CHESTERTON | A Wheeler High School language arts teacher and his father died Sunday morning attempting to rescue a boy from a rain-swollen drainage ditch.

Mark Thanos, 48, and John Thanos, 74, both of Chesterton, were sucked into a culvert and drowned after entering the ditch to save a 10-year-old boy in the water, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

The drownings occurred about 11 a.m. in a tributary ditch to Coffee Creek in the Westchester South subdivision, Chesterton Assistant Fire Chief Mike Orlich said.

The boy was sucked through a 36-inch culvert in the ditch but was able to make it safely out of the water, the DNR report said. He was taken to the hospital, authorities said.

Mark and John Thanos went into the water to help the boy, were sucked into the culvert and drowned, the report said.

Mark Thanos' wife, Victoria, said she and her husband were outside their home when they learned about the boy in the ditch, which runs next to their home.

"We heard screaming that a kid was caught in the ditch," she said. "Mark and Dad jumped in and tried to get him."

"He was someone you could count on," Victoria said.

Mark Thanos coached basketball at Wheeler High School. He previously coached at Andrean High School and Purdue University Calumet and for many other local teams.

His sons, John, 18, a senior at Chesterton High School, and Mike, 14, an eighth-grader at Chesterton Middle School, said their father coached them in several sports, but he also was their biggest fan.

"Our father coached us, and passed it on to so many," Mike Thanos said.

Victoria Thanos said her husband often attended his sons' football games, sat at the top of the bleachers at the 50 yard line, and shouted to the players, coaches and referees on the field.

But Mark Thanos had a softer side, too, she said.

"He loved music, was very well-read and was very knowledgeable about a lot of subjects," she said.

He was a wonderful stepfather to Victoria's son, Josh, and he had a soft spot for his border collie, Katie, she said.

He and his father, known to family and neighbors as Papou, loved to cook.

John Thanos was retired from the Merrillville Community Schools Corp., where he worked as a custodian. He previously owned a bar in Gary and was a veteran of the Korean War.

Friends and family gathered Sunday at the Thanos home on Olivia Court, not only to share their condolences, but also to help remove water from their flooded basement.

Almost a dozen youngsters, friends and teammates of Mark Thanos' sons spent Sunday evening using mops, brooms, shovels and vacuums to clear water from the family's flooded basement.

Mike Thanos said he is grateful that his friends came out to support him and to remember his dad.

"He needs to be remembered as a hero," he said.

Union Township School Corp. Superintendent John Hunter called Mark Thanos "an outstanding person who cared about the kids and the success of our kids."

"What a great, great loss to our school and corporation," Hunter said Sunday evening.

Union Township schools are closed Monday because of the weekend flooding. When Wheeler High School reopens, counselors will be made available to students and staff to deal with the loss of Thanos, Hunter said.