Feature Sponsor Story: Coach Custer

Coach Custer

Former Teacher & Coach Did Much for Bartlesville Students

by Delaney Chidester

Friday nights in the fall, high school football fans file into Custer Stadium to spend the evening cheering on the Bruins. I cannot think of a better way to pay tribute to a man who devoted his life to coaching and teaching young people.

Cecil Cicero “Lefty” Custer was born in Hooser, Kansas to parents Thomas and Rachel Custer on January 4, 1894. He graduated high school in Cedarville in 1915 and went on to serve as a Marine in World War I. In 1922, he received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Kansas. During his time at the university, Custer studied under Forrest “Phog” Allen, who history remembers as the father of basketball coaching. Following his college graduation, Custer began coaching and teaching math in Augusta, Kansas — where he would stay until moving to Bartlesville in 1924, when he took a job at Central as a junior high coach. Shortly after moving to Bartlesville, he married Esther A. Rape on January 3, 1925.

Custer coached various sports at the junior high level and later became the head football and head basketball coach for Col-High. He went on to become the athletic director for Bartlesville Public Schools, and received his master’s degree in 1931.

In the 1981 book This We Remember, created by Central students, Custer’s former students remembered him as an outstanding coach and teacher. One of his former students recalled “punishment befitting the crime was often used by Lefty Custer … As a method of discipline, Mr. Custer once sent a few students who were looking out his window during class to sit outside on the curb and just sit there and look at nature..”

Custer enjoyed being a part of his community. He was a member of the First Methodist Church, Masonic Lodge, Hillcrest Country Club, Oklahoma Education Association, National Education Association, and the “K” Club or lettermen at the University of Kansas. He enjoyed playing softball and golf in his spare time. He and his wife managed the Sanipool.

Custer served as athletic director until 1948, when he decided to take a step back from coaching. He resigned and took a job in the science department at Tulsa Central High School.

Custer passed away too soon, on June 21, 1953, at the age of 59. His obituary looked back on his long career as a coach in awe, stating that during his time as a coach, “Custer gained state-wide renown as a developer of outstanding basketball teams.” The following year, in 1954, the new high school football stadium was opened and dedicated. It was called “Custer Stadium” as a tribute to the man who’d given so much of his time to the student-athletes of Bartlesville. He was interred at White Rose Cemetery Mausoleum. Esther passed away on October 20, 1994, and was entombed next to her husband.

Next time you’re sitting under the bright lights at a high school football game, take a second to pause amid the cheers of the crowd and remember Coach Custer and all he did for Bartlesville students.