Funeral, Eulogy, and Memorial Talks
EULOGY FOR COACH JACK RAY
[Talk given by John E. Enslen at the First Baptist Church of Wetumpka in Wetumpka, Alabama, on April 17, 2015.]
Introduction
I am truly grateful for the special privilege of addressing you on this solemn occasion. The request from Coach Ray himself that I speak at his funeral will forever rank as one of the highest honors of my entire mortal probation. My emotions have been tender and near the surface ever since Larry called me with the news of Coach Ray’s passing, and I earnestly solicit your silent prayers as I undertake to fulfill this last important assignment from Coach Ray. I will do my best to speak for all of us.
Birth
On March 31, 1926, somewhere in or near the small town of Woodberry in Meriwether County, Georgia, there was born to Bill and Nedra Ray the first of their 14 forthcoming children who would survive infancy. The name they selected for this new baby boy was “Willard Jackson Ray.”
As it would turn out, Willard was not particularly fond of his own first name. He would later make it a point to severely punish any player trying to get away with calling him Willard, whether in his presence or behind his back, which causes me to ponder the nature of the reunion which has now taken place between Coach Ray and his unique former player Roy Chandler. Out of respect for coach I will not repeat his first given name during the remainder of this eulogy.
Coach Ray’s parents brought him to the Wetumpka area when Jack was at an early age, and it is here that he and his 13 brothers and sisters were reared, all of whom graduated from Wetumpka High School.
Family
As an adult, Coach Ray was no stranger to death in his immediate family. Five of his younger thirteen brothers and sisters died before he did: John, Ferrell, Jeanette, Annette, and Gene, who died recently on March 18th. No one will ever know the determination and intestinal fortitude it took for Coach Ray, suffering in the final throes of congestive heart failure, to be physically present and to actually speak at his brother Gene’s memorial service less than three days before Coach Ray’s own death.
Eight of Coach Ray’s siblings survive him: Betty [Turner]; Frances [Walls]; Frank; Dorothy [Stephens]; Tommy; Ann [Rettino]; Peggy [Nikolakis]; and my classmate Linda [Mincey].
Coach Ray was predeceased by his wife Louise who died in 2006. Jack Ray and Louise Elder first met in Evergreen, Alabama, while Jack was working for the railroad. They were married in 1948.
Coach Ray and Louise would bring five children into the world. Their first child, born in 1949, Billy Jackson Ray, was affectionately called “Butch.” Butch was afflicted with congenital cerebral palsy and confined to a wheelchair for life. Coach Ray would have my profound admiration if the only thing he had ever done in life was properly care for Butch for more than 57 years. Coach Ray was several decades ahead of society with regard to the way he insisted that Butch be a part of mainstream activities at school and in the community. Butch died in 2007.
Coach Ray is survived by his other four children. Jimmy, who was born in 1951; Larry, who was born in 1954; Flo, the first girl, born in 1957; and Kathy, who was born in 1958.
Each of Coach Ray’s four children experienced the family “right of passage” by serving as the football team’s official mascot—dressed either in a miniature Wetumpka Indian football uniform, including helmet, or a grammar school-size Wetumpka Indian cheerleader outfit.
Quotes from His Children
Coach Ray’s son Jimmy will tell you that he feels very blessed and is so grateful to have had Coach Ray as his father.
His son Larry said the same, adding that he was proud that his Dad was a man of God. Larry knows what made his father proud—seeing his former players grow through the years to become outstanding husbands, fathers, and successful workers and businessmen.
Coach Ray’s daughters Flo and Kathy had this to say: “The fondest memories of Dad that we will cherish forever is the compassion he had for people. He made people smile with all of his jokester ways. He was a loving dad who was concerned about each of his kids and grandkids. Was he perfect? No. But our lives were richly blessed to have had him as our earthly father! He raised us in the way of the Lord, always provided for us, and he never complained about anything—even in the days when we were all growing up and Butch alone was a full-time child. Our wonderful memories will never fade away! As the words say in one of our favorite songs: ‘When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!’”
Each of us will have to settle for getting our own quote from Butch the next time we see him. I predict what Butch tells us will be infinitely more powerful than anything I could say on his behalf today.
Early Adult Life
Coach Ray was in the 10th grade at Wetumpka High School when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next year, as a junior in high school, he enlisted in the Army Air Corp at Maxwell Field with the stipulation that he would be allowed to graduate from high school before being called into active duty. By August of 1944, he had graduated and was being inducted at Ft. McPherson, GA. His 13 weeks of rigid basic training took place at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Missisippi. He was trained as a B-24 bomber mechanic. After basic training, he traveled by train to California where he worked on the bombers that were used to train the bomber crews sent to Europe and the Pacific.
