Goodbye to a friend: Community honors Scott Downing

“We were more than just coaches, we were three best friends coaching together,” Tipp City Boy’s Soccer Coach Joel Slyman said.

As a community and school district mourns the loss of a beloved teacher and former boys soccer coach, those who knew Scott Downing best reflect on his life and legacy.

Scott Downing was only 50 when he died earlier this month following complications from diabetes. Downing was a former collegiate athlete, teacher, and boys soccer coach for more than 20 years. He even led the Tippecanoe boys soccer team to its first-ever state championship in 2019. However, his family and closest friends say it wasn’t his achievements or accolades that will define his legacy; they say it was the relationships he cultivated along the way.

“His connection to his students and his peers, and I said it before, he wasn’t so concerned with the content you remembered but the relationships you had with him and with his counterparts,” said Joel Slyman, Tipp’s current boy’s head soccer coach.

The 2023 season was Slyman’s first at the helm, but he had a lot of help from Downing along the way. Slyman says he’s known Downing for 25 years, first meeting him as a young child playing club soccer. He also played for Downing in high school, had him as a teacher, and coached under him.

“He’s the reason why I’m coaching, he’s the reason why I played, and he’s the reason I’ll do my best to continue the excellence that Tipp soccer has,” Slyman said.

Tipp City is also where Downing met his long-time assistant soccer coach, Ian Porto. Porto took the assistant coaching position in 2008.

“We’ve all had heavy hearts since hearing about Scott’s accident two weeks ago. It is never news that you expect and it is never news you know how to deal with it. Scott was a humorous fellow at heart. He loved to laugh and he loved to make other people laugh and so I think many of us have been trying to laugh in his honor as much as we can,” Porto said.

Downing grew up in Tipp City and graduated from Tippecanoe High School in 1992. He was honored with numerous soccer awards in high school, including Ohio Division II player of the year in 1991 and was named 2nd Team All-American. He made two final four appearances before going on to play soccer at the University of Dayton, where he started all four years.

“Scott has been a part of Dayton soccer for five decades. I mean, he was a youth player and a high school player in the ‘80s. He was a high school player and a college player in the ‘90s. And he was a coach. I think his first year as a varsity head coach in Piqua was in 1998. So, you talk about the ‘90s into the 2000’s and the 2010 and 2020 decades Scott was right there. Even the last couple of years, when he had stepped away a little bit from being an on-the-field presence, his spirit and his advice and his guidance was still at the center of it all. So, you talk about five different decades, a guy who was synonymous with soccer in the Dayton area is a pretty cool and special thing,” Porto said.

Has served as the Varsity Head Coach at Tippecanoe High School for 20 years with an overall record of 269-51-31 with one State Championship in 2019 and a Runner-Up in 2020.

After college, Downing had a three-year teaching stint in Piqua before making it back to his beloved Tipp City for the 2000-2001 school year. There he taught Government and coached soccer. He took over as the boy’s head soccer coach in 2005. His family says growing up, soccer was everything to Scott and his older brother, Joe. They both began playing as young children.

“I’ve never met two people who loved soccer so much,” laughed Ileana Del Campo-Gray, Downing’s sister-in-law. “I grew up in Mexico, where soccer is huge but here, they would turn on every TV in the house, have it on their phones, they could not lose a second when the Premier League was on. I never knew people could be so passionate about it.”

Ileana says she met Scott eight years ago but grew closer to him in 2021 after a traumatic injury forced Scott to move in with her and Joe. She said Scott was a great uncle to her children.

She says Scott was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age seven but as an adult didn’t take care of himself the way he should have. She hopes by sharing his struggle with diabetes that it will not only serve as a cautionary tale to others, but also remind younger people that diabetes doesn’t have to end like this.

“It’s really important to be well-educated about medical conditions. They don’t realize it can affect their mind. They can have that mind fog, they can become really depressed, and it can just get worse and worse and can deteriorate their bodies a lot faster. So, if you become really well-educated and get it managed, your life can be completely different,” Del Campo-Gray said.

Scott Downing died February 9, 2024, approximately two weeks after suffering brain injury from a fall. His family is proud of the fact that he was an organ donor and at the time of this publication says he had already saved four people through organ donation.

Despite her grief, Ileana is worried about Downing’s former students and how this loss might affect them at such a young age.

“Grief can be very difficult. To lose your mentor is really, really hard. When you lose somebody that is so young and so unexpectedly and that you look up to, a lot of emotions can come out. It’s not just the sadness. You can feel angry, you can feel exhausted, and so many things at the same time. So, I think it’s really important to work through those emotions and to be seeking out help,” Del Campo-Gray said. “I think that is what Scott struggled with. He didn’t know how to work those emotions when he lost his mom and it became a life-long burden where he was never able to move on. And I wouldn’t want to see those kids feel the same way.”

One student who was close to Downing is Landon Haas, a junior at Tippecanoe High School. He has played varsity soccer since his freshman year in 2021. His team was one of the last to play for Downing before he stepped away for health reasons. Haas says his bond with Downing was so strong that Downing was not just a coach but also a friend.

“He would text me and call me every single day. He would watch the games online and give me feedback throughout the games even though I didn’t have my phone on me. I don’t know if he ever knew that,” Haas said, chuckling.

Haas also recounts a story about Downing giving him a special gift his freshman year during Government class.

“He pulled out his Varsity jacket, which was a little different than the ones today. But he just told me that he wanted me to have it. It says Scott on the front of it and I wear it very proudly.”

As Haas talks about his future, he wants to follow in Downing’s footsteps in another way. While he doesn’t have an offer yet, he is hoping to play soccer at the University of Dayton. He says this has been his dream for a while but is now even more important to him.

The last time Haas saw Downing in person was at the State Championship in late 2023, when the Tipp boys soccer team won state for the second time.

“Really, my favorite moment is after the state finals, just getting to hug him and talk to him and him being there,” Haas said.

Slyman and Porto both say that win wouldn’t have been possible without Downing.

“We wouldn’t have hung the banner if it wasn’t for him. I mean he was so a part of that. Whether it was on the field stuff we did, it was stuff he created. We just followed his lead and tinkered with it in certain ways. The formations we made. The phone calls we had with him. The hangouts we had just to talk about the team. He may not have been at all the games but he was a part of all the games,” Slyman said. “I’m thankful for a parent who caught a moment of us hugging each other and crying together. He knows how much it means to the both of us and the city he grew up in and the program itself that he helped built.”

Downing was a teacher and a coach but maybe his most important lesson wasn’t something you would learn in the classroom or on the field.

“Every picture is of him having a good time and I think he lived his life and sure it was shorter than others but I think he lived every day to its fullest potential. I think just being himself really showed who he was and everyone loved him,” Haas said.

“What it taught me is that you have to get to know the guys outside of soccer. The love and respect you have for the individual goes further than the technical skill sometimes. You want to play for someone who truly cares for you and Scott is that person. You wanted to play for him, you wanted to work hard for him, you wanted to coach with him, and when he wasn’t coaching anymore you wanted to win for him because of who he was as a person,” Slyman said.

“I think what has been created is a fitting tribute to Scott no matter the result in the end. I think through the lives of people he’s impacted; through the friendships he’s developed. You talk about a guy who knew and would remember the names of so many former players and students. That’s the real legacy, I think,” Porto said.

A celebration of life gathering will be held Sunday, February 25, at Tippecanoe High School from 1:30 to 4 p.m. If you can’t make the celebration, there will be a livestream available. His family requests that anyone wishing to make memorial contributions in Scott’s memory to please consider the American Diabetes Association.