Larsen Left Lasting Legacy With Triad

By Anthony Jones

On March 12, 2021 Steve Larsen of Troy, who spent many years at Triad High School as a math teacher and basketball coach, passed away.

He first began with Triad’s basketball program under head coach Rich Mason.

Mason said of his joining the staff, “At the time he came to the team, he came and I talked to him and interviewed him for a job. He had a good background and did an excellent job for us. He was very personal and got along with the kids well.  He knew the fundamentals of the game very well. He was a big help to our program.”

Larsen, who was head coach for Triad’s JV and sophomore teams, also played an active role with the varsity squad.

“He was always present during games with me on the varsity bench and always had great insight in making a change and substitutions and looking for things that lead us to have a better game.” Mason stated about his contributions to the varsity team.

Larsen was also a member of the coaching staff when Bob Sudhoff took the head coaching reins, starting in the 1997-98 season.

Sudhoff quipped about Larsen, “He was a head coach up north somewhere, had won a couple regionals up there, at least one I know for sure. He was good with kids and was a good teacher both in the math classroom and in the basketball area. I enjoyed working with him.”

Until he retired in 2008, Larsen was also a math teacher at Triad High School.

“He was really patient, a good teacher and good with kids.”Sudhoff, a fellow math teacher, began. “He really worked hard with kids that were struggling to try and get them to understand the concepts that he was teaching. He was really patient with kids and tried to give them opportunities if they didn’t do well to catch up and recover if they had some prerequisites they hadn’t learned before.”

Bruce Lewis, who was an assistant coach at the same time as Larsen also remembered his great attitude.

“What I recall most about Steve was that he was always very positive with his players and did his best to make sure that all of his players got equal floor time.” stated Lewis.

Mason summed up the contributions of the beloved Larsen by stating, “The biggest thing about him is he was well liked by the players and he was very encouraging to them. Always did a great job about pointing out fundamental things to improve their game. He just did a good job overall as a coach and teacher for us.”