Semoball

SEMO football coach has found the right 'fit' in Cape Girardeau

Veteran Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz acknowledges the crowd at Houck Stadium following a game last season.
Southeast Missourian file

As the cars turned off of Kingshighway onto Kiwanis Drive before veering toward Maria Louise Lane Saturday there was no mistaking the two (and too) cute girls dancing in the back of a Redhawk-adorned pick-up truck that belonged to seventh-year Southeast Missouri State football coach Tom Matukewicz.

Matukewicz’s eighth-grade daughter, Georgia, and friend Bella Pattengill were animatedly steering any and all passers-by to partake in a benefit car wash that the SEMO football program and Cape Girardeau Police Department collaborated on.

What the girls demonstrated – aside from the exuberance and goofiness of being a young teen – was the Matukewicz family (all of them) is invested in this community.

“I love it,” Matukewicz said of the Cape Girardeau community.

The Redhawk program and City Police spent five hours Saturday scrubbing, spraying, laughing, and playing, as the organizations raised funds for the Minority Police Academy Scholarship Fund, which was initiated by the community organization, One City.

The event was the latest in a never-ceasing list of community activities that the Matukewicz-led program has undertaken over the past seven years.

“When my wife (Lenna) and I moved here,” Matukewicz explained, “we moved here to live. This is where we live. This is our home.”

There are a lot of reasons why this community has embraced the Matukewicz family, and vice-versa, and winning 18 games over the past two seasons certainly helps but it goes much deeper than that.

The Matukewicz clan has immersed itself into Southeast Missouri not just because Matukewicz loves this place, but also because he feels it is the right thing to do.

“As a program,” Matukewicz explained, “it’s so important that we be involved (with the community). That is why I recruit locally. That is why we are always trying to get involved because it’s our home.”

Matukewicz has surrounded himself with beautiful women (he also has a third-grade daughter, Shelby), but not a linebacker son to follow in his footsteps. He sees that as a lost opportunity because he feels his program leaves a mark with young men.

“If I had a son,” Matukewicz explained, “and unfortunately I don’t, but if I did and he was able to add value to SEMO football, I would hope that they would recruit him.”

Cape Girardeau is one of THE nicest places to call “home” within the Ohio Valley Conference. However, as much as Matukewicz likes the rolling hills, pastoral farm fields, and picturesque woods (especially in autumn), as well as the iconic Mississippi, he said those aren’t the things that make him fond of this place.

“I like the people,” Matukewicz said. “The businesses and all of those things aren’t what makes a community. People are what make a community.

“The people here are so nice and willing to help.”

When Matukewicz was hired he walked into his office at the Rosengarten Athletic Complex and looked at a torn chair that sat behind his desk and he viewed that incident as an omen.

“I thought ‘My God, what have I done,’” Matukewicz recalled.

He doesn’t have any reservations today, though.

“I think every coach has a ‘fit,’” Matukewicz explained. “If they rolled me out at Notre Dame, I would probably get booed.

“I just fit here and I like it here. At least I hope I fit here.”

Comments
Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: