I never intended this to be an obituary column. Honestly. Not only because the E-J already has such a section but because our esteemed editor expects something different from me.
The thing is, when you get to be my age a lot of the important people from your past (and present) — parents, teachers and, in this case, coaches — are meeting their maker (either that or we’re writing about our kids getting married and having kids of their own ... and who wants to read another “cutest grandbaby in the world” story?).
It’s sad to lose these special people, of course, but it’s also very natural and, taken in a positive light, it gives us an opportunity to share with others just what it was about those people that we found so worthy of emulation. And for my high school football coach, there is much to live up to.
Coach “Bill” Raphael was supposed to be an old man by the time I got to him. He started coaching in the early-1950s and by the time I came around he had a reputation for tough-nosed, no-nonsense work — both on the field and in the classroom.
Unlike most coaches (no offense), Coach was a scholar who prided himself for his success in both football and mathematics. He taught algebra and higher-level math. He wanted badly to teach calculus when our school added the subject my senior year, but had to go back to school and get certified for it so, in the meantime, another teacher was hired. I understand he eventually went back and got his certification and did indeed teach calculus. I’m not surprised.
To be honest, my high school football career — in particular our winning percentage my last two years — was hardly worth noting. We managed to win only two games my junior year ... but the second one, our last game of the season, was Coach’s 200th and he was particularly proud of that.
My senior year we won three (four if you count the game Madison-Ridgeland had to forfeit due to having ineligible players), including a low-light for me when I fumbled twice in a homecoming loss to Florence (who was coached, at the time, by former McComb head coach Lee Bramlett).
Needless to say this article is not about the football success I had under Coach. I’m not sure that would interest anybody anyway (except my kids who would then have yet another reason to kid their “old man”).
Coach Raphael, always the teacher, took every opportunity to instruct his pupils — in and out of the classroom. Most of these lessons had little to do with football ... or math. It was life Coach was most interested in. More specifically, a life well-lived. And though he knew no small amount about either the game of football (having led little St. Joseph to victory in the 1972 Capital Bowl against mighty Murrah) or math (as this engineering graduate can attest), his greatest accomplishment was the positive influence he had on both students and fellow teachers.
Coach was a burly man who could come across as somewhat gruff — especially when he got his dander up — but for those close to him he was more of a teddy bear and there was never any doubt what mattered most to him: his faith and his family — particularly his wife, who passed away a few years ago after some 50 years of marriage.
As out-front as he was about the importance of faith in God, always expecting his seniors to arrange for Friday morning Mass on game day, for instance, and offering up an Our Father before every game with a special plea to Our Lady of Victory, he also had his private devotions. One of those was his habit — be it in the classroom or locker room — of drawing a small cross with two dots beneath it at the top of the chalkboard.
Whenever someone asked him what the two dots stood for, his response was always something like “I don’t know what you’re talking about” or “Huh?” Most likely it was a reference to the Holy Family with Mary and Joseph represented by the dots beneath the cross of Christ, a popular devotion in our faith, but it seemed to me his avoidance of the subject was a way of saying, “This is my devotion ... you get your own.”
His classroom wasn’t lacking in humor, either. I’ll never forget his reference to the French he knew, including “coup de grace,” which he said was just another way of saying “mow de lawn.” Or how over the 30-some-odd years he and his wife had been married at the time, they had never mentioned the word divorce. Murder, maybe ... but not divorce.
And one of his favorite terms, one he referred to often as the characteristic he admired most in others, was “intestinal fortitude.” Guts. It’s the personal quality that best defined his own life and the way he lived it. He didn’t shy from a challenge.
In addition to his efforts to advance his own teaching credentials as noted above, I recall his agreeing to fill an open week on our football schedule my junior year with then top-10 ranked South Pike. We were crushed, of course — I think the final score was 44-7 — but he expected us to step up to the challenge and I can attest from how sore I was the following Saturday morning that we did just that (local trivia: the sole St. Joe TD was scored by McComb lawyer Paul Luckett, who graduated a year ahead of me).
I was blessed with the opportunity to attend his funeral recently and the sight of multiple generations of players from his football teams was heartwarming. What I will remember most of the preceding week, however, was an article I read on the Clarion-Ledger website by a sportswriter who played for him about 10 years before I did.
The scenario sounded familiar: at halftime the team sat outside the locker room resting on one knee while the coaches discussed strategy. Our school band — small and lacking in depth just like the football team — made an effort at performing on the field. The band, and in-particular a trumpet soloist, was under-performing to say the least, and in typical teenage fashion many of the players were not-so-inconspicuously making fun of the effort.
Coach Raphael caught wind of their ridicule and he was ticked. He let into them with a “How dare you?!” lecture that I’m sure humbled every one of them, but it was what he said in the end that typified who he was and what he was all about — “Now get out there and play your ‘little game.’ ”
“Little game?” For a man who would eventually devote some 60 years of his life to coaching a game he loved — including being named Sportsman of the Year by the Clarion-Ledger — such a response might come as a surprise to some. Not to those who knew the man.
Bill Raphael was indeed a coach and a math teacher and he was very good at both, but what he was best known for was molding young men and women to be mature Christians and first-class citizens. To succeed at that he had to keep the proper perspective.
In times like these when sports seem to rule and win-at-all-cost is often the name of the game, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture, of the “big game” of life. Coach didn’t.
And though it’s sad to have to say goodbye to such a man, I’m privileged to have had him as a mentor in my life and glad I had the opportunity to introduce him to you.
Our Lady of Victory — pray for Coach Raphael.
Michael Artigues, a McComb pediatrician, writes regularly on family and social issues, or whatever strikes his fancy. “meus axilla” is Latin for “my armpit,” which he chose as the title of his blog in honor of his dad, who says that opinions are like armpits: everybody has them and everybody else’s stinks.
