This Christmas season, everyone is looking for that perfect gift for that important person in their life. This year’s Charger’s football team found just the right gift for someone that means a lot to the team.
The captains of the team— seniors Butch Herzog, Alex Fogt, Daniel Pittman and Tim Moinet— teamed up with Butch’s uncle to build head coach Keith Otterbein an Adirondack-style chair as an end-of-the-year thank you gift.
The seniors in the past have given gifts to the coaching staff and their wives as a thank you. Most years, Coach Otter has received gifts that relate to one of his favorite hobbies: playing golf or smoking cigars.
This year though, the captains looked to do something even more personal. With the help of a veteran carpenter, Jerry Rumler (Butch’s uncle), they built a chair. But not just any ordinary chair either.
Rumler, who does woodworking as a hobby, has made over 50 chairs over the years. All of them are personalized for the occasion or the recipient.
“No two chairs are the same,” Rumler said. “There is only one Coach Otter chair.”
Most of Rumler’s chairs have been for gifts and donations to charity auctions. So when the team captains sought his help, he was happy lend a hand.
“I had no problem making it for him – He [Coach Otter] is a good guy,” Remler said.
The chair for Coach Otter is very customized with details that only his players could have come up with.
“Butch came up with the idea to make the chair,” Fogt said. “So Butch’s uncle [Remler] asked us to setup the design for it.”
The chair features a large blue Chargers helmet burned into the back, with “Coach Otter” spelled out along the bottom.
Each arm of their chair also has something meaningful to the men of the football team. On the right the arm, the captains carved in a poem that they were very used to hearing from Coach Otter before the start of every 6:15AM morning conditioning practice. Coach Otter would read an inspirational poem to get their practice started and encourage the team to make the best of the day ahead of them.
“When we would hear the quote in the morning, it was almost cringing,” Fogt joked. “He also said it at the banquet, and for the guys graduating it is a satisfying feeling that you don’t have to hear it anymore.”
For the other arm of the chair the captain’s felt this year’s team motto: “Never Settle” along with the team number “#122” would be appropriate.
The chair turned out to be quite the success.
“It was unbelievable how it turned out – It was pretty cool,” Fogt said.
“This gift was as extravagant as it has been and as personalized as it gets,” Coach Otter said. “I would not mind it if they made me one of these every year.”
