coachandme

Coach and Me

by Sam Crenshaw

My earliest memories of Coach Bobby Gentry were when I was in the sixth grade. Only twelve-years-old, I knew it was a special treat when he allowed me to go to the away football games with the Red Devils. I knew of no one else who was given this special treatment.

Thinking back on it, perhaps the reason for that special treatment may have been because we bonded on the long strip of land belonging to Mansfield Jennings, Sr. Coach used to drive down to the mill village to take me to shag his practice golf balls for him. He had a very large bag and he hit them a long way. I awaited each hit with my baseball glove. I pretended to be Mickey Mantle or Joe DiMaggio playing in a major league stadium chasing down the long fly balls. It was fun to me, and Coach paid me fifty cents for my efforts.
In addition, during the hot middle Georgia summers, I was one he could always count on to help clean out the town swimming pool each week. It never seemed like work to me because Coach was right there with us playing too. He had control of a fire hose at the shallow part of the pool and with lots of soap on the floor, he gave us great rides with the high-pressured stream of water the length of the pool. I always knew I was special to him, and I had a great love and admiration for him.

In the eighth grade, he allowed me to be a manager of the football team along with two ninth graders—Gene Smith and Jim Lee. Coach and I spent every Saturday morning together in the old high school basement which he used for football equipment. Long before he took his daughters, Vicky and Robyn, with him to do the football laundry, he and I washed uniforms after the previous Friday night’s game. It was during this time that he taught me how to tie a perfect Windsor knot in a tie. Anyone who knew him admired his affinity for tying a great knot in his tie. I practiced for hours using shoestrings from the football shoes. I recall talking to him several months ago, and he looked at me and said, "Sammy, I can’t remember how to tie that knot anymore." I was saddened by his comment.

Bobby Gentry

After I returned home from the navy, my old friend and classmate, Wendell Greer and I took a trip to Daytona where we hit balls at a driving range and played putt-putt. Upon returning to Hawkinsville, we talked to our old coach to tell him we wanted to play golf. He went back into a closet and brought out some very old clubs and a bag for them. He admonished us to learn how to "strike" the ball. We did and we played golf for many years afterwards.

It was in 1974 when my mother died that coach came by our house to express his condolences. He also brought some cokes by and a year later when my daddy died, he was their again, cokes in hand. I was touched that he cared.

Coach Bobby Gentry

In 2003, I had the opportunity to serve on the committee that put together the tremendous Red Devil Reunion honoring Coach Gentry. Seeing so many of his former players return to take part thrilled him, and it thrilled me too. Coach was always a member of my Hall of Fame and a wonderful mentor and friend. I loved him.
I took some cokes by his home recently.

Ed Dunn, Dub Rewis, Coach Bobby Gentry and Gene Smith 2003

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If you enjoyed this column, you should read A Time of Innocence.

Contact Sam at sam@samcrenshaw.com