He Could Coach More Than Football

I went to a high school in Kansas that was a football powerhouse.  A man named Al Woolard put Lawrence High School on the map, even into the pages of iconic Life Magazine.  By the time I got to LHS Woolard was serving as Athletic Director and the school had just hired a dour man out of Ohio named Frank Gibson to coach the Chesty Lions.

Gibson took a couple of great teams and failed to make the playoffs.  He did it mainly through running off most of the African-American players at a time that racial strife still haunted the school in the early 1970's.  By my senior year, the fall of 1973, the program, still full of talent, was in a shambles.  That team managed 1 win against 8 losses and fortunately Frank Gibson was shown the door.

Enter a humble small town high school coach named Bill Freeman.  Coach Freeman had made a name coaching three state championship teams including a couple in Osawatomie where he produced a future NFL quarterback named Lynn Dickey.  Lawrence High's fortunes were about to change.

I saw just about every Lawrence High game over the next four years as I worked my way through college helping out at the local cable TV station that showed all of the Lions games on tape delay.  Freeman made football at Lawrence High fun.  His first couple of years he had to teach the kids how to win again.  You could see the love his athletes had for him.  Even the African-American players bought into his down home, one for all and all for one approach.

It took 5 years but Freeman finally claimed the first of 5 state football titles in 1979.  He returned the program to greatness that would extend well past his retirement into the 1990's.  Freeman made a lot of Lawrence High grads proud to be Lions again.

Bill Freeman with LHS distance ace David Johnston

What really impressed me about Bill Freeman was his love of track and field.  He was just about as good coaching that sport as he was with football.  The Lions became he track and field power in Kansas when Freeman took control of the team.  He produced great sprinters, jumpers, even distance runners.

Yet I believe the greatest thing he produced was joy.  I would stop by practices time to time beginning in college right up until the end of his reign in the late 80's.  You could see how much his athletes enjoyed being at practice, taking up whatever challenges he would put before them.  Most of all they wanted to win for him.  Not just win for themselves, but for Coach Freeman.  I have rarely seen that kind of affection for a coach.

Alzheimer's disease finally caught up to Coach Freeman.  He was 84.