Robert Utz, of Mars, who died April 16, is pictured as a Mars Space College District scholar on the brink of shoot a basketball throughout a sport towards the Knoch College District. Utz was a 1972 graduate of Mars Excessive College and coached basketball at each Mars and Pine-Richland College District. His son, Corey Utz, mentioned he helped instill a love for basketball and sports activities in his youngsters. Submitted picture
When Corey Utz remembers his father, who died Tuesday, April 16, he describes a life punctuated by little moments.
J. Robert Utz, of Mars, who was a center college math instructor within the Pine-Richland College District and a Mars Space College District basketball coach, “simply did the conventional,” his son mentioned. He mentioned household VHS tapes are filled with movies of Utz together with his youngsters, whether or not he was sledding or constructing snowmen within the yard. He helped construct Pinewood Derby vehicles for Cub Scouts, and preferred throwing a soccer within the yard.
Robert Utz was 70 when he died within the Intensive Care Unit of a blood an infection following a current analysis of pancreatic most cancers.
Robert Utz loved mowing the grass, his son mentioned, and by no means made a fuss if the strains weren’t good or if youngsters tore up the yard with a bonfire. At sports activities video games, Corey Utz mentioned he would search for within the crowd to see his father watching with a lollipop in his mouth so he wouldn’t yell at referees.
In each reminiscence, Corey Utz mentioned, his father is someplace current.
“He was simply at all times there,” he mentioned.
“There was nothing spectacular — he didn’t maintain any data, he was a median golfer, he wasn’t a priest or a preacher, although he at all times talked concerning the gospel,” Corey Utz mentioned. “He wasn’t knowledgeable water skier, however each day in the summertime he was on the water. He bowled.”
“He simply did what he was requested, time and again and over, similar to some other good man,” he mentioned. “It’s a life that was rather well lived.”
As Corey Utz spoke about his father Thursday, he famous he was at his mother and father’ residence together with his brothers, brother-in-law and childhood associates cleansing. Since his father’s demise, Corey Utz mentioned he has been receiving texts and messages from individuals he hasn’t spoken to in over 20 years who shared tales about his father.
“He left an impression,” Corey Utz mentioned. “He wasn’t flippant. When he was with you, he gave you all the pieces he had.”
“I feel as you grow old, you have a look at individuals who have been part of your life, and there’s a handful that stand out as those you actually respect,” mentioned Kent Shoemaker, former Mars basketball coach and center college math instructor. “Utz falls in that class.”
Shoemaker knew Utz for 25 years, having taught and coached his youngsters within the Mars Space College District. Even earlier than he met Utz, he mentioned he knew of him as one of many outstanding previous athletes within the college district.
Shoemaker mentioned he was at all times impressed by the best way Utz would examine in on individuals no matter how busy he was.
“Bob would at all times search you out should you have been at an occasion, or wherever,” Shoemaker mentioned. “He’d search you out, ask how you might be. He had a real concern for others.”
“It doesn’t matter what it was — it could possibly be in sports activities, possibly you had a foul sport, or an excellent sport — everytime you completed speaking with him, you at all times felt higher,” he mentioned.
Life
As a younger man, Robert Utz “stored on dwelling” regardless of tragedy, his son mentioned. His fiancée died of most cancers when he was 22.
Later, whereas working in private finance, he met his spouse, Connie, fell in love and acquired married.
Within the late ’90s, Robert Utz’s profession pivoted from private finance to schooling, when he went again to high school at Robert Morris College to grow to be a instructor. He did so whereas present process remedy for melanoma, his son mentioned.
“He misplaced a whole lot of lymph nodes,” Corey Utz mentioned. “He battled and battled and battled. He mentioned if he was going to have a restricted lifetime, he would commit the remainder of his life again to us children and the group.”
After his battle with melanoma, Robert Utz grew to become a math instructor within the Pine-Richland College District.
He additionally coached highschool and junior excessive basketball at Mars and Pine-Richland and developed a youth basketball program in Mars.
By his life, Robert Utz additionally modeled an in depth relationship with household, his son mentioned, devoting himself to his spouse and youngsters.
When Robert Utz’s cousin died, he took in his niece and nephew, who grew up with the household via the remainder of their childhood.
“I nonetheless have that — we’re a close-knit group,” Corey Utz mentioned about his household. “Time, distance doesn’t matter to us. We’ll discover our approach again to one another.”
Corey Utz mentioned his father’s appreciation of the mundane may be traced again to his grandfather.
Robert Utz grew up serving to on his grandfather’s farm in Mars, spending the summers there and selecting up hay within the fall, his son mentioned.
One of many classes Corey Utz remembers his father educating him may be captured in his favourite quote.
“On the finish of the day, it would at all times boil right down to God and constant laborious work,” Corey Utz mentioned, recalling the phrase. “I don’t know the allocation for the actual success you’re viewing, however I do know there exists no substitute for these two components.”
“That was my dad,” he mentioned. “He knew that with the blessings he had, a few of it got here from diligence, work ethic and the flexibility to maintain doing the conventional. A few of it was simply God’s grace and goodness.”
About 5 weeks in the past, Corey Utz mentioned his father was identified with pancreatic most cancers. He accomplished two rounds of chemotherapy. Easter Sunday, he was throwing a soccer together with his grandchildren. Then he contracted a blood an infection.
Within the ICU, Corey Utz mentioned he watched nurses and docs embody the traits he noticed in his father.
“It was simply individuals doing the conventional,” he mentioned. “They did each potential factor they may, simply doing their regular.”
“They have been outstanding within the hospital,” Corey Utz mentioned. “The hospital cared for him higher than you would probably count on as a result of they only did what they have been imagined to do — they only did the conventional.”
His father died within the ICU surrounded by household and listening to worship music. Corey Utz described his father’s demise as “remarkably peaceable.”
“He was an excellent human being in Western PA, a Butler County child,” Corey Utz mentioned. “He grew up, acquired taught a whole lot of classes and by no means departed from them.”
