This is an opinion column.

I’m not sure everything I’m about to say is exactly true. That’s an unusual disclosure for a journalist, I know. That’s what happens when someone’s life becomes almost mythical, when they become bigger than life. At least seemingly so.

Frank Ward was always bigger—from the onset of our journey.

He was my middle-school football coach and history teacher at Holland Hall High School in Tulsa. He was tall, military fit, befitting his years in the U.S. Air Force. His buzz cut and later shaved dome fit the role, too.

Big. Bigger than big.

This was decades before Michael Jordan made bald heads cool, well before shaved heads on white men were the poster-look for serial killers or generations later, wanna-be Proud Boys.

Coach Frank was the antithesis of all that foolishness. Fact is, he woulda denounced and likely military-drop-kicked anyone who dared espouse such trash. Especially around the chunky Black kid from the city’s still segregated North side who arrived on campus in the fall of 1968 fresh outta Paul Laurence Dunbar Elementary as one of just a handful at the predominantly white secondary school on the other side of town.

Yeah, that’s likely true.

Coach Ward — I digress. Anyone who’s ever played a sport feels me on this: coach is a title for life. Even running into him long after I’d passed AARP status, he was still Coach Ward. Never Frank.

Coach Ward helped shape me. Shape me physically and intellectually. Shape me into a young man.

Shape me and scared the hell out of me. For life.

“Husky” is what I was. That’s the area in the boys’ section of any clothing store I was guided to in my youth. Might as well have had a big ole sign reading: ‘Fat Kids, over here.”

I joined the football team and very soon came to hear Coach Ward’s voice in my sleep. In my nightmares, really.

He pushed us all. Pushed us beyond where most of us had ever been pushed. And loudly.

There was a hill alongside our playing field that was utilized for conditioning —for shaping, mentally and physically.

Sometimes it was deployed as punishment. If you didn’t run a play correctly or lollygagged on a drill, “Hit the hill!”

Sometimes it was deployed just because it was there. There to shape us. There for us to conquer. Or to conquer us.

Either way, it didn’t matter, I dragged my husky self over to that hill, ran/semi-rolled down, then prayed myself back up — as many times as I was told to do. As long as it took before Coach Ward blew the whistle. Or someone threw up, whichever came first. Maybe.

Yeah, that’s true, too.

Here’s a different story, one that is 100% true.

I’ve shared before that my father died when I was 12 years old. It happened on a January Sunday. I chose to go to school the following day rather than stay in a home filled with grief.

I don’t think anyone at the school yet knew what happened, and I kept it quiet. I dragged myself to the hill, as it were, attending classes as if all was well.

I’m not sure if classes is exactly true. I’m not sure in which morning period it was when I began to cry. When tears began to flow down my cheeks. When grief began to roll down my still chubby cheeks. I know this: It was Coach Frank’s history class.

I know this too, know it like it was last week: I sat on an outside row in the middle of the room. I was quiet, but my tears were discernible.

Coach Ward casually asked the class to read a chapter in our book while he stepped outside the room. I’m not sure how long he was gone. Probably not very long. Just long enough to know.

When he returned, he slowed as he walked past my desk. Saying nothing, he simply put his left hand on my shoulder, squeezed and continued towards the front of the room. He carried on. He comforted me and carried on. He taught.

He shaped.

I don’t recall anything else about the rest of that day. Not even sure if I finished the day at school, or if Coach Ward ever said anything more to me.

I do think he remembered the day, too. Maybe as long as I did.

Coach Ward was also bigger than life throughout Tulsa tennis circles. He carried that military discipline into a sport rarely infused with such. He was skilled and unwavering in his teaching there, too.

He raised champions, sent many a young racquet-wielding kid to college and beyond — including a woman who was a schoolmate and is still a dear friend, Connie Lockwood.

Her words:

In the tennis world, there was only one figure that stood above the others, not just in Tulsa and Oklahoma but throughout the entire Missouri Valley. I never called him Frank. He was Mr. Ward. At Tracy Park he never left the registration table; he kept and updated the tourney draw on the fence behind him. He had a bullhorn. When your match was up you would be called to come up to get the new balls from him and proceed to the court. Being late was not an option. One guy was late and Mr. Ward disqualified him from the tournament. I never heard him yell or raise his voice (I’m sure he did as a football or basketball coach) because he didn’t need to. He led by example. He taught all of us at a very young age the importance of discipline, responsibility and respect especially as it related to others.

I ran that hill, crawled up Coach Ward’s hill until I was reshaped, until the pounds came off. Came off that husky kid who still works out rigorously and regularly.

Who still hears Coach Ward’s voice.

He made us all stand up straight each time we saw him throughout his life. For me, the last time was a little over a year ago. He was slightly frail. Okay, that’s not true: Coach Ward was never frail. His head was still shaved, his voice still strong. And I stood up straight.

He was still shaping.

Coach Ward climbed his own hill a few days ago.

As the news circulated among football teammates, we were sad but also smiled. Many said they thought he was immortal.

That’s what happens when someone’s life becomes almost mythical, when they become bigger than life. At least seemingly so.

Let’s be better tomorrow than we are today. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, Instagram @roysj and BlueSky.