Citrus High coach Sharon Bomse, 'team mom,' dies at 43

INVERNESS -- Six days after suffering a massive stroke, popular teacher and coach Sharon Bomse died at 1 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 1, 2002) at Citrus Memorial Hospital, where she had been in critical condition since Aug. 26.

Mrs. Bomse was 43.

Mrs. Bomse taught language arts at the Renaissance Center and was an assistant girls basketball coach at Citrus High School, where her husband, Steve, is assistant coach for the track program. She also is survived by two young daughters, Jordan and Rachel.

"We're all grieving," said Citrus girls basketball coach Bruce Nelson said. "It was such an untimely death. We're losing a really good coach and a really good friend to all of us."

Steve Bomse could not be reached for comment.

Mrs. Bomse, whose maiden name is Detmer, was a Citrus High graduate. She played tennis for the Hurricanes and was statistician for Nelson from 1975-77, when he was the school's boys basketball coach. Mrs. Bomse was Nelson's assistant the past six seasons.

"She just loved people," Nelson said. "She loved having kids around. End-of-the-year banquets, pizza parties; you name it and she'd be right there in the middle planning it."

Mrs. Bomse was visited regularly by family, friends and many of her players during her illness.

"She was a very special person," said 2001 Citrus graduate Kristin Berger, who played for Mrs. Bomse for four years. "She helped everybody and was very compassionate. She was one of those people who tried to get to know people. It was very hard to see her (in the hospital) not like her normal self. She was always happy and making jokes. She was the team mom. She really was like a mom to all of us."

Mrs. Bomse, an Inverness resident, taught special education at Citrus beginning in 1997, but moved to the Renaissance Center in 1999. Renaissance is the school attended by disruptive and disinterested students from the county's middle schools and high schools.

"She cared about everybody . . . which seemed almost impossible to care about so many people," Berger said. "She made a difference in a lot of people's lives." Funeral services will be at 4 p.m. Wednesday at First Baptist Church of Inverness.

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