Every morning, every day and even on weekends, Tim McCutcheon and his German shepherd, Branka, hop into the truck and take the two-mile drive down a country road and start the day at a cemetery. They go to Mike McCutcheon’s grave and Tim sometimes talks to his older brother. Sometimes he says nothing. Sometimes he just cries.
“When the doctors told him in January that there wasn’t anything more they could do,” Tim said, “and they gave him a time frame of a couple months, you know what his first response was? He wanted to know if there was any way that, if he kept fighting, could he make it to football season? He knew.”
Yes, he knew.
What Mike McCutcheon knew was that this had the makings of a special fall season for his favorite team, the Mohawk High School Warriors and their fourth-year coach — Tim McCutcheon.
High school sports can sometimes do wonderful things for a school, a community, players and coaches, and especially for a team that hasn’t won much. Mohawk is a small school in the town of Bessemer, near New Castle. The Warriors have won a conference championship for only the second time in school history and are in the playoffs Friday for only the sixth time since the school opened in 1958.
The community is charged. This is a story about a fall of Mohawk magic — and the coach, his brother and this team have intertwined for a magical, heartwarming story within the story.
Mike McCutcheon was one of Mohawk’s biggest fans. He wouldn’t miss his little brother’s games, sometimes showing up in a wheelchair, weak from the treatments he endured for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Mike McCutcheon passed away March 30 at the age of 56. His spirit lives on in this team. You could see it when the entire Mohawk team attended Mike’s funeral.
Because he knew.
“I think his story just adds to this season,” said Braydon Cameron, a standout senior running back and one of the team’s captains. “Coach Tim is definitely not self-oriented at all. He wants this season to be all about us and he doesn’t bring up his brother. But I remember at the funeral for his brother, it was emotional — for me and coach and everyone. I remember I gave [Tim McCutcheon] a big hug. I told him his brother was going to be up there watching us because God has a plan. I said, ‘The ride we’re going to go on is for him.’”
Truth be told, it was hard for Tim McCutcheon to talk about his brother for this story. He’s still aching emotionally. His brother, who is survived by his wife, Wendy, was his hero. Tim is five years younger and the two were pals even when Tim was young. Tim so fondly recalls the days of watching big brother start on a New Brighton High School basketball team that won a WPIAL title at the Civic Arena in 1980. As adults, the brothers lived an eighth of a mile from each other in North Beaver Township and were great friends.
“I never saw somebody go through what he went through with such a great attitude. He never felt sorry,” said Tim.
Mohawk made the playoffs last year and had a first-round exit. Despite the loss, it was still a big moment for Mohawk. The foundation had been set. Mike McCutcheon was so excited about this season and the potential. At Mike McCutcheon’s viewing, the team gave Tim McCutcheon a game ball from that playoff game. It was signed by every player — and it went into Mike McCutcheon’s casket.
Because he knew.
“When you look over at the funeral and see your entire team and coaching staff there, there was an overwhelming feeling that took over,” Tim McCutcheon said. “Then when one of your captains [Cameron] comes over and says this season will be for him, it broke me down more than I was already broken down.”
Tim McCutcheon doesn’t bring up his brother to the team. It’s like they all silently know. They give some of this season to Mike McCutcheon. In the summer, Tim bought helmet stickers with his brother’s initials on them. But he never gave them to his players. McCutcheon’s son, Nate, is a senior at Mohawk and the team’s top receiver.
“I just wanted this season to be about them,” McCutcheon said.
A week ago, McCutcheon and two of his players were invited to be guests on a high school football radio show on 93.7 The Fan. The show was at Monte Cello’s, a restaurant in Wexford. McCutcheon did more than bring two players to the show. He brought the entire team (36 players and coaching staff).
“The guys that win year after year, they say act like you’ve done it before. Well, guess what? We haven’t done it before,” said McCutcheon, who was 0-9 and 1-8 in his first two seasons. “A lot of these kids hadn’t won anything in their life, period. Not just championships, but a lot of these seniors haven’t even come close to having winning seasons.
“They’ve felt the losing. I want to make sure they were able to enjoy every second of this winning this year, everything associated with it and don’t take anything for granted.”
McCutcheon said he talks to his brother at his grave about every game. This week, Tim can tell Mike that Mohawk has a chance to win a playoff game for only the second time. The Warriors (8-2) open the WPIAL Class 2A playoffs at home against Seton LaSalle.
“He has a Steeler and Penguin flag on his grave,” McCutcheon said. “That might seem weird to some people, but those are things he was passionate about. He was a passionate Mohawk Warriors fan, too. … After we won the conference, I told him, ‘Believe it, brother. We did it.’”
He knew.
Mike White: mwhite@post-gazette.com and Twitter @mwhiteburgh
First Published: November 1, 2018, 11:00 a.m.
