Former DuPont and Riverside football coach Dick Whitman
died Sunday morning 8/2/15 at the age of 69.
Dick Whitman, the
all-time wins leader in Kanawha County high school football history, died
Sunday morning. He was 69.
Whitman coached for 24 seasons � 16 at
DuPont (1983-98) and eight at Riverside (1999-2006) � before retiring with a
career record of 181-96-1. Whitman coached DuPont to consecutive state
championships in 1992 and �93.
The title of the county�s winningest
football coach meant little to Whitman, according to his friends in the
profession.
�I don�t think he ever cared about that,� said Jon
Carpenter, the head coach at Capital who started as an assistant under
Whitman at Riverside. �That�s his legacy � his humbleness, his class.
�Whitman�s health had deteriorated in recent years, according to Danny
Hill, a longtime assistant for Whitman at DuPont and Riverside.
�He
knew he was in his final time,� Hill said.
Whitman became the head
coach at DuPont in 1983, patrolling the sidelines at H.B. Douglas Field with
a stoic demeanor for nearly two decades. He also taught at the school, which
produced National Football League players Randy Moss and Bobbie Howard. Moss
won the Kennedy Award as West Virginia�s top football player in 1994 and was
part of two state championships with Whitman.
Whitman ranks on the
all-time wins list ahead of Ralph Hensley (East Bank, Riverside), Joe Cowley
(Nitro, Herbert Hoover), Roger Jefferson (Charleston, Capital) and Joe
Sawyers (Sissonville).
�He definitely meant a lot to football in the
Kanawha Valley,� Hill said of Whitman. �He was a guy who had that ability to
make you feel like you were really worth something. Whatever you did
mattered. He was a unique guy, loaded with patience and a brilliant football
mind. He could X and O with any college coach in America.
�He was
also a guy who�d never tell you any of that stuff,� Hill added. �You�d never
get it from him. Humble, a good daddy, a good teacher ... I�m just sick over
this.
�Whitman is five wins ahead of Hensley, the former East Bank
coach who succeeded Whitman at Riverside after the 2006 season. They each
vied to be the coach in Riverside�s inaugural season.
�He was just an
all-around good guy,� Hensley said. �He was very helpful when he got the job
[at Riverside] and I was a little upset because I didn�t get it.�
After Whitman was named Riverside�s first-ever football coach, he told
Hensley that he deserved the job, too, and asked him to join the coaching
staff as offensive coordinator.
Tommy Canterbury, who played for and
coached with Whitman, named DuPont Middle School�s athletic facilities after
Whitman this year. He said the signs have been printed and will hang from
the press box at H.B. Douglas Field. It will be called the Dick Whitman
Athletic Complex, which will include the football field, baseball field and
softball field at the site of the former DuPont High School.
�I owe
almost everything I got to him,� said Canterbury, who played at DuPont from
1984-86. �Besides my father, he has been one of the biggest influences on my
life. I try to emulate him but sometimes I don�t do a very good job because
of the type of guy he was. He never yelled, never screamed, never got out of
control.
�Another longtime assistant, Harry Wallace, said Whitman had
the unique ability to bring together a coaching staff and a team. The
coaches would fish together and hunt together, and if a coach needed a new
roof, everyone came together to pitch in.
�To this day, we�re still
close,� said Wallace, a retired teacher who is an assistant football coach
at St. Albans. �You respected him, his demeanor. He let you coach and he let
you do your job. He wouldn�t micromanage.�
Whitman�s coaching tree
includes Carpenter, who won the Class AAA state championship at Capital last
season. Carpenter, who played at East Bank, had two stints as an assistant
under Whitman at Riverside before he landed a job as the Cougars� offensive
coordinator and later, their head coach.
�I got pretty lucky to
follow him around like a student and learn from him,� Carpenter said. �That
makes it hard this time of the year because he is always going to be the guy
you think about when you start coaching football. What would he do? How
would he handle things? You can win all the games you want, you can do all
that, but I�ll never be able to be the kind of man he was.
�That�ll last with me more than any game he won or season he had � what a
classy guy he was.