SEMBACH, Germany – A bulletin board hanging across from Louis Scott’s desk at Installation Management Command Europe’s Sembach headquarters displays photos of basketball teams and babies. The basketball teams include Scott’s daughter, son and other teens he coached in amateur athletic basketball. The babies give Scott his “proud dad and cool grandpa” title.
“My life story actually is what you see up there,” Scott said.
Scott played basketball in high school and joined the Army at 17 as a radio telecommunications operator.
“So even on my ASVAB, I had this high ingenuity,” Scott said. “I could figure stuff out, figure puzzles out. And I always was a tinkerer. As a kid, I was tinkering with radios and figuring out how to make radios work.”
He continued to play intramural basketball throughout his 22-year Army career. After his military retirement, Scott transitioned to his roles as coach and federal civilian IT professional.
For 10 years, Scott put his basketball skills to use to help his kids and others realize their dreams of playing basketball and attending college. Of the 12 kids in the faded black and white photo at the top of his bulletin board, Scott said, 10 of them got full-ride scholarships and two joined the military. Three of the boys he coached made it to the NBA. His own children, pictured several times across the bulletin board, played basketball and moved on to careers in IT and the medical field.
“For me it was all about the love of the game and providing an opportunity for these kids to succeed,” he said.
Although he hasn’t been coaching while living in Europe for the past several years, Scott said he applies his coaching and teamwork philosophy to his work at IMCOM-Europe. As an Information Management officer for IMCOM-Europe, Scott’s principal job is to do policies and planning.
One of his most recent efforts was working with IMCOM-Europe’s Education Services and Area Support Group Poland to procure computers and ensure they were set up and had IT support for the first military testing center in Poland.
“I don't mind helping somebody else, because we're all one team, right? My job here is to help the garrisons and (IMCOM-Europe) succeed,” Scott said. “So I use that coaching and teamwork philosophy everywhere I go, in everything I do.”
Pointing to the bottom left corner of his bulletin board, Scott pointed out one last photo on the board.
“So the young lady down at the bottom, that's my sister, and she's a retired educator,” Scott said. “She was my motivator, and she was the one that pushed me.”
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