Читать книгу The Faith of the Blind Coach - Nathaniel Farley Jr. - Страница 11

Teachings, Leadership, Mentoring, Disciplines, Adjustments, and Wisdom

A sportswriter from the Florida Times Union, Mr. John Oenser, wrote an article about Coach Small entitled “No Small Feat.”

In eras of history, there is often a leader, a person, a man, or a woman who symbolizes that period. In the era of black high school coaches in Jacksonville, Florida, before 1970, there is such a man. He was a community leader, and educator, he helped, shaped, and molded young men and women. Coach Small was a teacher, a coach and a father-figure. He coached at Stanton, the oldest, most tradition-rich black high school in the Duval County of Jacksonville, Florida and the state of Florida. He won more football games than any coach in this county’s history from 1934-1975. He was the first coach who coached both boy and girl sports. “When Coach Small touched your life,” said ex-Coach, retired Principal, City councilman and school volunteer Jimmie Johnson, who played for Coach Small, “whatever he instilled in you, you wanted to pass on what you had been taught, and share the knowledge with everybody you touched as a person, teacher, coach, dean or a principal the qualities in all areas like Coach Small had done for me.”

Coach James P. “Bubbling” Small, as he has been called, he has been define or describe as a legend over the years, because of what he accomplished in his life and sports, his community, but most of all, the people, students and student athletes he taught and influenced including me.

His impact was evident in that twelve years after his death, the baseball park that was once called Durkee Field Baseball Park was renamed in his honor. This was the park where all of the black schools played their home football, and baseball games for several years and during the summer months, kids would play Little League Baseball games in the park. The high schools at that time were: Matthew W. Gilbert, Douglas Anderson, Northwestern and New Stanton.

Each school would rotate each week a night they would play in the park. The schools’ football team was scheduled to play either on a Thursday night, Friday night or Saturday night.

The park name changed from Durkee Field, to “The Myrtle Avenue Ball Park, but in 1987, it changed to “The James P. Small Memorial Ball Park.”