Award for coach whose son died in road accident

A RUGBY coach who remained dedicated to training his team of youngsters despite losing his teenage son in a tragic car accident has praised them as his "surrogate sons" after being honoured with a national sporting award.

Mike De Busk, 46, who has been the head coach of the 1st XV rugby team at North Berwick High School for around five years, was named teacher of the year in the School Sport Matters Awards.

The honour came less than two years after his 17-year-old son Matt - a member of the rugby team - was killed when his car collided with a tree near Aberlady Mains in February 2009.

The award, presented at London's Wembley Stadium recently, was to honour Mr De Busk's exceptional rugby coaching.

The firefighter, who lives in The Beeches, Gullane, praised his "surrogate sons" in the team after winning the top award.

Mr De Busk, who also has a daughter Natalie, 22, was one of three nominees for the award but did not know he had won until the night itself.

He said: "Even better than winning the award was that a lot of the former rugby players I had coached got back in touch with me on Facebook and sent texts saying how delighted they were. To have former players saying how much I deserved the award was worth more than the award itself."

Mr De Busk, who previously played in the Scotland under-21 team, added: "We have an annual dinner after the season finishes and the head coach says a few words. I told the boys, once I had stopped crying, that I considered them all to be surrogate sons.

"If you can stand up in front of a group of some 20-odd teenage boys and cry your eyes out, you can just about do anything with them.

"I would say it again without hesitation."

Remarkably, Mr De Busk - who was born in Dallas and left America for Scotland at the age of 14 - said he never considered quitting his coaching role even during the heartbreak of losing Matt.

"It would have been the easy option to quit but some of the boys I had coached for ten to 12 years, and the other boys I had got to know over the last year or two, so I had a moral duty to stick with them," he said. "I think coaching the team absolutely helped me through that time.

"You can make rash decisions really quickly when something happens in your life so I thought I would just stick it out and be with them, and see how it goes. I have no regrets."

Mr De Busk was nominated for the award by Murray Duncanson, whose teenage son Ryan was coached by Mr De Busk in the school rugby team.

Mr De Busk added: "I couldn't have done it myself. I've always had lots of people helping me.

"This is an award for all the fathers who have been helping over the years."