SOUTH WAYNE — It happened too quickly, said former Black Hawk football coach Cory Milz. His longtime assistant, Mike Bainbridge, suffered a heart issue in March of this year, and just five months later would pass away from prostate cancer. 

“It caught us all by surprise,” Milz said of his friend who passed away Aug. 25 at the age of 71. “It started back in March and just accelerated from there. None of us expected it to come this soon.”

Bainbridge went through five bypass surgeries on his heart and a valve replacement. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he did much of his rehabilitation from home.

“It was going good. He went in to see the doctor and he had low blood pressure, so they admitted him,” said Miranda Wiegel, one of Bainbridge’s two daughters. At that time, Mike was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer and recently began treatments for it. “He must have had it for a while, because it was already spread to his bones. We knew our time with him was limited, but even last week he was telling us he was going to beat it.

“He was a fighter. He’s the strongest man I know. He was very positive through it all.”

While the prognosis wasn’t optimistic, doctors told the family there was the chance he could live for another three years.

“I just talked to him about two weeks ago at his granddaughter’s softball game. Then he went into hospice shortly thereafter,” Milz said.

Bainbridge was a longtime offensive line coach for the Warriors, and started coaching with the program the same year Milz joined Dennis Murphy’s staff in 1997. When Milz took over as head coach in 2002, Bainbridge stayed. Previously, Bainbridge was an assistant coach at New Glarus-Monticello

“Me and my sister (Megan) grew up on the football field,” Wiegel said. “As far back as I can remember we were walking around the football field, from New Glarus to Black Hawk.”

The family’s love for the gridiron continued into this past season, as Megan’s son, Easton, was a manager for the team.

“That was a cool memory he’ll always have. My nephew was a manager for the last three years, making it to state and winning,” Miranda said. 

Milz said that Bainbridge was a crucial asset to the program and that his position players loved their coach and respected his authority. 

“We had some really good years as a football team together,” Milz said.

The last game the two would coach together would be for the state championship in November 2019. Milz retired from coaching after the game. 

While football was the initial connection for Milz and Bainbridge, their bond was strengthened from their friendship. Bainbridge was there for the birth of each of Milz’s children.

A carpenter by trade, Bainbridge was a handyman that Milz said could fix anything. Recently, Bainbridge had helped renovate a shed on his brother’s property to be used as a getaway as a family. Years earlier, Bainbridge helped Milz remodel a basement, a memory that Milz recalled with raw emotion and fondness.

“When we working on the basement, he had this idea about putting in a rise sun,” Milz said, pausing to collect himself. “He said it was so the sun always shined on our family. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

Bainbridge was a family man, Milz said. He loved his family and talked about them often, from his father, Cletus, who died nearly 13 years ago, to his mother, Joan; brothers Patrick, Terry and Tom, sister Chris, as well as daughters Megan and Miranda, nieces, nephews and his own grandchildren and fiancé Kathy.

“Whenever I saw him, he was always talking about his family,” Milz said. 

The family even had a new gathering place thanks in large part to Mike. The “Shed,” as it’s known, was built by the Bainbridge family after Joan sold her home.

“My uncle Terry lives in St. Louis, and after my grandma sold her house, he bought some land and we built a shed. My dad did all the interior work on it,” Miranda said. “That’s become the place where we all hang out as a family.”

Milz and Wiegel said that Bainbridge, who also served on the South Wayne Fire Department, wanted a memorial fund set up for the football team, which now co-ops with Warren. He said the fund would go on to help the players on the team, like the annual preseason night out the team routinely took. 

“He was just a great guy, a great family man,” Milz said.

The family is holding a private memorial ceremony.