THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601190294
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 21 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMI FRANKENBERRY, SUN SPORTS EDITOR
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines
EACH WEEKDAY from September until June, Hal Lockhart can be found in the Forest Glen Middle School gym barking instructions to boys and girls in his physical education classes.
``Do your situps . . . Now pushups . . . Run some laps,'' Lockhart will tell the youngsters.
Lockhart says the same things to the Richmond Ravens, a semipro football team in the Mason-Dixon League that he coaches from July through December. He'll add a few pass patterns and some tackling drills, but the two are a lot alike, says Lockhart.
The similarities between daily gym classes and the Richmond Ravens don't end with exercises, according to Lockhart. ``They're both my kids,'' said Lockhart, who co-owns the Ravens with his wife, Mary. ``I have a guy on the Ravens who's 36 years old, but I call all of them my kids.''
The 59-year-old Lockhart has worked with a lot of kids in his nearly 40 years of teaching and 27 seasons of coaching high school and semipro football. His success, says Lockhart, has been an added bonus. Since his first job as head coach at Crum High in tiny Wayne County, W.Va., Lockhart has been named high school coach of the year in West Virginia and Kentucky and earned Mason-Dixon League coach of the year honors last season with the Ravens.
Last month, for his work with the Ravens, Lockhart was honored again when he received induction into the American Football Association's Minor Pro Football Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Orlando, Fla. He joined 203 others in the 15-year-old Hall, including Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas, a 1987 inductee, and former San Francisco 49er coach Bill Walsh, a 1988 honoree, who both did time in the minors.
``More than anything, I was humbled by it,'' said Lockhart, who serves on the AFA's board of directors and has coached two league all-star games. ``I was surprised, to be honest. (Coaching the Ravens) has just been an interesting hobby.''
It has also been costly. Lockhart, who receives no pay for coaching the Ravens, estimated that he spends $500 per year in travel and other expenses for the team. But he doesn't see it as any big deal.
``I have two sons who spend more than that on golf,'' said Lockhart, who played tight end at Marshall University when ``college players played both ways and there were no face masks.''
Lockhart says he sees some of the same gritty, hard-nosed play in his Ravens players, which makes him want to continue coaching. ``Those guys live their life to play semipro football,'' Lockhart said. ``Most of them know there's no (National Football League) at the end of the rainbow. Everybody in the NFL is playing for money. In high school, they play for their mommy or for girls.
``A semipro football player plays it strictly for the love of the game. They love to play football.''
And Lockhart loves to teach. That's why he leaves at 6 a.m., driving an hour and 15 minutes from his home in Petersburg, to teach at Forest Glen.
``I've always had a burning desire to educate children,'' said Lockhart, a teacher in Suffolk public schools for 13 years and football coach at defunct Forest Glen High from 1983 to 1986. ``A big reason (for working in Suffolk) is the (school) administration in here. We've always had good administrators.''
His tiresome commute takes its toll on Lockhart during football season, when he has to attend Ravens practices twice a week and a game on Saturday. Lockhart gets home from Suffolk at 4 p.m., eats dinner and relaxes a few minutes before leaving with his wife, who does all the team's administrative work, for practice at 6. On a typical night of practice, the Lockharts get home at 10 p.m.
Hal says having his wife of 23 years with him helps. The two bought the Ravens in 1988.
``Mary never misses a (Ravens) practice,'' Hal said. ``She keeps stats for us and is a real football person. She's more of a football fan than I am.''
Mary, a retired school secretary, became involved in football when Hal was coaching at Louisa County High in the late 1970s. ``Every time I had practice, if she could go, I'd take her with me,'' Hal said. ``I'd take her to scout teams and she'd sit and watch films with me.''
When Hal needed a wide receivers coach at Louisa, he chose Mary.
``I would never had suggested that,'' Mary said, ``but he wanted my involvement and enjoyed having me out there. I knew the kids (on the team), and eventually I got into it and had a ball.''
The Lockharts, who have seven children ages 31 to 38 through previous marriages, said their involvement with the Ravens does more than allow them to spend time together.
``That's how we stay young,'' Mary said. ``We get around people our own age and it's like a fish out of water. We just thoroughly love being around those kids.''
Although Hal plans to retire from teaching in two years, he says he wants to coach semipro football ``as long as Eddie Robinson (Grambling University's football coach for 55 years that won his 400th game last season).'' And that's OK with Mary.
``I don't want him to give it up,'' she said. ``We've made so many friends and get such a feeling of accomplishment out of it.''
Hal agrees, although there aren't many accomplishments left after his hall of fame induction.
``Football is just fascinating to me,'' Hal said. ``It's physical, but more mental. It's a sport where you can take a kid and what he lacks and make up for that with the team.''
Lockhart has been working with kids for the past 40 years, he says, so what makes anyone think he's going to stop now? ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
Hal Lockhart has worked with a lot of kids in his nearly 40 years of
teaching and 27 seasons of coaching high school and semipro
football.
by CNB