With the recent passing of legendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith I’ve been thinking a lot about coaches and the impacts they can have not only on their teams but their communities and, in a few rare cases like Coach Smith, the entire country.
To tell you the truth, I never liked Dean Smith much when I was younger because I was born and raised in Maryland and while he was coaching UNC seemed to beat UMD every year. But he impacted sports – college basketball in particular – in such a huge way and was such a great coach that I have to respect him even though he beat Maryland so often. He set a big example when it came to player involvement. He stayed in touch with his players and supported them when they were down. He set the tone at UNC by creating a “basketball family” and treating his players like family members. As part of this attitude he also recruited the University of North Carolina’s first African-American scholarship basketball player and encouraging the university community and the broader Chapel Hill community to treat him and other African-Americans in the community with respect and dignity.
I’ve got to be honest: I’m a sucker for a good coaching story. I was raised by a high school football coach, am the godson of a high school basketball coach and spent several years as a college football coach myself. The whole first part of my life was spent around coaches, and I love reading about the great ones and the differences they were able to make. It is with this theme in mind that I would like to introduce you to two coaches that made a tremendous different in my life and the lives of many others. These two men grew up in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland by the train tracks. As children of the Great Depression they came up during a very tough time and had difficult home lives. They became like brothers, forming an inseparable bond that lasted a lifetime. And when choosing professions, they both chose careers that would allow them to help young people succeed.
One of them was Morgan Wootten, who went on to become the winningest high school basketball coach in history and an inductee in the National Basketball Hall of Fame. The other was my father, David “Doonie” Waldron, who became a well-known football coach at St. John’s High School in Northwest Washington, D.C. for many years.
Both of these men chose their path to help people, as money was not what motivated them. They were both intelligent, well-spoken gentlemen who could have been successful in many different fields if they had chosen differently, but they genuinely loved coaching and making a difference in the lives of their players. Not long ago I was talking with Jay Gallagher, whose father was the legendary St. John’s basketball coach Joe Gallagher. He played for my dad and worked for Morgan, and he brought up a good point as we discussed what it had been like to live and work with these coaching legends: they are passing on. Where are the young people who will take their place and carry on the work of these great coaches?
I’ve attached the following links so you may get to know these two men better. It is my hope that through the power of the Internet their stories may get read by a young person who would be inspired to become like them. Maybe they could even inspire the next great coach to go on and give to the next generation of players what these men gave to my generation.
Morgan Wootten: http://rowaldron.com/2012/01/06/weekend-words-the-godfather/
Doonie Waldron: http://rowaldron.com/2011/06/20/happy-fathers-day/
Have a great weekend,
Ro