Coach McHugh

It’s never easy to write a blog when one of the words in the first sentence is “died.” It’s even more difficult when the person you’re writing about helped to shape the man you are today.

Bill McHugh recently died. He was my high school football coach and journalism teacher. But more than that, he was one of the best men I’ve ever known. Other than my father, no man had more influence on my life than Coach McHugh.

He was a coach and teacher for 32 years. His obituary stated, “He had a gift for seeing potential in young people and mentoring them to succeed.”

That’s an understatement of titanic proportions. He coached in a rough area of eastern Ohio where, many times, people who get a college degree see it as a ticket out of town. He didn’t. He returned to the high school from which he graduated and began teaching and coaching. Over the years, he influenced the lives of hundreds of young men, myself included.

When I saw him last, dementia had already stolen part of the man I had known. But not all. We had a good visit, and he said, “Getting old is a bitch.” I had to laugh, because this was a man I never heard curse in the oftentimes maddening world of coaching high school football. In fact, he rarely raised his voice at practice. When he got really upset, he might have tossed his clipboard to the ground, but even that was rare.

“Who was in your class?” he asked.

That was a fair question. Who could be expected to remember all the puzzle pieces after decades of coaching? I rattled off the names of my former teammates, and he nodded, processing the mental image in his mind.

(Sadly, too many of my teammates died before Coach McHugh. Life can be hard in the Ohio River Valley, and it was the mileage, not the years, that claimed so many of my old buddies.)

Coach McHugh began coaching at Smithfield High School. He became the head coach at Buckeye North in 1972, after my school, Brilliant High, and Smithfield consolidated.

We talked a little about those squads. During my junior and senior years at Buckeye North, we had good teams and were 17-2-1. But while that was important to me as a 17-year-old, it was the relationship I had maintained with Coach McHugh that I will most remember.

(The photo included with this post was taken during that visit.)

A mutual friend, Christina King, brought Coach McHugh to hear me speak at Thurber House in Columbus. I was touched by the fact that the man I so admired wanted to hear one of his former students speak. (In all candor, I figured after coaching and teaching me for two years, he’d never want to hear me talk again.)

Over the years, I made sure that he knew that he’d had a tremendous impact on my life. I wanted to do well in college and in life because, in part, it was important to me that the men who had helped to shape me be proud of me.

My father died at age 72. He went quickly. We had a great day at the hospital on Sunday. He was alert and feeling good. Then, Monday morning, he was gone. The chaplain at the hospital told me that while his death was difficult to accept at the moment, there would come a day when I would be grateful that he left this world quickly, without a lingering illness.

She was right.

I hadn’t seen Coach McHugh recently. However, I was aware that dementia was taking its awful toll. Maybe it was best that I didn’t see him in that condition. I know it was difficult for his children to watch and selfish on my part, but I wanted to hold on to the mental image of Coach McHugh that I will carry to my grave – a man of great dignity, standing on the sidelines with his clipboard, guiding the lives of so many young men.

Rest in peace, Coach.