The war ended while Coach Ray was serving in California, but the war’s end did not end his military commitment. He returned home for a 30-day leave and then sailed from New York to Naples, Italy, where he served first as a message center clerk for classified documents and then in a security position guarding German POWs.
He was discharged in 1947, after which he enrolled at Troy State Teachers College on the GI bill. He played as a lineman on Troy State’s football team. He graduated in late 1948 and immediately took a job as head football coach at Millry High School in Washington County, Alabama.
His Life’s Work as A Coach
In 1951, after two years at Millry, “Mama called.” He returned to Wetumpka High School as an assistant coach. Two games into the 1952 season, head coach Bimbo Melton was called to serve in the Korean War, and Coach Ray became the new head coach for football and basketball. Not long thereafter, he took up the habit of swinging a broom regularly during gym class, but he was not sweeping the floor with it.
He coached for 13 seasons at WHS, compiling a record of 82 wins, 40 losses, and 8 ties, which included three undefeated seasons and four teams finishing in the top 10 in those pre-playoff days. His record of two consecutive undefeated seasons, his last two at Wetumpka, will likely never be matched due to the current playoff system. His 1963 team still holds the record for fewest points scored against them in a season (46). He took his 1956 basketball team to the state tournament.
His labors as head coach included various work related to the construction of the stadium, maintaining and improving the field, building field houses, and a host of other types of unheralded work that never ended.
After three years of coaching in Phoenix City, he returned to Elmore County, coaching in Tallassee for a year.
He was elected as the Elmore County Superintendent of Education in 1968 and served for two terms, from 1969-1977. He retired in 1977 from his career in public education with 28 years of service.
A Career Change
Life after coaching and superintending included selling insurance for Liberty National Life Insurance for about five years, and then came a major career change.
Frankly speaking, more than a few of us were a little surprised in the late 1980’s to learn that Coach Ray had become an ordained Baptist minister. We had been personal witnesses to what I will call occasional animated sideline behavior and I’ll leave it at that. Picturing him in the pulpit at Rushenville Baptist or Prospect Baptist tended to present a sharp contrast. But when you think about it, I am sure that it surprised quite a few folks when Saul of Tarsus became an ordained minister of the gospel. For us, Reverend Ray became an unexpected bonus, and we quickly accepted this additional qualification in his role as our perpetual mentor.
Honors and Tributes
In 2005, 80% of all of his former players attended a tribute reunion.
In 2006, Coach Ray was inducted into the Alabama High School Sports Hall of Fame.
Quotes from His Players
Ken Blankenship, who quarterbacked an undefeated team in 1953 and became very successful professionally and otherwise, was coached by the young, more patient, 27-year-old Jack Ray, who himself was still learning much. Even at that early age, Coach Ray had the wisdom and foresight to most often favor encouragement over criticism in dealing with his players’ mistakes. How did this method of coaching affect the life of Ken Blankenship? Says Ken, “He taught me to accept responsibility for my own actions. As I did so and improved, over time this instilled greater confidence in myself.”
Another player, Sonny Dickinson, who played for the University of South Carolina, said that Coach Ray’s impact on his life saw him through the tough times. Sonny says: “I’ve been fired but never quit, down but not out, thanks to Coach Ray.”
Edgar Weldon, who has been the driving force behind honoring and recognizing Coach Ray through the years, says: “He taught me how to breathe dust and extract water from a slightly moist sponge. If you can do those two things in the August three-a-days, most everything else is easy.”
Jimmy Conner and Wayne Grier have echoed the sentiments of many who say Coach Ray was like a daddy to them. Says Jimmy, “He instilled a work ethic in us that made us successful in what we did in later life.”
For all of us, I will say that he taught us the immeasurable value and benefit found in the principle of sacrifice, benefits that will never come from watching television or playing thumbs games. As we view our experiences with Coach Ray from the advantage point of hindsight, there is not the slightest doubt in any of our minds that every trickle of sweat, ever drop of blood, every scratch and scrape, every bruise, every unquenched thirst, every muscle cramp and pain, every chastisement, and every gut check of every kind was all worth it.
Coach Ray proved without a doubt that a coach can shape a young person’s life far beyond the game and far beyond the player’s high school days. He can help a player become more than just a better player; he can help the player become a better man.
Coach Ray as A Motivator
Coach Ray was a superb motivator. I am going to let him speak for himself through an old reel-to-reel recording. You are about to hear through modern technology a recording that was made at the last pep rally before Coach Ray’s last football game at Wetumpka High School. The date is November 20, 1964. Coach Ray is 38 years of age.
