himself. He continued to coach basketball and reached the state semifinals in 1969 and 1975.
“He loved his family and he loved his school,” Mike Kohs said. “That was his life.”
Art had played soccer, winning multiple state championships, under Tom Nevers at Hale-Ray High in East Haddam. After playing on a national champion team at Springfield College, he coached soccer, basketball and baseball at Hale-Ray. The school won soccer state titles under Art in 1961 and 1962.
“He was hired at Xavier in March 1963, the same day our older brother (Todd) was born,” Mike said.
Tim said his dad called himself more of a soccer guy and he officiated the game at the NCAA Division I level. The boys, however, never saw him coach anything other than basketball in high school. After he retired as AD in 1997, the gymnasium was named in his honor. Art did continue as an assistant under Mike.
What was it like coaching with your dad?
“He was like he always was,” Mike said. “He said
what was on his mind, whether I agreed with him or not. People would say they loved coming to the games for the sideshow of my father and me. Him yelling at me. Me yelling back at him.”
Mike laughed. Tim laughed.
Todd, Mike, Tim all played at Xavier. Paula Kohs Drake, who played at Mercy, went on to score 2,000 points at Stonehill and for a time served as Tim's assistant. She now lives in North Carolina
Mike's son Stephen was an outstanding player at Xavier.
“My father never missed a Xavier game when he played,” Mike said. “Actually, my parents didn't miss any of their grandkids games. I know he loved watching Stephen, because all the others were granddaughters.”
Art's wife Carolyn, who died in 2017, babysat all her grandkids. She was a constant presence at all their youth games, carefully tracking schedules.
“My mom would never play favorites,” Tim said. “If there were three soccer games, she'd be at one for
10 minutes for Leah (Paula's) daughter, 10 for Lauren (Mike's daughter) and 10 for Avery (his daughter).”
Avery and Lauren were teammates on Mercy's two-time state soccer champions in 2021 (cochamps) and 2022. Avery runs the point for her father's basketball team that will seek a state championship against a New London team led by the brilliant Nalyce Dudley.
Tim Kohs has coached Mercy to state titles in 1996, 2013, 2018. Anyone who follows state high school basketball won't forget Maria Wesleyj's 3point shot at the buzzer to win the 2013 state title.
A year after his dad's death, five years since Mercy's last state title, a decade after the miracle shot, Tim Kohs finds himself again at the Mohegan Sun Arena.
“Of course, I'll be there,” Mike Kohs said. Of course, he will. And, as Tim Kohs said, maybe those emotions will be different when he gets there.