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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.
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