The Herald-Sun from Durham, North Carolina • 28

ColumnsFeaturesCommentaryLetters Sunday Nov 21 1982 In Decades Of Service At Durham High And NC State One Football Coach Earned Such A Fiercely Loyal Following Of Players That One Remarked Upon His Death 'Now Carey Brewbaker Is True Grit To Me' A y-A -i calendar into his room at the hospital and marked the days off for him He was so determined When the day came June 3 he went to the wedding wearing a tuxedo and rode in an ambulance with me and two BREWBAKER RETURNED TO THE hospital after the wedding but wu released nine days later During his five-month hospital stay Ids weight dropped from 209 to 145 The surgery had left his speech impaired and he could not eat by mouth He would be fed by tube the rest of his life Brewbaker spent his last years at Holden Beach at a house he named His life wu extended far beyond what doctors expected because of his strong will Mrs Brewbaker said along his attitude wu she said just give in He never lost his enthusiasm and spirit either He fought like a tiger until the very Mrs Brewbaker said her husband kept scrapbooks with remembrances of his days at Durham High and NC State and wu often visited by his former players had quite an affection for that area she uid it wu always amazing to me how these big guys would come in and hug him and tell him they love him and want him to get well" Albert Long wu one of the more frequent visitors A player on the 1949 and Durham championship teams Long is now an evangelist and gave the eulogy at his former coach's funeraL a- A 1 hi 1 7 1 r- Y-i't V4 4 a ji a i 4 fc -y "sW1 By CHARLES CHANDLER Hwald Sports Writer was Friday Sept 15 1950 I 4 The Durham High School I I football team was getting I ready to play arch-rival Raleigh in a key Eastern Conference game Team members and students gathered that afternoon at the school for a pregame pep rally Enthusiasm was at a fever pitch because the Bulldogs had a 16-game winning streak and were defending state champions The enthusiasm diminished however when coach Carey Brewbaker spoke He said he had just received a call informing him he would have to leave the following day for the Navy the only time I ever saw him recalled Albert Long who was quarterback for the Bulldogs that year was quite a blow and never forget it Boy were we inspired that night at the game We would have beaten the Green Bay Packers Durham won 47-7 the game in the locker room coach asked to do him one favor He said you play Wilmington for the championship several weeks later I want you to cone into the locker room after the game and autograph the game ball and send it to Well Wilmington was a better football team that year but nobody beats us that night We won 21-13 1 remember Ed Brumley a linebacker was carried off the field twice but came back both times saying got to win it for SUCH DEVOTION WAS COMMON among players both while he was at Durham and as an assistant coach at NC State Many of those former players came to honor him Thursday in Raleigh at his funeral Brewbaker died Tuesday after an extended illness He had won or shared five state championships at Durham High (1938 and before leaving to serve as an assistant under Earle Edwards at NC State in 1954 Prior to his first season with the Wolf pack he had the first of three brain operations that crippled him for nearly 30 years and eventually led to his death The 1954 surgery was inconclusive and doctors had to operate again two years later This time they found a benign tumor the size of an orange The removal of the tumor was clean but the surgery left Brewbaker partially paralyzed in his right side deaf in his right ear and blind in his right eye PERHAPS THE MOST NOTICEABLE side effect of the surgery though was occasional loss of balance Often he would walk along the sidelines and suddenly lean to his right Nevertheless he remained a Wolf pack assistant until his retirement in 1971 operations caused him a lot of pain and Edwards said he never let it get the best of him He fought it as hard as he could and ask for any special privileges I think I know anybody who could have lived with his physical problems He was stubborn and had a fierce determination to condition worsened following his retirement and surgery was necessary again in January 1978 Following the operation at Duke Hospital his wife Betty was told her husband had no more than a year to live given much of a chance but he had a she said know the only reason he left that hospital was because he wanted to be able to give his daughter away at her wedding He asked me every day how long he had to get well I brought a Lloyd uid question he wu an imposing figure But we knew he going to hurt us he just wanted us to do our best And there wu nothing any of us do for mm either We all felt like our football team wu one big Worth Lutz who starred on the 49 and Durham title teams agreed that the Bulldogs were totally devoted to Brewbaker wu a tough disciplinarian but he did it in such a way that he maintained the respect of all the Lutz said remember when he left for the Navy in 1950 Elmer Barbour took over but we were still playing for Brewbaker I think that shows good as that we wanted to win it for how much we respected AK UMSTEAD A postman who also assisted the Durham team a volunteer said Brewbaker wu successful because he did more than just tell his players what he wanted had this guy one year who made a mistake in practice and got knocked on his Umstead said boy Just kind of laid there Brew looked at him and said you wanna play ball for The boy said Brew said get get up and hit me The boy said coach all got on is a t-shirt and Brew lust waited The boy got up and hit him but only moved him to the side a little Brew stared him down and said learn quick son if you want to play for Carey Now if you ask me a Umstead uid he has always held Brewbaker in high esteem and drew inspiration from the life just tears you out to see a guy that wu so healthy looking back then and then see him the lut couple of Umstead uid talk about John