This is an opinion column.

I’ve forgotten many of their names, I’m ashamed to admit. Forgotten more than I remember, honestly. Forgotten most of the men and women who diligently and cheerfully stood in front of classrooms and tried to shape me into something respectable.

Classrooms at Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary, an all-Black school (except for the one Asian family whose children attended at least one year) on Tulsa’s north side during the last years of Jim Crow. Of legal segregation, though de facto segregation still smolders in my hometown.

Classrooms at Holland Hall Preparatory School, an almost all-white (after all, myself and only about enough other Black kids to sit comfortably in a sedan were there) K-12 school on Tulsa’s south side I attended for middle and high school.

Teachers. God bless ‘em.

So many who encouraged, nudged, challenged, and, yes, chastised me all the way.

Daniel Scheinert made me think of them last week, or try to remember them, when the 35-year-old son of Birmingham, screenwriter, and director, stood on the film industry’s biggest stage and thanked several former teachers while receiving the Best Picture Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, along with Daniel Kwan.

He did it just as any of us would when speaking for a former teacher no matter how old we are—with just their last name.

“Ms. Dummier, Mr. Toole, Mr. Hudson, Mr. Chambers, Madame George, …”

He’d written their names down. Smart young man.

“These are teachers that changed my life, mostly public school teachers,” he said. “You guys educated me, you inspired me, you taught me to be less of a butthead.”

My list might begin with Mr. Mims, Dunbar’s PE teacher. Not because I liked PE—this fat kid hated PE—but because he was a large looming presence who spoke with authority and empathy. He was a Black man at a time when Black male teachers were not yet an anomaly.

Oh, and I may also remember him because he had a whole paddle to be feared. (You’ll never know if he ever had to use it on me.)

Yes, those were different times.

Sadly, he’s really the only Dunbar teacher I remember other than Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Jackson, my fifth-grade Speech (English) and Music teachers. I remember them because they were also, respectively, my mom (she gave this previously straight-A student my first report card “B” because I flubbed a poem we were supposed to memorize) and aunt. I had no shot of getting away with it if I acted up anywhere at Dunbar.

Yes, those were different times.

From Holland Hall, I’d Mrs. Brazinsky, Mr. Sloan, Mr. Elmer, Mrs. Carmack, Mr. Rollo, Coach Ward (just typing his name still evokes fear in my heart), and a few others whose names have slipped into the foggiest areas of my memory.

Then there’s Coach Brown. Charlie Brown. (Think about how tough it was for us knucklehead boys to resist making jokes about that.)

He was our head football coach and science teacher. In the classroom, he was Mr. Wizard. He made science fun, fascinating and flammable; he regularly ignited some sort of explosion, usually when one of the knuckleheads dozed off.

Coach Brown, who turned 86 this past St. Patrick’s Day, hasn’t stopped coaching. Oh, he stopped coaching football four years ago, but still coaches. Coaches his former players whenever we cross paths with him still walking briskly around the sprawling campus—when he’s not on the golf course. The man still recalls anecdotes about each of us we’ve long forgotten; heck, he probably remembers his teachers.

Brown grew a small Oklahoma town at a time of hardened segregation and racism—things he didn’t understand or endorse. He then taught and coached at a predominantly white private school through years when racism wasn’t legal but still lingered.

It had no place on Coach Brown’s field or classroom.

The Lucky One is what the autobiography is called.

In April, he’ll retire, of a sort. He’ll keep an office and computer on campus. He’ll just have more time to play golf and fellowship with friends.

And he’ll keep coaching.

“Turns out education really is important after all,” Coach shared with me in a text message. “Happy I helped stamp out a small amount of ignorance.”

Yes, you did, Coach. We’re the lucky ones.

Readers: Do you have a former teacher or coach who made a difference in your life. Tell me about them, and I’ll share in The Barbershop, my free weekly newsletter. If you don’t receive it, please subscribe here. Send your salute to [email protected].

More columns by Roy S. Johnson

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Roy S. Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and winner of the Edward R. Murrow prize for podcasts: “Unjustifiable,” co-hosted with John Archibald. His column appears in AL.com, as well as the Lede. Subscribe to his free weekly newsletter, The Barbershop, here. Reach him at [email protected], follow him at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj