My Favorite High School Coach

The High School Coach that I am most grateful for is from William Fleming High School in Roanoke, VA. His name was Coach Burrall Paye he was my algebra teacher and our basketball coach. He made math so much fun for me. He always treated me like I was someone. Here is a link of some of the things he did in his career as a basketball coach and as an author.

I had an eleventh grade English teacher that made me feel like crap because of the way that I talked. She even flunked me because of my North Carolina accent. Which I thought was unfair. Coach Paye though treated me like I was the same as everyone else no matter how I talked.

He made me love math and working with numbers. He always had a smile on his face for us kids. He would put pop quizzes up on the chalk board and before he got in his seat I was done. Coach Paye was like Hyde/Jekyll though. When he was off the court he was as sweet as he could be but when he got on the court he let loose. One of my friends and his former student and player said that even when he was chewing them out on the Basketball court he found a way of making them fall on the floor from laughing with the Prayer that he used.

It was not until I was researching his life that I found out he was an accomplished author. I also found out what all he had done in his career. He was a modest man and never really did tell us what he had done.

Even though I never played for him on the team he inspired my love for math and my love for the game. I think had it not been for him I would have never been able to remember numbers as well as I do. I hated math until I had him. I thought it was stupid and wondered why I needed it he made me find out why. I notice now days that most kids can't add 2+2 up without a calculator. We didn't use them we had to show our work and prove how we got the answer. I thank him every day for that. Especially when I go to the store and some young cashier puts the wrong amount in and can't figure out how much change they need to give me back. What happened to the good old days where kids actually learnt something from their teachers and respected them for teaching it?

Once again Coach Paye thank you for everything you did for me and for all of us kids.