We so often read or hear about sport coaches gone bad from the news. But what we don't hear much about is the men and women who make a huge positive impact on the lives of the athletes they coach. One of those coaches is Bobby Rainey who passed away recently in North Carolina. Below is an article written by one of his former athletes.


Fond memories of Coach Bobby Rainey
by Keith Parsons
04.03.09 - 09:04 pm
If you grew up in Richmond County during the 1980s, as I did, there is a good chance Bobby Rainey had an impact on your life.

Perhaps it came as one of his baseball or football players at Richmond Senior High. It might have been as one of hundreds of youth league or junior high school athletes who played in a game in which he refereed. Maybe you were a student of his in a Driver Education class. You could have been friends with his children, Meg and Nat.

And if you were really fortunate, as I was, all those would describe your relationship with Coach Rainey, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 71.

He was a teacher in North Carolina public schools for 38 years, including stints in Alamance and Guilford counties before arriving here, where he started as a junior varsity basketball coach at Rockingham High School. One of his players that first year was Gene McLaurin, now the mayor of Rockingham.

“We had such a short team that we weren’t very good,” McLaurin said with a smile. “I think our record that year was something like 2-19. I often told him he had that team to thank for sending him off to baseball.”

Certainly, Coach Rainey moved on from that start to achieve some wonderful things in athletics. He was the head baseball coach at Richmond from 1981 until 1993, where he compiled a record of 259-67 that included nine conference championships, including seven in a row at one point.

Of course, that included 1983, when he led the Raiders to the Class 4-A championship, the fourth state title in school history.

“It was a bunch of friends playing together,” said Greg Cloninger, a third baseman on that team who went to star at Campbell before being drafted by the Atlanta Braves. He now works as the director of manufacturing for BestSweet Inc., which makes items such as cough drops and nutritional supplements for other private label companies.

“No one person was above another on that team, it was a bunch of really good players who played together. Coach Rainey created that atmosphere.”

His expertise didn’t stop on the baseball diamond. For nearly 20 years, Coach Rainey was an assistant football coach at the school, where he was part of three more 4-A championships in addition to numerous conference titles.

I have no doubt that if he would have stuck with hoops, he would have been just as successful.

“He loved practice as well as the games, he was really devoted to his players and the coaching profession,” said Randy Jordan, second baseman on the 1983 team. “He was committed to what he was doing year round.”

Jordan, who still lives in Richmond County and works as an accountant, became accustomed as most of us did to seeing Coach Rainey on one of his many jogs around downtown Rockingham. Yet one of the last conversations they had came in Florida a few years ago during spring training, where Jordan and former high school teammate Danny Mills were traveling.

Little did they know that Coach Rainey enjoyed making that trip as often as possible following his retirement from teaching.

“He looked identical to what I remembered,” said Mills, who now manages a branch of the North Carolina State Employees Credit Union in Matthews “He recognized us right off, too, and asked how we’d been doing and talked a little about that state championship team.

“You could just tell that he cared about his players and remembered us all.”

And, mostly likely, they all remembered him. My first encounter with Coach Rainey came in ninth grade, when he taught Driver’s Education at Ellerbe Junior High. He also served as an official in many of our basketball games that year, including once when an overzealous attempt to grab a loose ball left me with a black eye.

Despite keeping an ice pack on it for the remainder of the night, I showed up at school the next day with my left eye swollen shut. Most of my teachers were a bit horrified, but I got through most of the day, including a period with Coach Rainey, without any trouble.

He didn’t let it go, however. As I settled in for geometry late in the afternoon, Coach Rainey walked in the class with more ice, and insisted I use it. He even explained to my teacher that I shouldn’t take it off for the rest of the day.

I’ve often thought about his gesture, one that none of my other teachers thought to do that day. What a special man he must have been to go out of his way for me.

Of course, anyone who ran across him likely has a similar story. We were very lucky to have someone such as Coach Rainey settle in Richmond County, and it goes far beyond any wins or losses on the playing field.

