Jeffrey Sauer (March 10, 1943 – February 2, 2017) was an American

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

player and coach. Sauer was the head coach at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

from 1982 to 2002 and

Colorado College Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduates at its campus. The college offer ...

from 1971 to 1982. While at Wisconsin, he led the Badgers to two

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

men's ice hockey championships. He was the special assistant to the commissioner of the

WCHA The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...

prior to his death.

Career

Playing

Jeff Sauer accepted an athletic scholarship from

and began attending the school in 1961. After sitting out the Tigers' disastrous 0-23 season in 1961-62 Sauer became part of the rebuild under first Tony Frasca and then Bob Johnson. Despite his efforts, Sauer couldn't help Colorado College reach the

playoffs in any of his three seasons before graduating in 1965.

Coaching

After graduating Sauer signed on as an assistant under Johnson at CC and then followed his former coach to

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, staying with the program until just after the Badgers joined the WCHA before he received his shot behind the bench at his alma mater. Sauer took over for a rather moribund program that had seen only two winning seasons in their past 13 campaigns and slowly brought the team back to respectability. It took Sauer 4 years to build a winning team, finishing 1974-75 3rd place in the conference, but his biggest achievement came three years later when the 5th-place Tigers upset a 33-win

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

team to capture a share of the WCHA tournament, the only conference tournament title in team history. (as of 2014) All told, however, Sauer didn't have much more success than his predecessors as he could only provide Colorado College with 2 winning seasons in 11 years as head coach. When his former boss Johnson left Wisconsin after 1981–82 to pursue an

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

coaching career, Sauer returned to

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

to replace him and immediately found the success that had eluded him at Colorado College when the Badgers won the national title in

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP is officially completed (this is consid ...

. Throughout the 1980s Wisconsin remained one of the top programs in the country, routinely winning 20 games a year and in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

Sauer proved that not only could he coach a national champion, but he could build one as well when he captured his second

title. In Sauer's 20 seasons with Wisconsin he provided 2 conference regular season titles, 5 conference tournament titles, 4 30-win seasons and 11 NCAA tournament berths in addition to winning two national titles. He retired as head coach after the 2001–02 season, turning the program over to Badger alumnus

Mike Eaves Michael Gordon Eaves (born June 10, 1956) is an American former National Hockey League (NHL) player and the former head coach of the St. Olaf College men's hockey team and for his alma mater the University of Wisconsin, where he was part of two N ...

. He retired as the winningest coach in Wisconsin history. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Badgers Hall of Fame in September 2016.

Administration

After stepping down Sauer agreed to serve as the assistant commissioner for the WCHA for several years and in 2010 he returned as head coach for the US

sled hockey Sledge hockey, also known as Sled hockey in American English, and Para ice hockey in international competition, is an adaptation of ice hockey for players who have a physical disability. The sport was invented in the early 1960s at a rehabilitat ...

team at the

2010 Winter Paralympics ) , nations = 44 , athletes = 506 , events = 64 in 5 sports , opening = 12 March , closing = 21 March , opened_by = Governor General Michaëlle Jean , cauldron = Zach Beaumont , stadium = BC Place , winter_pr ...

. He helped the Americans to their second gold medal in the event and four years later returned for a repeat performance in

Sochi Sochi ( rus, Со́чи, p=ˈsotɕɪ, a=Ru-Сочи.ogg) is the largest resort city in Russia. The city is situated on the Sochi River, along the Black Sea in Southern Russia, with a population of 466,078 residents, up to 600,000 residents in ...

. He died on February 2, 2017, from

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

Head coaching record

† Wisconsin's participation in the 1992 Tournament was later vacated by the NCAA Committee on Infractions References:

References

External links

*
Wisconsin bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauer, Jeff 1943 births 2017 deaths Deaths from pancreatic cancer American ice hockey coaches Colorado College Tigers men's ice hockey coaches Lester Patrick Trophy recipients People from Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin Wisconsin Badgers men's ice hockey coaches Deaths from cancer in Wisconsin