BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — Jeff Sauer was an intensely private man whose boisterous legacy cries out for attention.
When the former Wisconsin men's hockey coach died unexpectedly Thursday at the age of 73, he left behind a series of distinctive achievements that are rare in his profession.
One: Sauer succeeded an icon and found a way to create his own championship legacy.
Bob Johnson was that legend. He built the Badgers into a perennial powerhouse, winning three NCAA titles from 1973 to '81 before Sauer took over in 1982 and produced two national championship-winners of his own.
Two: Sauer left the college game as a coach in 2003, but instead of easing into retirement, he took his generosity and love of hockey to the disabled and excelled on an international stage.
In addition to coaching Team USA in the Deaflympics, he led the American sled hockey team to two Paralympic gold medals.
Three: Sauer nurtured a coaching tree that has some prominent local branches.
One of Sauer's former assistant coaches, Mark Johnson, oversees the four-time NCAA champion women's hockey team at Wisconsin. On the other UW bench is first-year head coach Tony Granato and associate head coaches Don Granato and Mark Osiecki, all of whom played for Sauer and the Badgers.
When the new staff was unveiled last March, Sauer was included in the welcoming video and beamed throughout.
"You could see how proud he was," Tony Granato said.
The roles were reversed last September when Sauer was inducted in the Wisconsin Athletics Hall of Fame as a host of former players looked on.
"The day resonates with me just because I was able to get there," said Rob Andringa, who grew up in Madison and played four years for Sauer.
"It was such a great feeling to see him," Osiecki said.
Osiecki and Tony Granato had lunch with Sauer in late autumn and the three men spoke enthusiastically about the future. Granato made sure Sauer knew he was welcome to visit the Kohl Center offices or practice any time.
Many colleagues and confidants were stunned by the news of Sauer's death and its cause, pancreatic cancer. He attended a UW game against Michigan State in early January, but was hospitalized not long after that.
"It's a big loss for all of us," Granato said Thursday.
Sauer is survived by his wife Jamie, son Chip, daughter Beth and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Condolences came from all over the hockey world when news of Sauer's death broke. After all, he touched a lot of people.
Sauer was born in Fort Atkinson, graduated from Colorado College in 1965 and spent 31 seasons coaching college hockey at his alma mater and Wisconsin.
He amassed 655 career wins, which ranks among the top 10 all-time, and a program-best 489 victories with the Badgers from 1982 to 2003.
Osiecki said his enduring lesson from Sauer was about psychology.
"Allowing personalities to come out," he said. "That's one of the things he did well.
"We always talked about him being a conductor of the orchestra. Knowing what you had in the locker room and never really constricting it so much and let the personalities come out. His teams played to that."
Osiecki spoke from Minneapolis, where he got the news while having breakfast with his father, Tom. It turns out that Sauer and Tom Osiecki played on the same Twin Cities-based bantam team growing up.
With Sauer behind the bench, Wisconsin won an NCAA title in 1983, but many refused to give him due credit because the roster was comprised of Johnson's players.
The critics were silent in 1990 when the Badgers swept the Western Collegiate Hockey Association regular-season and playoff crowns on the way to claiming the national championship.
Andringa, Osiecki and Don Granato played on that team. Andringa and Osiecki were defensive partners when UW hammered Colgate 7-3 in the NCAA title game at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. Andringa and Granato were co-captains the following season.
2016 Hall of Fame: Jeff Sauer
Andringa recounted how emotional Sauer became in the winning dressing room.
"We did this together," Sauer told them. "You guys deserve this. You are like sons to me."
Andringa said Sauer was one of those coaches who appeared on the fringe of team pictures, not out front.
"He love being a part of what is special about being on a team and in the locker room," Andringa said. "That closeness."
Andringa said one of Sauer's greatest strengths was "the way he allowed us to be the 20-year-old kid who could make a mistake. He could laugh and joke about a prank.
"He was so good at being in the moment."
Following an icon like "Badger" Bob Johnson isn't easy.
"You look at history and I don't care what sport you pick, there's not too many people who can succeed after a legend," Andringa said of Sauer. "He was able to do that."
Mark Johnson, Bob's son, was an assistant under Sauer from 1996 to 2002.
"He was a great man and a tremendous ambassador for the game of hockey," Johnson said. "He's going to be missed for a lot of reasons."
Paul Braun was the long-time radio and TV voice of the program. Not long after getting the dreadful news about Sauer he was sifting through hundreds of cassette tapes from UW games long ago, many featuring his good friend and fellow golf aficionado.
"He was one of the classiest people I've ever met in my life," Braun said of Sauer. "A guy who had impeccable integrity.
"What I liked about him was that he was just Jeff. He was the same all the time."
At one time, Joel Maturi, a former high school basketball coach, was the UW Athletic Department administrator in charge of overseeing men's hockey. He remembers Sauer ribbing him good-naturedly about his suspect background, but being a patient teacher.
Maturi went on to serve as athletic director at Miami (Ohio), Denver and Minnesota, all hockey-centric schools.
"I owe my career to Jeff Sauer," Maturi said. "Every place I went from there was because of hockey and because of what I learned from Jeff."
After his college coaching career ended, Sauer lent his wisdom to WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod, USA Hockey – with former UW player Jim Johannson in a supervisory role – and wound up serving as a mentor to a host of coaches, players and officials at all levels.
Tony Granato said that selfless love of the game is Sauer's enduring legacy.
"That's an incredible man," he said. "After all he had done for so many kids in our program, players and people that he touched, to say, 'You know what? I have more to give.'
"That's what makes Jeff Sauer remarkable. It's the stuff he did for people, period.
"You're so thankful you had him in your life, but you also wish he could be around here every day to watch and still be a part of it."
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Photo Gallery: Remembering Jeff Sauer
