Ex-Tigers hoops coach Ehlers cast a lengthy Memphis shadow
Dean Ehlers may have spent less than a decade in the Memphis area involved in athletics at the college and high school levels, but the strength of his personality – or, rather, the calm, patient nature he exuded as a coach and administrator – kept him name relevant.
Ehlers died Feb. 19 in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where he spent 22 years as athletic director for James Madison University, a program he led to national prominence. He was 87.
Ehlers’ ties to the Memphis community were deep and lasting. He spent four seasons as men’s basketball coach at then-Memphis State University and left to become the first director of athletics for the city schools before moving to James Madison in 1971.
He briefly accepted the Memphis State athletic director’s job in the fall of 1982, before having a change of heart and remaining at JMU.
Ehlers also was in the final years of his AD job at JMU in the early 1990s when he hired football coach Rip Scherer, whose success at the Football Championship Subdivision program would earn him the coaching job at Memphis in 1994. Scherer is an assistant football coach at UCLA.
Verties Sails, the former basketball coach at Southwest Tennessee Community College, was a coach at Melrose High when Ehlers held prominent athletic positions in the city. He said Ehlers led the Memphis Interscholastic Athletic Association during a difficult time: the early days of school integration.
“He was a calm man,” Sails said. “He handled it pretty well. Sometimes things could get pretty heated, but his mild-mannerness helped.
“It probably took a man with his calm nature to get through that process. What I remember is he would always listen and then make a decision. But he would listen.”
Ehlers took over for Bob Vanatta as Tigers’ basketball coach in 1962 and spent four seasons in the role, leading the team to a 19-7 record and a secondround finish in the 1963 National Invitation Tournament. He was the Tigers’ coach in 1964 when the program departed the Fieldhouse for the newly constructed Mid-South Coliseum.
Sails said he wasn’t surprised Ehlers flourished at James Madison. JMU did not have a football program when he arrived, but eventually it became one of the most successful at the FCS level.
While at JMU, Scherer led the football program to two quarterfinal play-
off appearances. The Dukes have won two national titles, including last season’s championship.
“The (football) program started under him,” Scherer said. “In my time there, we really got it going. They had never been to the playoffs and we went to quarterfinals and lost, in overtime, two of my four years there.
“The interest started to grow and the commitment. Because of him, it’s one of the best FCS jobs in the country. You can trace it all back to him.”
Scherer, like Sails, recalled Ehlers’ calm, effective leadership.
“He was always the same guy,” said Scherer, who coached at Memphis from 1995 to 2000. “And that guy was a positive, upbeat, polished gentleman. He was even-keeled all time. There may have been a hurricane of issues buzzing around him, but he would be unflappable. He could create calm in those situations.”
Larry Rea, former prep editor of The Commercial Appeal, recalled joining the newspaper as a 22year-old in the late 1960s and having to interview Ehlers in his role as MIAA director. Rea called him a “calming influence” for a rookie reporter and said he stayed in touch through the years with Ehlers, who attended the newspaper’s inaugural Best of the Preps program in 1970 honoring the area’s top high school athletic performers.
“Dean was a man who gave the (MIAA) job credibility,” Rea said. “He handled it with (grace) in trying times. I don’t think I ever met anybody who didn’t like Dean Ehlers. He was the perfect individual to start the MIAA.”
Ehlers was preceded in death by his wife, Joanne, and is survived by four children. A memorial service will be held March 25 for Ehlers at Asbury United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg.
Reach Phil Stukenborg at phil.stukenborg@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @phil_stukenborg