Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 4, 1994 TAG: 9403040151
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Fresh out of old Jefferson High School one summer awhile back, Light was working for the old Burlington Mill in Vinton.
Light had been a fine football player and track star for the Magicians, but basically, he was headed for a life punching a clock and running a machine. One day after work, he went home to Southeast Roanoke and was surprised to find McLelland there in the front yard chatting with Light's parents.
McLelland was a sportswriter for the old Roanoke World-News, and Light was one of the many people the reporter had known through working the local beat. Being out of school by now and having apparently hung up the cleats for the last time, Light wondered what prompted McLelland's visit.
"Get dressed," McLelland said. "You're coming with me to talk to somebody about going to Roanoke College."
Light knew that McLelland, a Roanoke graduate, had connections there, but so what?
"I can't go to Roanoke College," Light said. "I don't have any money."
"Nobody said anything about money," McLelland said.
And that's how Light came to be a scholar-athlete.
"I really don't know why he did it," said Light, now an administrator with the Roanoke city schools. "If it hadn't been for him and [former Maroons track coach] Homer Bast, I would have never gone to college. What I do know is that I wasn't the only one he helped."
No, there were plenty of people McLelland went out of his way for, and not just those who could throw a football with a tight spiral or achieve a notable clocking in a 100-yard footrace. McLelland, who was known to generations of Roanokers for his pen, his gruff voice and his kind heart, died at home in the company of his family - a victim of cancer.
Survivors include his wife of 43 years, Barbara; their four daughters, Rebecca Whisnant, Virginia Headen, Susis Ware and Robin Nichols; four sons-in-law; 13 grandchildren; and brother, Louis McLelland of Charlotte, N.C., and sister, Nina Matthews, of Ellicott City, Md.
Funeral service will be conducted at 10 a.m. Saturday from Oakey's South Chapel.
"Bob has probably touched more lives in the Roanoke Valley than anybody," said Willis White, Salem High School's football coach.
Certainly, it's true that he either wrote about, coached, officiated or did a favor for enough folks that if you stacked them, they would exceed the height of the First Union Tower.
For 48 years, he coached sandlot football teams in the city. When he learned he had cancer in the fall, one of the first things he wanted to know from the doctors was whether he'dhave two more years to give him a round 50 on the sideline.
It didn't work out that way, but his former sawed-off foot soldiers had plenty of wide-eyed memories of the volunteer coach universally known as "Guts."
"You always remember how he used to grab your face mask and shake it when he was mad at you," said Shannon Delaney, who along with guys like Tommy Sexton and Bob Fisher played for what probably was the most terrific team that ever graced a Roanoke sandlot. "One of the things you knew to do when he was going to be mad at you was to unsnap your chin strap so that when he grabbed your face mask and shook, he wouldn't shake your head off with it."
Coaches don't do that sort of thing anymore. Mommy would be swinging a pocketbook at his jaw, and Daddy would be calling a lawyer. But nobody ever suspected McLelland of evil intent.
"All you can think about is how much he loved what he did," Delaney said.
A lot of McLelland's boys, Delaney included, went on to play for what is known as the greatest high school football team ever in Roanoke, the 1973 undefeated state champions from Patrick Henry. Merrill Gainer, who coached that steamroller, stayed in touch with McLelland long after both had retired. Gainer recalled some of the phone conversations they'd have when McLelland would call - usually first thing in the morning - for a story for the afternoon paper.
"When he'd get ready after he got what he wanted, he'd cut you right off in what you thought was mid-sentence and hang up the phone," Gainer said. "He never liked to waste time shooting the breeze."
This disconcerting habit, which McLelland carried through his last days, used to boil the bile of White, who succeeded Gainer at PH.
"One day, he called me up and said, `Willis, this is Bob McLelland.' And I hung up on him right then. Twenty seconds later, the phone rings again. `What did you hang up on me for?' Bob wanted to know. I told him I did it for all those times he'd hung up on me."
From that day forth, every phone conversation between McLelland and White ended with some sort of pleasantry. White may have been one of the few to whom that courtesy was extended.
McLelland started working for the World-News in 1949 and was named sports editor of the paper in 1962. Retirement was hastened by a pair of strokes in 1978. Bypass surgery followed in 1983.
McLelland had his own style of writing, straightforward and direct.
"Coaches would always tell him a lot because they knew he wouldn't ever write anything bad," said Carroll Moffit, McLelland's statistician and all-purpose sidekick for many years.
Slowed but not stopped by his health, McLelland continued with his teams, his good works for Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church and his service to his fellow man. He even continued to write, on a free-lance basis, for the paper and kept at it until illness stopped him last year.
They named the field at Victory Stadium for him, and he received enough awards to derail a Norfolk Southern locomotive. His teams won well over 400 football games.
"Above all, he's been a good man," Moffit said.
Of which a world that can't afford the loss has one fewer.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***