Milton "Sharm" Scheuerman (May 16, 1934 – August 30, 2010) was an American

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

player and coach for the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 coll ...

. Scheuerman was born in

Moline, Illinois Moline ( ) is a city located in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. With a population of 42,985 in 2020, it is the largest city in Rock Island County. Moline is one of the Quad Cities, along with neighboring East Moline and Rock Island ...

and grew up in Rock Island, one of the

Quad Cities The Quad Cities is a region of cities (originally four, see History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are th ...

. He was born to Milton Scheuerman and Lois Anderson. He had one younger brother Thomas. After a strong high school basketball career at

Rock Island High School Rock Island High School, also known as "Rocky", is a public four-year high school located in Rock Island, Illinois, United States. Rocky is within the Rock Island–Milan School District 41, and the school colors are crimson and gold. Administrat ...

, Scheuerman chose to play college basketball for coach

Bucky O'Connor Frank "Bucky" O'Connor (December 21, 1913 – April 22, 1958) was a college men's basketball coach. He was the head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball team from 1949 to 1958. Born in Monroe, Iowa, O'Connor spent much of his early life play ...

Iowa Iowa () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wiscon ...

. There, he was started for some of the most successful teams in program history, winning two

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conferen ...

titles and advancing to the national Final Four in

1955 Events January * January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama. * January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut. * January 18– 20 – Battle of Yiji ...

and

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim Elliot and Pete Fleming, are kille ...

. The starting unit for these teams were known as the "Fabulous Five" as they started as a unit from their

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of Post-secondary school, post-secondary educati ...

to their

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

seasons.

Coaching career

Following the close of his college career, Scheuerman was hired as an assistant coach by his mentor Bucky O'Connor, then was hired as head coach in 1958 when O'Connor was killed at the age of 44 in an automobile accident. At 24, Schuerman was the youngest head basketball coach in Big Ten history and one of the youngest in college basketball overall. In six years as the Hawkeyes' head coach, Scheuerman's teams compiled a record of 72–69. Hall of Famer

Don Nelson Donald Arvid Nelson (born May 15, 1940) is an American former professional basketball player and head coach. Nelson is second all-time in regular season wins of any coach in NBA history, with 1,335 (he held the record for most wins for almost 12 ...

was recruited to Iowa by Scheuerman, as was Hall of Famer

Connie Hawkins Cornelius Lance "Connie" Hawkins (July 17, 1942 – October 6, 2017) was an American professional basketball player. A New York City playground legend, "the Hawk" was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992. Early yea ...

. Nelson, also from Rock Island High School, left Iowa as the school's all-time leading scorer, before winning five NBA championships with the

Boston Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of ...

and then retiring as the all-time wins leader among NBA coaches. Scheuerman had

Bob King Bob, BOB, or B.O.B. may refer to: Places * Mount Bob, New York, United States * Bob Island, Palmer Archipelago, Antarctica People, fictional characters, and named animals * Bob (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Bob (surn ...

on his Iowa staff from 1960-1962. Scheuerman resigned at Iowa coach in 1964 to enter private business. "What I remember most about it is playing for Sharm and our relationship over 50 years and how close we were and how much I loved that man,” Nelson said in 2012 of Scheuerman. “A role model certainly, but I could never duplicate that man’s life because he was so special. I certainly tried. I’m certainly a better person just by knowing him and talking to him. But we spent a lot of time together over the last 50 years.” Scheuerman settled in

Denver, Colorado Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...

after coaching. He died on August 30, 2010 after a long battle with cancer.

Head coaching record

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheuerman, Sharm 1934 births 2010 deaths American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Illinois Basketball players from Illinois College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Deaths from cancer in Colorado Educators from Illinois Guards (basketball) Iowa Hawkeyes baseball players Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball coaches Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball players People from Moline, Illinois Sportspeople from Rock Island, Illinois