The Bradsher Beat
Monday, July 9, 2012
By Bethany Bradsher |
|
Carson's
legacy: Faith, friends and star athletes
By
Bethany Bradsher
©2012 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.
When Coach Bill Carson was
about to tell you a really good story, he had an electric twinkle in his
eyes. It was part joy, part mischievousness and the sure sign of a man
who had spent every day he was given doing what he loved.
The last time I saw the
venerable coach, who died in his sleep last Monday at the age of 75, was
in February. He set up a meeting to educate me about an extraordinary
former East Carolina runner named Carter Suggs, who once ran the fastest
100-yard dash in the world but failed to make a lasting impact on the
world stage because of his injuries during his ECU career.
Article continues below
the following picture.
Longtime ECU track and
field coach Bill Carson
died on July 2.
Suggs had just died at the
age of 56, and Carson was concerned that if he didn’t step in, the
legacy of a great athlete and a great man might be unwritten. I was glad
to help pay tribute to Carter in the April issue of The Pirates'
Chest magazine. And now, with a heavy heart, I feel compelled to try
to do the same for his extraordinary coach.
There was no one like
Coach Carson. Sometimes he was a crusty curmudgeon unwilling to keep
pace with the changing demands of Division I athletics. In the old days,
he has told me, he would take the money allotted for him to take a
certain number of athletes to a meet in Chapel Hill or Raleigh and —
unbeknownst to the ECU athletic department — take a smaller group of
runners to a more competitive event in Arizona instead. He liked
coaching in a time when such renegade tactics were possible.
Other times, Carson seemed
to be on the very cutting edge of his sport, like in 2004 when, after
coaching a phenom named LaShawn Merritt at the World Junior
Championships in Italy, he convinced Merritt to come run for him at East
Carolina. Merritt was only a Pirate for part of one indoor season — he
signed a professional contract in the spring of 2005 and set the course
that would lead to a 400m gold medal at the Beijing Olympics — but he
will still always belong to East Carolina, thanks to Bill Carson.
I was privileged to
witness Carson’s devotion to his athletes and to his sport through his
four decades at East Carolina. But after he retired in 2007, I got to
know a different side of Coach Carson — his boundless love for his
friends and his genuine faith.
Article continues below
the following picture.
Bill Carson served as ECU's track
and field coach from 1967-2007.
(ECU Media Relations photo)
As I was researching a
biography of former ECU baseball coach Keith LeClair, I learned that
Bill Carson was a faithful friend to LeClair. Coach Carson was part of a
group, led by Chuck Young of Sportworks Ministries, that used to gather
at the LeClairs’ house weekly for Bible study. Before Keith got sick, he
and Bill liked to fish together in the streams of Western North
Carolina.
He was generous with his
memories of Keith — both happy and sad — and even the heaviness as he
recalled Keith’s dramatic decline due to Lou Gehrig’s disease and his
tragic death at the age of 40 was infused with the hope of the Christian
faith that formed both coaches’ foundations.
After my book, Coaching
Third, came out, I was speaking at an event at a little bookstore in
Sylva, near the mountain house where Bill and Ruth Ann were spending
most of their retirement days. It was only after I had read an excerpt
from the book and taken a few questions that I realized the identity of
the skinny guy sitting near the back with a baseball cap on. But once I
recognized Coach Carson, I deferred to him, asking him to share his the
first-hand memories that far outshined anything I could offer.
Through accolades like
coaching 70 All-Americans, and 40 individual conference event champions
and qualifying athletes for the NCAA National Championships in 18 of his
last 19 seasons, Carson demonstrated his deep knowledge of what it took
to recruit, retain and squeeze every ounce of effort and ability out of
top runners. Through relationships with friends like Keith LeClair,
Carson proved that those accomplishments were not ultimately his life’s
top priority.
If they have access to the
London Olympics in heaven, I guess Coach Carson might take a peek at the
track and field events. But then again, he might just be too busy
fishing for trout with his friend Keith.
E-mail Bethany Bradsher
PAGE UPDATED
07/09/12 07:12 PM.
|