“I moved in as a freshman. Before that we lived near Louisville, in southern Indiana,” said Stuckmeyer, adding with a smile. “I would have gone to Floyd Central High School, that’s where Pat Graham went to school. I say that because that’s how most people know it. I was born in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“It started here at Plymouth and that’s where I really developed into a basketball fanatic you might say. I went to Defiance College and played for two years and then transferred to Grace College to finish.”
After an outstanding playing career, Stuckmeyer knew he wanted to be a head coach someday.
“I did my student teaching here (at Plymouth High School) and helped Coach (Jack) Edison out for about half the year and then I got a teaching job in Delphi,” he said.
Already having learned the game from one legend, Stuckmeyer continued his basketball education under another highly respected coach, and former PHS nemesis when he was at Warsaw, Al Rhodes, who has just been named head coach at Penn High School.
“I went to Logansport for a year and was Coach Rhodes’ JV coach,” said Stuckmeyer. “I thought for where I want to be, as a head coach somewhere down the line, Coach Rhodes would be somebody good to learn from.”
Stuckmeyer made his way back to Plymouth to accept a teaching job and join the Plymouth staff. A business teacher by degree, he’s probably had the most challenging transition to take over the PHS Learning Center.
“It’s a guided study hall; it’s much more accountable for the students.” He said. “We help tutor them, we have a thing called ‘credit recovery’ with a computer software that we use. If they have had too many absences and didn’t get credit for a class or sometimes they use it as an accelerated type of thing where they’ll get a class out of the way or maybe they can’t fit it into their schedule. You really have to know a little bit of everything.
“It’s different. I have to know math and science. I had to do some brushing up this past year.”
Stuckmeyer gives a modest scouting report on himself saying that he was never a “flashy” player.
“People wouldn’t notice me. If I went to an open gym or something everybody wouldn’t be saying ‘oh, who’s that?’” he said. “But in a game I hope that people would think that ‘he’s doing what he needs to do.’”
It’s a quality he hopes to bring to his teams at Plymouth.
“Our teams aren’t going to be flashy. We’re going to do what we need to do to win,” he said. “It won’t always look pretty. Plymouth teams don’t always look pretty. You’re not going to see flashy drives, coming off screens taking guys one on one; it’s going to be very team-oriented, doing things that the average fan may not notice.”
He also admits to a very specific reason for wanting to be the next head coach at Plymouth.
“Ever since I moved here and went through the Plymouth system, it’s become a part of me,” he said. “I would attribute that to Coach Edison and the influence he’s had on my life and the type of person I want to become. Obviously my parents have been very important people but he’s one of those very important people in my life.
“Anybody that got this job would have wanted to keep the tradition going, but for me it was a little different. Mine was a little more wanting to do it for past Plymouth players, players that I played with, the coaches I’ve had — Coach Edison, Coach Scott and Coach Zumbaugh. I really didn’t want to see the Plymouth way of doing things go away.”
In part two we talk to Stuckmeyer about “the Plymouth way of doing things,” his philosophy as a coach, and the pressure of following a legend in former Coach Jack Edison.