Mark Prosser was in the right place Tuesday night

When the final bell rang, Skip Prosser would leave his history class at Central Catholic High School in Wheeling, WVa., and stride up to the school’s gymnasium on 13th Street for basketball practice. Whether he was teaching history during the day or coaching in the evenings, Prosser was at his happiest during his six-year stint at the school in the early 80s.

Prosser left Central Catholic to coach at Xavier and eventually scaled the college basketball coaching ladder. By the mid-2000s Chris Paul was his point guard and Wake Forest was the No. 1 team in the country. He died suddenly in 2007, a heart attack after an on-campus jog snuffing out an exuberantly lived and loved life.

On Tuesday night he was honored for his efforts at Central Catholic, including a state championship and an infectious zeal for teaching. The school renamed its gym’s basketball floor “Coach ‘Skip’ Prosser Court.”

“I think he would be humbled by it, but I think he would laugh it off and say ‘why would you do that? Why me?’ He wasn’t one to take credit for much,” said Winthrop assistant coach Mark Prosser, Skip’s youngest of two sons. “And I think that’s part of coaching. He was very proud of the teams he coached and very proud to be a part of those kids’ lives.”

Mark thought his dad would have been embarrassed to have a court named in his honor. Mark also knows his dad would have wanted him parked right where he was Tuesday night, in the third chair on the Winthrop bench, his hand on his chin for much of the game as he dissected the action. It doesn’t matter that the opponent was a Division III pushover before the Eagles broke for exams.

Skip Prosser was hired at Central Catholic in 1979 and guided the Maroon Knights to a state championship and several regional championships in the next six seasons. He joined the coaching staff at Xavier in 1985 but always told people that he would have been content coaching at Wheeling Central and teaching history.

By numerous accounts he loved philosophy, history, quotes that made people think for a minute, quick and witty retorts, and reading. Kelsey marveled at his mentor’s ability to devour books on road trips when he was an assistant under Prosser at Wake Forest.

“Coach thought of himself as a teacher, first,” he said after Winthrop’s game Tuesday night. “If I was a high school coach I would be just staring at the clock looking for 3 o’clock so I could get on the court and practice. But all of the students that he coached said he poured his heart and soul into being the best history teacher in West Virginia. And I could see it because that’s the way he coached me.”

In an unreleased interview published on the Wake Forest athletics web site after his death, Skip Prosser told a reporter his favorite quote. Naturally, it came from deep-thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson: “our chief want in life is someone who will make us do what we can.” Any coach or teacher that has ever broken through with a particularly tough-to-crack student or athlete, will understand Emerson’s words and the late coach’s affinity for them.

By the time Prosser passed away, his coaching life had changed drastically. He still emphasized academics - Chris Paul was an academic and basketball All-American - but was mostly disconnected from the classroom, thinking more about grading recruits and game-planning for opponents than grading tests or lesson planning. He had it great, no question; but it wasn’t hard for journalists or players or fellow coaches to detect a periodic longing for the simpler existence he had back in Wheeling.

“Part of what he really enjoyed was being in the classroom and those relationships with the students,” said Mark.

Mark Prosser and his family were alerted to Central Catholic’s plans to refurbish its old gym a couple of months ago. It was part of a $30,000 fund-raising effort to renovate a gymnasium that looked much the same as when Skip Prosser was roaming its sidelines.

Most of Mark’s family still lives in Wheeling and they were all for renaming the gym after Skip. Mark played at Wheeling Central, graduating in 1997, before a college career at Marist that was shortened by a knee injury. With Winthrop on a short break for exams, he hopes to attend another ceremony in his dad’s honor Thursday night at the school.

“Might have to recruit, which is probably where he’d want me to be anyway,” Mark said. “But if I can make it, great; if not I’ll certainly be back there soon. They obviously know how much that place means to us.”

There may have been more people at the court naming in West Virginia than at Winthrop’s game Tuesday night. Central Catholic beat Trinity 62-43, christening Coach Prosser’s court in the only way imaginable.

This story was originally published December 7, 2016 at 4:15 PM with the headline "Mark Prosser was in the right place Tuesday night."