When the time came to select where Neil Sego’s funeral would be held, only one place made sense.
Family, friends and other community members will file into the Indian Creek High School gymnasium Monday morning to pay their respects to Sego, 46, who died in a plane crash last week in Michigan that also claimed four other lives. The team of employees from The Engineering Collaborative in Indianapolis, including Sego, a senior HVAC designer at the firm, was traveling to Michigan to conduct a site visit.
Outside of work, Sego spent countless hours in the Indian Creek gym watching his sons and their friends wrestle, making it the perfect location to say goodbye.
That, and the fact it seats 2,300 people.
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“Coaching and being part of the Indian Creek family has been such a blessing. I guess I just know that’s where it should be,” said Nicole Sego, with whom Neil celebrated 21 years of marriage this past May. “Neil was a friend to everybody. He did not know a stranger.
“His dad was that way, so I think that’s kind of the way Neil was raised.”
Neil Sego graduated from Beech Grove High School in 1991. He later met Nicole Mathes, a 1990 Center Grove graduate, and the two started dating in February 1995.
Their connection was immediate.
“It was probably his personality. Neil was always the joker,” Nicole said. “We probably knew two weeks into dating that this would be the person we would be spending the rest of our lives with.”
Nicole had a young son, Jacob, from a previous relationship, and Neil did his best to be a good stepfather. The couple eventually had two more sons, Ethan, who turns 19 on October, and Owen, 17, a senior two-sport athlete at Indian Creek.
Owen Sego is a three-time semi-state qualifier in wrestling, and is currently a running back for the Braves football team.
Owen was in Michigan with family most of the day following the crash. Indian Creek’s Senior Night festivities were to take place that evening before the Braves’ 7 p.m. football game against Indianapolis Manual.
Sego, who wasn’t expected to show up much less play, did both. He carried the football six times for 107 yards and two touchdowns in Indian Creek’s 57-8 victory.
“We drove down here and made it just in time,” Owen said. “At first, it was kind of hard, but after a while I just concentrated on football. Everything I did, my dad wanted to be there to support me however he could. He loved all of us as much as he could. Family meant everything to him.”
Fittingly, Sego was surrounded by 24 family members, including four of Neil’s siblings, when his name was called during pregame festivities.
“It was Senior Night, and Owen felt that’s what his dad would’ve wanted,” said Nicole, pausing to collect herself. “I was happy Owen made that decision and overjoyed he had the game that he had. But it was hard for Owen to look in the stands and not see his dad.”
Owen Sego did, however, sense Neil’s presence, he said.
Instead of pointing to the sky after scoring his touchdowns against Manual, Sego’s gestures were more subtle. They were between him and his best friend. Nobody else.
“I just looked up because I knew he would be watching me,” Sego said.
Neil Sego was an integral part of Indian Creek’s wrestling success as a youth coach and three years as a middle school coach. He was going to be Pat Dowty’s assistant varsity coach for the upcoming 2019-20 season.
“Neil coached because he wanted to help kids. He never played favorites, but more than anything, he had a passion for the sport of wrestling,” said Dowty, who befriended Neil when the Sego family moved into the Indian Creek school district midway through Owen’s fourth-grade school year. “I can’t believe how many kids started wrestling because of Neil.
“I’ll miss him as a coach, but more than anything, I’ll miss him as a friend.”
In February, should Owen Sego qualify for the state wrestling meet for the first time, expect more looks toward the sky.
“I’m just going to go out and have fun,” Sego said. “That’s what my dad would want me to do.”
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VISITATION AND FUNERAL INFORMATION
Sunday
Visitation – From 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. at GH Herrmann Funeral Homes, 1605 S. State Road 135, Greenwood
Monday
Visitation – From 10-11 a.m. at the Indian Creek High School gymnasium.
Funeral – Starts at 11 a.m. at the Indian Creek High School gymnasium.
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