I write about sports for this newspaper, but they sometimes graciously allow me to cover other topics. It often feels like the only subject I cover other than athletics is losing someone I care about.

Realizing that, I couldn’t imagine not writing about a Brookhaven native who passed away this week, John Richard Gray Sr.

He was Mr. Gray to many of us, and Coach Gray to others and my mama always called him John R.

For 26 years, he was the man in charge at Brookhaven Academy.

He didn’t spend his entire, long career in education at Brookhaven Academy. He worked at Adams County Christian School in Natchez after leaving BA, Enterprise Attendance Center after that, and at a list of schools like Puckett and Utica and Okolona before ever coming to Brookhaven.

His impact was telling when you look at the obituary page posted by the funeral home that has multiple folks from Puckett, a place Gray last worked at in the early ’70s as a coach, leaving memorials to him.

Some of my earliest memories of life involve being in the front office of the school, sitting at the desk of his secretary and wife, Marie.

My mama was Miss PTA and stayed on the campus and in his ear after my older siblings started school. When I spoke at her funeral service over 20 years ago, I made sure to mention the special friendship they shared.

He and Marie doted on me even before I entered kindergarten.

I was blessed by the Lord to have two amazing grandfathers in Earnest Garvin and Fred Furr.

Yet, the love I had for Mr. Gray was like I’d somehow lucked into a third awesome grandfather. I’m sure there are lots of other folks who felt a similar way about John R.

As I grew up, I got to know all the different parts of his personality.

I remember asking once why everyone called him Coach Gray, when even the youngest kids at the school knew that the basketball coach was Gene “Moochie” Britt.

Miss Marie pointed me towards the trophy case across from her office and told me he had been the head basketball coach when their two boys, Ricky and Barry, played. The tallest trophy in the case, the one that looked a mile high to my young eyes (but was probably 4-feet), came from one of those teams winning a big out-of-state tournament he took them to.

Later, I saw his name listed along the wall designated for the Athletics Hall of Fame in A. E. Wood Coliseum on the campus of Mississippi College.

When I asked him about it, he told me about playing for a team at MC in the late 1950s that averaged 114 points per game. He was the leading scorer after starting his career at Hinds Community College, where he played baseball and hoops and is also in the Athletics Hall of Fame.

He explained to me that his coach was an early innovator in offensive basketball. The Choctaws played in a tiny gym with a short court, he said. They’d grab a rebound and throw it the length of the court to someone ready to shoot a layup. They played little defense and averaged over 100 points per game without a 3-point line.

He was also a great golfer and one heck of a bass fisherman and a devoted member of First Baptist Church.

His touch with parents was deft as a school administrator. They could come into his office ready to rip his head off and then leave while patting his back with a laugh.

I was just one of an innumerable number of young people that he poured into. I also know there are a lot of folks in Bogue Chitto right now feeling similar types of memories for the role Stan Long played in their life as he, a longtime principal at the school, also passed away recently.

The last time I saw Mr. Gray was a couple of years ago at the gym that bears his name. When I approached him as he sat beside Barry and Dale Watts, I wasn’t sure how sharp his mind was.

At 85, it took him a second, but then his eyes lit up with their familiar twinkle and he called me his “old buddy,” and I knew he recognized me as one of his own.

A friend who worked with him at Enterprise told me years ago, “We just love him.” 

“Yeah,” I replied. “We all do.”

My wife and I were talking recently after a Senior Recognition Sunday at our church. Two kids that we’ve watched grow up were honored and our hearts felt full while talking about how much we love them and their families.

To love and to be loved by people of a high quality is an ointment that can quench the worst pains of life.

I’ve gotten through some hard times in my life, like losing my mama at 22, by drawing strength from knowing that John R. and Marie loved me among some other high-quality individuals.

So, of course I wanted to write about this man that I’ve dearly loved.

And I also want to remind myself that he wasn’t that much older than I am now when I first started sitting in the office, showing Miss Marie what I wanted Santa to bring me from the Sears catalog.

And to challenge myself to use my time and energy to show the youth I encounter daily that my wish is to be a guidepost of goodness in their journey through life, just like John R. Gray Sr. was for me.

Cliff Furr writes about mostly sports for The Daily Leader.