Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 10:38 AM
Subject: RE: Coach Ward
It’s now time to catch up on some things I have neglected since July. The foremost thought on my mind being the passing of Coach Ward, and that I didn’t even make his funeral. I should have been there, but we were getting ready for the semi-final game, and I believed Coach Ward would have expected me to do that.
Coach Ward is still my coach everyday. It began fifty years ago. In the summers, he carried us to McKenzie in the old school bus and taught us how to swim. All those hot summer days in the old gym playing cork ball, tumbling, etc. He loved tumbling – laying on his back and flipping us over the top of him. In our high school years it was those summer night workouts on all of those door frames in the new gym foyer, where we pushed on immovable bars for 12 seconds – isometrics. He took many of us to our first college football game @ Vandy vs. West Virginia. He also got our attention when Cat Bennett had to run the length of the football field with one of our best players hitting him every 5 yards. He was also my junior high basketball coach and my summer time baseball coach at the old fairgrounds.
During junior high football I broke my left leg and ankle. Coach Ward carried me to school and got me home every day. During the spring practice of my junior season, I broke several bones in my left foot, and again Coach Ward carried me to school. Also during my high school days, it was discovered that I had a birth defect in my spine, which ended my football playing days forever and my dream of being a high school football coach. I was crushed, now only hoping that maybe I could be a high school basketball coach someday.
When I graduated from college, it looked as though I was headed to Camden to coach basketball. Then one day, out of the blue, I got a phone call from the principal of Milan High School. Mr. Wheeler offered me an assistant football coaching position with their new coach – John Tucker. It turns out that Coach Ward had recommended me to Mr. Wheeler [who also just passed away about 3 weeks ago].
I still remember that night, at old Rothrock Stadium, when I was able to thank Coach Ward for restarting my dream, which I have now lived for 39 years.
I’m glad I was at the last game he coached during the playoffs @ Memphis. I still savor my last time out at the coffee table with my dad and Coach Ward. I remember talking with Coach Ward during Huntingdon’s last state championship game. He told me that he wasn’t able to make the 2003 game, to which I replied that I was glad he didn’t get to see my team that night because we weren’t very well coached – I still remember that laugh, don’t you?
To this very day, I try to handle my kids just as he did all of us. He was tough, fair, consistent, and cared about us. We simply respected him and relished his approval. Who can forget that smile when somebody got whammed, or bounced off the trampoline, or how excited he was on the first day of practice, or the Lord’s Prayer on our knees at the 50 yard line right before kickoff.
To this very day – after our strength coach gets finished with his static stretching routine, we are going to do the old SIDE STRADDLE HOP – COUNT THE FIRST 8 & GO TO 32, slapping those thigh pads hard & loud. You remember – READY 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,30,1,2. It puts a little smile on my face, memories in my heart, is a reminder of how I am suppose to coach today, and in a small way honors my COACH!
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 8:01 PM
Subject: Re: Coach Ward
Coach McCadams (Glen, it is hard for me to call you anything else after such a long and illustrious football career teaching young men in the fashion of Paul Ward). Your three state championships speak for themselves. So many of us owe so much to Coach Paul Ward and none more than you, as he guided you toward your first coaching job and under none other than another legend, Coach John Tucker of Milan.
Thanks so much for taking the time to send in your remembrance of Coach. I have taken the liberty to share yours with Paul Jr. and Bobby and the many others who either played for him or were taught by him. Each story told reveals more and more about a man that was multiple dimensional-a stern disciplinarian but with a heart as big as Texas.
Glen, you continue to carry the torch for Coach Ward. And as Ned Priest was quoted, speaking about you, "He also teaches his kids to act right and insists they do so. He is a good coach and a good man. Coach Ward would be proud". Indeed he would.
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