His passing leaves a void in this community that won’t be filled easily, at least not for me. So long, Coach. We’re all better off for knowing you.
© yourdailyjournal.com 2009

Interesting story about former Bears WR who is coaching high school football in the Chicago area in an effort to pay back those coaches who helped him when he was a teenager.


Copyright 2009 Chicago Tribune Company
Chicago Tribune


March 20, 2009 Friday
Chicagoland Final Edition


SECTION: CHICAGOLAND EXTRA ; ZONE N; Pg. 2

HEADLINE: As coach, ex-Bears receiver gives back by changing lives and winning games;
Kozlowski says football turned around his troubled teen years and he wants to pay it forward

BYLINE: By Mike Helfgot, SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE




He has been a public figure in the Chicago area for more than two decades, first as a Bears wide receiver in the late 1980s and early '90s and for the last 16 years as a sports radio host.

Glen Kozlowski is an engaging on-air personality. He's open, honest, passionate, funny. But there's something about Koz that even the most loyal of WGN-AM 720 listeners probably don't know.

"I was a thug," he said. "I was a complete troublemaker. You name it, I've done it. There was a time where it could have gone the other way, and I would have been in a completely different world.

"I had people smack me in the back of the head and say, 'Wake up, kid, you have an opportunity.' I got tremendous advice and leadership at the time I needed it. My old [high school] coaches saved my life in a lot of ways."

For the last seven years, he has been trying to return the favor. In addition to the radio gig and running insurance and employment-verification businesses, he became head football coach at Wauconda High School in 2002, turning the perennial doormat of the North Suburban Prairie into a respectable program.

That challenge fulfilled, he stepped down to rebuild a North Chicago program that had slipped from 7-4 in 2006 to 2-7 last fall.

"The reason I wanted to coach at the high school level was to impact kids the way I was impacted," said Kozlowski, who attended high school in California. "A lot of the circumstances my players are going through, I went through. I think I have some insights that will help some of my players."

Make no mistake, though; as sincere as he is about impacting lives -- once a month, he calls his former players who are in college to check up on them -- the 46-year-old Kozlowski runs a football team, not a ministry.

He followed high school sports even during his Bears career, and when his youngest son graduated from Warren in 2002, he went against everyone's advice and chose Wauconda for his first foray into coaching.

"Everybody said, 'You can't turn that place around,'" he recalled. "Everybody said it was a horrible job. I wanted to prove them wrong."

Wauconda lost its next 22 games and 26 of 27 in his first three seasons, but the seeds of success were planted. Wauconda went 18-19 over the last four seasons, and a youth program that had 120 players seven years ago is 375 strong, according to Kozlowski.

"The kids had such low self-esteem in terms of how they viewed themselves as athletes," he said. "They were like, 'We're Wauconda -- we're supposed to lose.' That had to change."

Change it did, to the point that Kozlowski has no lingering guilt leaving Wauconda for a conference rival. He is convinced the program is in capable hands under Dave Mills, who played with Kozlowski at Brigham Young University and moved to Illinois to join him on the Wauconda staff in '02.

Kozlowski took the North Chicago job six weeks ago, and is a fixture at the school. He runs a weight-training program every afternoon, and participation has quadrupled. He is receiving crucial support from the coach of the school's successful basketball program, Gerald Coleman, who has persuaded several of his juniors to play football next fall.

"I've always wanted to coach at North Chicago," Kozlowski said. "Up until about three years ago, they were the most dominating team in the conference. The difficulty they've had the last three years has more to do with how they approach things."

Kozlowski has instituted some non-football changes that he thinks will improve his players on and off the field. He is spending time on the area's youth program -- including educating 7th- and 8th-graders and their parents on college preparation. And he's requiring every member of the team to volunteer for 20 hours of community service.

"I believe that more kids can go to college on academic scholarships than athletic scholarships," he said. "It is a matter of them understanding that those opportunities are there."

He's also taking time to get to know them the way Mel Gali and Scott Wright, his high school football and basketball coaches, knew him.

"I treat each kid individually," he said. "Each kid is so uniquely different. There are certain rules you can't break, but with each kid, you have to find his hot button."

