OGDEN — When Mike Russell saw the emergency alert on his phone warning Utahns about the state’s record number of COVID-19 cases and asking them to follow public health guidelines, he figured most people would just ignore it.
“When that alert came through, I said to my assistant coach, ‘95% of the people who see this, they really don’t care. They don’t know,’” said the head women’s basketball coach at Snow College. “For me, it takes on a completely different meaning. My dad’s care is determined by this. They have room in the ICU where he’s at, but they don’t have enough staff to take on more.”
Utah Department of Health officials reported a record-high 2,292 cases Friday with 318 hospitalizations, with 76 of those new patients in the last 24 hours. Of the 318 hospitalized, 133 of those are in the ICU, which is also a new high, and 72.5% of the state’s ICU beds are occupied.
Mike Russell’s father, 75-year-old Phil Russell, is one of those statistics.
“With this whole thing, you think, it’s never going to happen to us,” said Mike Russell, the youngest of Phil’s two sons. “It’s not going to affect our family. We’re healthy. It’s been really eye-opening.”
For more than four decades, as one of the most successful and beloved high school coaches, Phil Russell taught teenage athletes the value of teamwork and instilled in them a competitive fire. For the last three weeks, his family has watched from outside the window of his first-floor room as the prep coaching legend fights for his life.
“He started not feeling well near the end of September,” Mike Russell said. “I think he tested positive on Sept. 28. He was home for a few days, and he just got progressively worse. Finally, my sister-in-law had a friend who was a nurse, and she swung by the house to check on him.”
“My dad’s care is determined by this. They have room in the ICU where he’s at, but they don’t have enough staff to take on more.” — Mike Russell
His oxygen saturation levels were lower than normal, so she gave the family a list of things to look for as they monitored him.
“The next day we took him to the hospital,” Mike Russell said. “I think he was admitted the first week of October. ... After three or four days, he went to the ICU.”
Russell isn’t sure how where his father came in contact with the coronavirus that has ravaged the world since last winter. But both his mother, Carolyn, and his older brother, Matt, also tested positive. Carolyn Russell recovered quickest, with Matt Russell battling significant illness for a couple of weeks.
Mike Russell lives in Ephraim, about three hours from the town where he grew up watching his father coach everything from football to baseball. But girls basketball, a sport Phil Russell knew nothing about when a school administrator approached him about starting a team, was what put him in a league of his own.
Phil Russell taught history and coached sports at Ogden High for 42 years, and he was the school’s athletic director for 11 years. He’d just finished coaching football in 1972 when the school’s principal asked him to start a girl’s basketball team.
“He really didn’t know anything about the game,” Mike Russell laughed. “It’s funny going back, he had all of these books. He went out and bought all of these books so he could learn the game.”
And learn he did.
Phil Russell was demanding on the court and nurturing off it, and it helped his teams win consistently, as well as giving his players room to learn lessons of discipline, resilience and sacrifice.
“I would describe him as a big teddy bear,” Mike Russell said. “His players, he demanded the most out of his players, and he got it. But he really cared about his team. He loved his players. ... He is an emotional guy, and when his players would cry, he cried. When they hurt, he hurt. He just had a super big heart.”
And he stayed involved with the school long after his coaching days. Russell said one of the last things his dad did before he got sick was volunteer as the announcer at Ogden High’s volleyball match.
Mike Russell’s favorite memories revolve around their unusual Sunday traditions.
“Most of my fondest memories were of being there at the school with him,” Mike Russell said. “We’d go to church, and then we’d go to the gym. People might look down on that, but that was some of our greatest family time, going into the school with him after church. ... He was always doing something for his team, in the team room, and my brother and I would go into the gym and shoot baskets.”
As much as Phil Russell loved everything Ogden High, his family was always his priority.
“He was kind of a legend,” Mike Russell recalled happily. “I can remember as a young kid hating to go places with him because he was always talking to everyone. He knew everybody. The longer he did it, the more people he knew.”
Phil Russell never turned down the opportunity to shoot hoops with his sons, both of whom are coaches now.
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately,” Mike Russell said Friday. “He’d leave for work when it as dark, and he’d come home when it was dark. He’d roll in about 7 or 8 o’clock at night. But if me or my brother wanted to go to the gym, he’d take us. It would have been easy for him to say no, but he never did. He’d turn around and drive that 15 minute drive back to the school. We were always a high priority. ... It was awesome growing up with a dad like him.”
If there was one thing he loved as much as spending time with his sons, it was relishing his role as grandpa.
“This could be day 10,” Mike Russell said of how long his father has been on a ventilator. “I talked to him the day before he went into the ICU. But since he’s been on the ventilator, he’s fully sedated.”
The family can only watch through a first-floor window as Phil Russell fights for his life. They are dependent on the kindness of nurses who send them updates and pictures.
“People tell me to tell my dad this or that, but I can’t,” Mike Russell said. “I went up on Monday and they opened the blinds. I am glad I did that. You never want to see your father laying there like that, but I felt good about doing that.”
The family now waits for daily updates about whether he is gaining or losing ground.
“Where he’s at now, the COVID has run its course,” he said. “It’s all the damage that’s been done. His lungs and his heart. ... They had to shock his heart to get it back into sinus rhythm two days ago. He’s got a long recovery, if he does recover. ... And we still have hope.”
Phil Russell was a positive, can-do kind of guy. And that’s what his family has brought to trying to support him. This Sunday they’re joining with friends and congregants from their church to fast and pray for him.
“We do have faith in God, and we believe miracles can happen,” he said. “We believe that prayers are answered and we believe there is strength in numbers.”