If Wetumpka wins the away game at Holtville that follows this pep rally, Coach Ray will accomplish two consecutive undefeated seasons. It will be the first game played between the Wetumpka Indians and the Holtville Bulldogs on a Friday night instead of on a Thanksgiving Day. This game took place before Stanhope Elmore High School existed.
You will first hear the students in the gym cheering and then chanting: “We want Ray, we want Ray.” Because Coach Ray’s words in part of this short recording are a little muffled, I will tell you what he says so that you can better understand it. The motivational feelings will come across despite the quality of the recording. There are three phrases: “All right, all we gonna ask you to do is give us the same fine support you’ve given us throughout this year…” and then the second phrase is garbled. He concludes his short speech to the students with this: “and I’ll guarantee when we get through up there we’ll mop up the blood and guts and come on back here and eat our dog biscuits,” referring to Holtville Bulldog dog biscuits.
[The audio recording was then played.]
Coach Ray’s Legacy of Continual Care and Concern
As players, we have all had other coaches who were important to us. What makes Coach Ray so different? It was his ongoing, unfailing interest in each of us as we continued to cut our way through the adversities of life. He never quit being our coach. He never quit helping us call the right play for the personal situations we were facing. We learned that he was not as much interested in wins and losses as he was in the future personal success of the young men who had played their hearts out for him.
As Coach Ray and his players grew older together, he seemed to transition from being our coach and mentor to being our friend. I think it was the positive influence he continued to exert on our lives after football that separates Coach Ray from other very good men who served as our coaches.
We Can Continue to Honor Him
In 2005, Edgar Welden spearheaded the establishment of a permanent scholarship fund to honor Coach Ray and to memorialize his legacy of care and concern for his players. This scholarship fund was important to Coach Ray. When Edgar and Ken Blankenship visited with Coach Ray shortly before his death, they noticed a nicely framed document prominently hanging on his wall announcing and explaining the scholarship. We all have the privilege of honoring Coach Ray with our contributions to this worthwhile educational fund named for the winningest coach in WHS history.
The 2014 Christmas Cards
During this past Christmas season, 148 surviving players and managers for Coach Ray’s football teams each received a special Christmas card from Coach Ray. He had sat at his computer and produced a separate personalized greeting card for each player. The very fact that an 88-year-old would know how to use the computer to accomplish such a feat is a testament in itself to his commitment to self-improvement.
My Last Conversation with Him
In the early evening of Thursday, April 2, less than twelve days before Coach Ray would die, I was sitting in my recliner at home when the phone rang. I am glad I was home and had nothing pressing to do but see who was calling. It was Coach Ray. I have had a few calls from Coach Ray through the years, usually asking me to do some little favor which I was always cheerfully honored to do. He had another request. He didn’t say it would be his last one, but I think we both knew there was a good chance of it.
Coach Ray had received an invitation to attend our 50th class reunion set next month—the Class of 1965, the last class he coached at Wetumpka High School. He had faithfully attended all of our other reunions. He asked me to tell everyone that he was sorry, but he would not be able to make the reunion. I told him I would let everyone know that he would not be there, but we sure would miss him.
I knew he had just celebrated his 89th birthday, and I asked how he was doing. He said he could not take more than two or three steps without totally giving out. He said he was really tired. I asked him if he was still preaching on Sundays. He said, “Yes, they set a stool in place for me and I can sit on the stool and do the preaching.”
We exchanged some rather affectionate expressions of love for one another and then reluctantly hung up. It was the softest conversation I have ever had with him.
I sat down at my computer and drafted a short, sad e-mail to Mary Tyler Lanier, our class communicator, advising that Coach Ray would not be able to join our 50th class reunion.
Coach Ray preached his last sermon sitting on that stool on Sunday, April 12, about 39 hours before he would die in the early morning hours of April 14. The subject for his last sermon was: “Being Prepared to Meet Your Maker.”
Coach Ray’s Own Personal Improvement
As I pondered how Coach Ray would have me conclude this tribute to him, I was impressed to believe that he would have me say something that puts a new twist on how his life of service should inspire us. Though all of those years when Coach Ray was helping us to improve, he was on his own personal soul-saving, self-improvement venture. He never gave up on making a better man out of himself. He took responsibility for his mistakes. He himself was changing over time—changing for the better, loving the Lord a little more, becoming a little more Christ-like, becoming a little more obedient to the Lord’s commandments and standards, learning how to love with a little more perfect love.
I believe that we can see in hindsight a good man who wanted to be better, who endured to the very end committed to personal spiritual growth through repentance and submissiveness to the ways of the Lord.
Perhaps our emulation of Coach Ray’s acquired character trait of relying on the Lord for persistent self-improvement in the things that matter most would bring more joy to his soul than anything else we can do to honor him.
I leave you with that final thought in the sacred name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.