Wayne In True Grit now Carey Brewbaker is true grit to me be proud to say I knew him a friend any day of the a have so many memories 1 I about coach I Long uid wu a super I coach He knew how to discipline and he knew how to love And he was so fair I know any man I ever respected more than Carey Brewbaker except my own father If he had ever said to any of us want you to go to New York and climb the Empire State Building and jump of the the only thing we would have uid wu can we go home and change clothes before we hit the Devotion to Brewbaker wu common among his players and so wu respect uid Wade MaDonald a Durham junior high coach who once served a volunteer assistant at Durham High knew just where to needle them his MacDonald said could really inspire them to play better than they reaUy were And they never knew how to take him but they always knew he wu on their side remember one incident in particular There wu this real tough kid named Joe PoreellL Carey said to him one day in practice I want any punt to get in the air this next game I want you to block every one noticed their guy kind of rainbows his kicks and going to work on it in practice this THEY PLAYED THE game and Joe blocked two out of three kicks After the game Carey called him in and uid you get that Joe uid coach I blocked two punts I thought I did Carey looked at him with that tough look he had and said were supposed to get all the Joe looked kind of puzzled and disappointed after that Carey waited a minute then grinned at him and slapped him on the tail and uid you did a great Delona Lloyd the star of 1949 championship team uid mere presence made respecting him euy wu a robust big Above: Durham High coach Carey Brewbaker (second from left) poses in August 1950 preseason photo with (L-R) assistant coach Elmer Barbour end Billy Rigsbee fullback Worth Lutz and guard joe Porcelli (HrflFMiayClariMCMMr) Left: Brewbaker gives instructions to an -undentified NC'--State player on the sidelines of a game' sometime in the late 1960s Brewbaker was an assistant at State from 1954 through 1971 INC Mo An Idea To Curb The Charade: A Major In Pro Sports By LESLEY VISSER 1SB2 Sorton Globe completely said Reevea athletic experience should go hand in hand with an academic one Every college student should develop his reason and creative abilities through both thought and Reeves stop there either He thinks that athletes who have trained under some of the more renewed coaches in which group he includes Dean Smith lobby Knight Joe Paterno and Bear Bryant should receive laboratory credit for the experience men are as much teachers as coaches" said Reeves "A great deal of give them experience behind a camera or on a Reeves 42 came up with the idea 10 years ago when it occurred to him that many athletes were selecting majors they weren't really interested sociology physical education or but ones that seemed easy enough to get through while waiting to be drafted think graduation percentages would be higher if the athletes were motivated in class the way they are on the uid Reeves the way to motivate them is to design a course of study that directly relates to There Is another solution to the problem: severing academics and athletics altogether Stop pretending that all athletes are interested in going to dau and give them an option to take academic courses The idea would be to extend opportuni- have a model that would legitimatize varsity sports I see no reason why athletes can't receive justifiable training in their chosen field the same way colleges train artists musicians and actors" Reeves Professor ble training in their chosen field the same way colleges train artists musicians and Reeves' idea is that the 40 or 50 schools in the country the business of raising substantial amounts of money through devise a curriculum that would train college athletes to prepare for a life of orofessional athletics course of study also would include liberal arts courses in the event an athlete did not go on to the said Reeves student would select 12 courses to prepare him for what he wanted to The courses Reeves hu in mind do not Include star weightlifting hitting the curve-ball or ballpark dining His courses would include speech public speaking sports psychology anatomy physiology biology sport in American society the economics of sport the history of sport statistics income distribution writing ethics law it relates to sport principles of acting human blophystology and human motivation Principles of acting? not a joke said Reeves iot of athletes make commercials and this would ou can imagine what some of them are splintered English batting practice brains thoughts no deeper than which team won the most doubleheaders or what happened to Karl Spooner Some of the professional athletes I've met couldn't speUPGA I remember standing around the training camp in the summer of 1978 and asking one player who he wu voting for in the presidential election he uked John Reeves a professor at the University of Rochester hu a better idea Instead of college athletes being blinded by the light of profeuional sport devoting their entire educational experience to a single shot at the pros Reeves thinks colleges should establish a major in professional athletics have a model" said Reeves "that would legitimatize varsity sports I see no reason why athletes receive Justifia Reeves insists he is not looking for a haven for athletes rather a valid educational process one that would rid many schools of the hypocrisy that their athletes are also interested in another course of study all have to face the fact that sport is pervasive In American said Reeves at the media attention look at the amounts of money that change hands It's not radical to educate people solely for that ties to an athlete give him counseling vocational or personal and let him decide At the end of a season the athlete would be free either to study or find a Job the theory being that If a football player want a degree in education or psychology why should he have to get one? i A as1.