Saddened Neoga Remembers Mary Sur

If you walked into a Neoga gymnasium during basketball season, you'd see her.  She sat at the scorers' table with a bowl of candy and cookies beside her . . .  offering chocolate chip cookies to her sidekicks, coaches and the players.

Mary Sur, the well-known face keeping scores for Neoga High School and Neoga Junior High School basketball teams, passed away Tuesday, September 10 at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

"She made the best chocolate chip cookies," said Steve Hoelscher who sat beside her through 800 to 900 games over the years.

"We probably saw that many games, maybe more," said Hoelscher who ran the scoreboard. "Between junior high and high school girls and boys away and home games, it was a lot of games. I've been running the scoreboard since 1978-79 and Mary started about that same time, keeping the book for varsity boys and the clock for the girls. She's been doing varsity girls 20 years and junior high girls from the start of the program.

"She always kept a little dish of candy and I would eat out of it, referees took some and the kids came up after the game to get candy from her. She knew everybody. She had a list of every referee and their numbers and always knew who they were.

"She also knew the players. She would tell me who somebody was and tell me about their parents and grandparents. She always called the kids "hun" when they came up to the table to check into the game. She had a pencil box with her pencils in it sitting there."

"I've been with Mary for 29 years," said Seth James who used to coach the high school girls basketball team and is now the assistant. "First of all I was just a young coach back in 1991 and she was the junior high girls scorekeeper. That continued on through the years. Then I was her principal and now I've gotten back into coaching.

"The thing that made Mary special was she was so much more than a scorekeeper, she was a mentor, a friend and someone that your connection ran so much deeper than sports. She was the type of person you want to have in your life and you really value.

"That's the thing with losing her. there's a deep sadness but there's also an amazing joy that you had her in your life. It's a celebration of an amazing person you got to know."

"I first met Mary in kindergarten," said now girls basketball coach Kim Romack. "I did not have her as a teacher but she was next door. So from five years on I've known her. She was always a kind person and that never changed over the course of 30-some years.

"She was a person who had so much dedication to everything that she did, whether it was teaching or keeping the scorebook. She knew everyone on a personal level and always took care of us coaches. We never went without a snack.

"She wasn't just a scorekeeper. She traveled with us to road games. The amount of time that it took and nights a week between boys and girls junior high and high school, she always did everything with absolute dedication."

"Mary really knew the game of basketball," said James. "She wasn't just there punching numbers in. She was like having another assistant coach. She not only registered a thousand time outs, but she understood the meaning of those to the game. Not only was she keeping you informed, she could emphasize it because she got your attention.

"I remember when we were in a staff meeting in 1998-99 and we were at a district meeting. Kevin Ross was the boys coach at that time and I was the girls coach. It got to be about 3:25 and Kevin and I started looking at each other because we had practice scheduled. We tried to inconspicuously get up and sneak out. But the topic was important enough to Mary that she looked at us and said, 'you two need to sit back down, we're not done yet.' We both turned around and sat back down. She had that influence over you and there was respect there. We respected her enough to sit back down."

"I'd get to the gym and she was always there before me," said Hoelscher. "When she taught, she'd stay in town but away games, they would stop by and pick her up on the way. She was very meticulous. She wrote everything out just like a kindergarten teacher would. Everything was perfect even if we had to wait on her and we did."

"We would get on the bus after a road game and we'd no more than sit down and win or lose, she'd give us our bag of candy for the ride home," said Romack. "We'll have to make a big adjustment this year. I'm not sure even we can duplicate those chocolate chip cookies. They were made with love and I don't think any of us will be able to do it."

When asked how Mary reacted to games she attended, Hoelscher said, "For the most part she was pretty calm. As she got older she would complain about stuff just between the two of us but never to anyone else.

"She taught my kids in kindergarten. The Booster Club gave her an award and they asked everyone to stand up who she taught and the whole gym stood up. The last kindergarten class she taught was last year's graduating seniors."

Sur was named to the Hall of Fame along with Hoelscher for their work with the Neoga programs.

"Mary just loved sports in general," said James. "She liked college basketball or football. On the bus rides a lot of times she would talk about watching the Illini or what did I think about a college game that had been on TV. She could talk Cardinals baseball, Illini football and basketball. She loved sports across the board."

Sur taught kindergarten for 37 years, from 1969 to 2006.

"It just won't be the same," continued James. "I focus on the blessing I had her in my life. She had an impact and had a strong faith and she lived it. She was the real deal. There was nothing fake about her. That had an influence on me and those she touched by the way we carry ourselves. You walk the way Jesus walked, lift up people and make others better. That's my biggest take-away from Mary."

A Mass of Christian burial will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, September 16 at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Effingham with burial in St. Anthony Cemetery. Visitation will be held from 3-6 p.m. Sunday at the church with a 6 p.m. ladies rosary.