Stephen Wood

we were very sorry to hear of Steve's passing. The Jack Seidlitz have wonderful memories. John, his football and wrestling manager, Roger on the state championship team.John, Mark, Roger and Kelly all his "boys". God bless the Wood family and than you Mr. Wood for being part of our lives. Jack and Pat Seidlitz and family

To the Family of Coach Wood. Steve was my coach in Football and Wrestling in the early 70's. He was also my history teacher, and he taught Montana history and this was one of my favorite classes. To this day, I take the dirt roads to places in Montana just to see the places of Montana you don't see unless you get off the main highway. My memories of Coach are many. I remember in wrestling, when I was getting prepared to wrestle a match, I would get pumped up and just before I took the mat he would say to me as his final words of encouragement " Don't get pinned". I would bet him a steak dinner if I won. He never did pay for all those dinners, as I had to diet to make weight. This was an incentive for me and I thank him for it. Coach was a tough coach, but he treated his players great, made us feel special. When I was a Junior, I was not going to go out for sports because of my commitments at our farm with chores and my hog business. Anyway, he wanted me to come out for football and he made it so I could go home at 1:00 during school to do chores and get back into school for practice. Also, I was a referee for wrestling, and I remember one time I was refereeing a match between Chester and some other rival team in Chester. Anyway Coach was on my butt for what ever, and eventually I kicked him out of the gym. I was a little nervous about the confrontation that would occur when I got done and had to see and talk to him to pickup my paycheck. Nothing happened, and I think our relationship became better.

I remember writing pages of Montana history. Heaven forbid you nod off during the lecture! Someone did and he smacked the desk, student jumped, desk turned over... Not sure if we laughed but I do now. I know so many things about Montana because of him. Thank you, Jan, for sharing this. I missed it last year. He was a teacher I looked up to.