- - -

The world according to Koz

Former Bears receiver Glen Kozlowski hasn't lasted 16 years on WGN-AM 720 radio by being shy. Here's the North Chicago coach and quote machine's take on:

Football tactics: "You identify the kids who can do exceptional things, get the ball in their hands and turn them loose. It's a simple game. Anybody who makes it sound difficult is a coach trying to make himself sound better."

Football as metaphor: "Success breeds success. When kids have confidence in themselves, it carries over into everything they do. Every part of life becomes better."

His new team: "In my mind, just looking at the players we have on the roster now, we will compete with everybody. It is going to be the little things that separate us from winning and losing."

Going to BYU: "Everybody was still kind of cheating back then, and they were the only school that didn't offer me a deal. That impressed me, and my mom really wanted me to go there."

Being a Mormon: "I believe what I believe. I don't cram it down everybody's throat. You have to find your own way to believe in yourself."

Another story about negative parental involvement in a coach's work leading to that coach leaving coaching.

When I read these stories, I wonder if these parents will show up at the workplaces of their children to complain about work conditons, rules, etc.

Children, especially those in high school, need to start learning about being responsible for themselves and being held accountable for their own actions.


Copyright 2009 The Tribune Co. Publishes The Tampa Tribune
Tampa Tribune (Florida)


January 14, 2009 Wednesday
FINAL EDITION


SECTION: PASCO; Pg. 12

HEADLINE: Hoops Coach Leaves Canes

O’Connell says disagreement with parents forced move.

By EDDIE DANIELS [email protected]



LAND O' LAKES - After leading the Bishop McLaughlin boys basketball team to a 10-1 record this season, Coach Greg O'Connell resigned Jan. 2.

Athletic Director Eddie Kenny said O'Connell has been replaced by New York Mets scout Les Parker, who has basketball coaching experience.

O'Connell, who coached Springstead for 23 seasons, said a disagreement with parents over his philosophy on discipline forced his hand.

"I told my wife when I took this job, because I've dealt with some real idiots at Springstead - I'm talking idiots - I refuse to do that again," O'Connell said about ending his seven-year retirement for the Hurricanes job. "Nobody's going to bully me. I didn't have to walk away, but I did because I didn't need it anymore. I only [returned to coaching] because I felt like it would be fun. I'm dealing with discipline, and I wouldn't have to worry."

O'Connell coached the Canes for 11/2 seasons. The team went 10-13 in 2007-08 and 10-1 this season under O'Connell, who said there were no overtures by the administration to get him to stay.

"For us losing a coach like that, of that caliber, is a loss for our program," Kenny said. "And what he did in the short time he was here is something hopefully we can carry on, but it's going to be tough without him."

On Dec. 29, the day of the Keswick Suncoast Classic final against Tampa Prep, three Bishop McLaughlin starters were late to practice, and O'Connell benched them. He said it wasn't the first time the three had been late.

"I work under an infraction system as far as discipline," O'Connell said. "The first one, everyone gets one. There's no penalty. From then, you're suspended. That's the rule."

Bishop McLaughlin lost 61-28. After the game a parent confronted O'Connell and yelled at him, he said.

On Dec. 31, players had to be in the gym stretching by 8:50 a.m. for practice at 9. Four players were late, leaving six varsity players. O'Connell said of those six, two later walked out of practice.

The following day, all but one of his players showed up, and the one who missed was sick. Because of the suspensions, O'Connell was forced to bring up a junior varsity player to start the Jan. 2 road game against Lakeland Christian.

That day, O'Connell was working on a job for the landscaping company he owns when he missed phone calls about a 3 p.m. meeting with team parents. After arriving at his school for the bus ride to Lakeland, he said, he met with Kenny and explained what had happened. He said Kenny told him the parents were in the gym and wanted to meet. O'Connell said he thought the parents were there to support his disciplinary actions. Instead, he said, "I was blindsided."

After collecting his items and exiting the gym, he wished the players well and left.

Reporter Eddie Daniels can be reached at (813) 948-4214.