Rick Fleeger, former Moniteau youth basketball and varsity assistant coach, talks to players during a timeout. Fleeger died Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 48 years old after a battle with cancer. Submitted photo

Rick Fleeger was demanding of his players.

He also had a knack for getting them to loosen up or make a late-season practice fun.

It’s a difficult line for any youth or high school coach to balance. But Fleeger, his former players and coaches said, had a preternatural ability to do so.

Fleeger died Tuesday, April 14, 2026, at 48 years old after a two-year battle with lung cancer. A viewing was held Friday evening.

“He did have a good sense of humor and he brought that to his practices and even the games,” said Shawn Thompson, who coached Moniteau’s youth program through junior high for nearly 11 years. “But you knew when Rick meant business.”

“At every practice he would literally be singing the most random songs,” junior Sayge Brunst said Thursday. “He was just so happy to be there, it was seriously his favorite place to be.”

Fleeger became nearly every player’s “sports dad.” They respected him and felt empowered during practice or after a chat following a rough stretch in a game.

“He got to watch me grow up and develop me as a player,” said Emily Matz, a junior, who like Brunst, had known Fleeger since their first days in Moniteau’s elementary basketball program. “He was one of those people, he treated us all like daughters.”

“Rick was always there for every one of us and he always made practice fun, but very organized,” said Alyssa Thompson, Shawn’s daughter. “Everyday was a favorite memory with Rick, and that’s something I will never forget.”

The players became part of his family, which included his wife, Nicole, and daughter, Sophia, who graduated from Moniteau High School in 2025.

“When you work with someone six days a week for two years, it’s tough,” longtime Warriors varsity head coach Dee Arblaster said. “My heart breaks for Sophia, because she’ll never get to experience a lot of things with her dad girls get to experience.”

Former players considered Moniteau youth and varsity assistant coach Rick Fleeger their “sports dad” for the way he helped them learn the game, encouraged them and made them laugh. Submitted photo

Thompson, who’s currently an assistant coach with the Moniteau softball team, said he sees a lot of Rick’s influence in Sophia, who Thompson thinks will be a great coach one day like her dad. They were both very competitive.

“Rick and his wife raised such a kind and talented … young lady in Sophia,” he said. “I really think he’s kind of transferred his knowledge, his passion for basketball (to her).”

Fleeger was a 1996 Butler High School graduate. He coached youth basketball for nearly two decades in the Moniteau area and was named an assistant coach for the varsity team before the 2024-25 season. He had already been diagnosed with cancer and it gave him a chance to coach Sophia one more season before she graduated in 2025.

“There was an opening on the varsity staff and I moved up,” Fleeger said at Butler Eagle Basketball Media Day in November. “I’ve been with this group of players since they were in grade school.”

The job offer was originally supposed to be more than that. Arblaster said she called him before that season to see if he’d be willing to take over the varsity program, but he informed her of his cancer and the plan changed.

“I thought it was important for Sophia to have her dad there,” Arblaster said.

Arblaster said Fleeger had a “special, unique relationship” with the players. He could push them, be stern and also laugh.

There was a game a few years ago where Sophia had fouled out and Arblaster had gotten a technical foul, forcing her to stay seated on the bench the rest of the game. It was Sophia’s job to keep her coach planted on that seat. And Fleeger, not yet an assistant for the Warriors, found the scene hilarious as Sophia struggled to do her job with a feisty Arblaster jumping off her seat nonetheless.

“It was a funny moment for me,” Arblaster said.

Matz and Brunst still laugh at some of his now-famous catch phrases. He’d call out “clear like mud” after explaining a drill or play, and over the years players began to respond “mud’s not clear.” He’d end postgame locker room chats with “let’s get to work tomorrow.”

Players liked his ability to teach the game.

Arblaster said she was able to talk to some of her players Wednesday afternoon and called every parent to inform them. The team is “devastated.”

“I just expressed how much Rick loved each one of them,” she said. “He never wanted us to broadcast this illness. … We gotta try to make him proud.”