When Jakub Trusina scored on a last-second shot to give Columbus North a 44-42 win against Perry Meridian on Saturday, the Bull Dogs ran a play that coach Paul Ferguson learned when he was a student assistant at Notre Dame.
The shot and victory gave Ferguson his 200th career win as a high school head coach. He now stands exactly 200-100 in 12 years in Illinois and Indiana.
“The play that we ran from the sideline out of bounds was a Notre Dame play from back in the day that Fran McCaffrey uses a lot at Iowa,” Ferguson said. “That’s the value of getting to work for different people and bringing them to a new place.”
McCaffrey was the lead assistant under John McLeod when Ferguson was a student assistant at Notre Dame during the 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons. Ironically, Ferguson’s wife’s brother Matt Bollier is the team doctor at Iowa, where McCaffrey now is the head coach.
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After graduating from Notre Dame, Ferguson spent a combined five years as an assistant coach between Brother Rice and Wheaton Academy in the Greater Chicago area. He then spent six years as an assistant at Wheaton College from 1999-2006 before going back to Wheaton Academy as head coach for seven years, posting a record of 133-55.
“That was a very valuable part of my coaching experience,” Ferguson said. “I had the opportunity to learn from a lot of different head coaches, and the things I have learned have really helped me, seeing the different styles and the different ways those coaches run their programs. I’m really thankful for all those experiences.”
Ferguson went back to Wheaton College for two more years as an assistant for two more years before taking the North job in 2015. He now is 67-45 in his fifth year with the Bull Dogs following Saturday’s comeback from a double-digit second-half deficit.
“It was a big win for us,” Ferguson said. “Anytime you reach a milestone like that in your coaching career, it’s pretty exciting. (Saturday) night was one of those games where we weren’t at our best offensively, but we kept grinding, and guys stepped up and made offensive plays, and Jakub Trusina made that big play at the end to win it for us.”
After going 10-14 in Ferguson’s first season at North, the Bull Dogs have gone 15-9, 14-11 and 16-8.
This year, North is enjoying its best season under Ferguson at 12-3 going into Friday night’s game at Southport. The Bull Dogs have been ranked in the top 10 in The Associated Press Class 4A poll at times this season.
“We’ve been steadily building,” Ferguson said. “It’s been a steady climb each year. You can’t skip steps. I told that to my guys. You have to keep learning and growing each year and then hopefully build on that the following year. Ultimately, I would like to take that next step of winning a sectional, and I think that’s an attainable goal for this year.”
