At Big Ben's Memorial, Torch Passes On

By: Keith Mills

Ben Eaton was laid to rest last Saturday at the Murphy Fine Arts Center at Morgan State University. It was more of a celebration than a wake.

It was more than just a celebration of what the former Dunbar football coach stood for and how he lived his life but a vivid reminder of just how vital high school sports is in Baltimore and how many lives have been impacted by coaches like Ben Eaton.

As the Rev. P.M. Smith of the Huber Memorial United Church of Christ gave the final eulogy and prayer last Saturday the huge gathering of Eaton's family, friends, former and current players and fellow coaches filed out of the Murphy Center. They left with tears in their eyes and sadness in their hearts but they also left with a great deal of pride in knowing they coached with and played for Ben Eaton -- and they are all a part of something truly special.

There may be no more important person in our high schools today than a coach like Ben Eaton. As high-school sports have become more popular and with more emphasis on winning and competition, Eaton's role at Dunbar was crucial. He was in many cases the only male authority figure in his players' lives and the impact he had on them went well beyond Xs and Os and scouting reports.

His memorial service was filled with words like "father figure" and "role model" and words such as "discipline" and "mentor."

Not coincidently, they were the same words heard in June when Towson's Randy Walker passed away at age 82 and in 2001 when Augie Waibel and George Young were eulogized for the tremendous impact they had on high school sports. And in 1997 when William "Sugar" Cain was remembered as more than just the architect of Dunbar's basketball program but a father-figure to so many young black athletes in the city who wisely listened and followed his lead.

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Ben Eaton would've been proud of last Saturday memorial. It was attended by a Who's Who of current and former coaches and players. Watching them file out of the Murphy Center last Saturday one thing was quite obvious: The coaching fraternity in Baltimore is in good hands and its evolution is as Baltimore as steamed crabs and City-Poly football.

Eaton went to Douglass High where he shared the field with future NFL All-Pro tight end Raymond Chester. Both Chester and Eaton went on to Morgan State and played for coach Earl "Papa Bear" Banks, the legendary Hall of Famer who not only sent Chester, Willie Lanier, Leroy Kelly and Frency Fuqua to the NFL, but steered some of his best players to become high school coaches.

Bob Wade and Pete Pompey also played for Banks at Morgan. So did Wayne Jackson, Joe Fowlkes and a variety of others who went on to coach at the high school and middle school level in Baltimore. But it's Wade and Pompey in particular whose coaching tree is now branching out all over the city.

Pompey walked out of the Murphy Center on Saturday with Paul Holmes and Keith Booth while Cyrus Jones was just a few steps behind. In 1993 Pompey and Holmes coached Dunbar's basketball team to a national championship. Booth was one of its key players while Jones was one of the team's starting guards. Booth, of course, is now an assistant to Gary Williams at Maryland while Jones is the new head basketball coach at Dunbar. He replaced Eric "Smiley" Lee, who played for Bob Wade in the mid-1980s.

Obie Barnes was there with his son Chris. Barnes is beginning his 32nd year as the athletic director and football and lacrosse coach at Forest Park. Chris Barnes was an All-Metro wide receiver on Eaton's first team at Dunbar. He went on to play at Boston College and now joins his brother O.J. on his dad's coaching staff at Forest Park.

Lynn Badham was also there. An assistant to Wade on the great Dunbar teams of the 1970s and early '80s, Badham coached the Poets to a pair of Dunbar's 11 state basketball championships and is now living in North Carolina. He is an assistant football coach at Hereford County High School.

Ernie Graham was there. So was Tommy Polley, David Lewis, Ali Culpepper, Dante Jones, Dwayne Green, Anthony Wiggins and a dozen members of Dunbar's 1994 state championship football team. Lewis played football and basketball at Dunbar in the late 1980's and is now an assistant coach while Polley, Culpepper, Jones, Green and Wiggins played for Dunbar's first state championship football in '94, coached by Stanley Mitchell, also there. Mitchell took over for Pompey as the football coach at Dunbar in 1993 and immediately hired Eaton as his offensive line coach.

"I played against Ben when I was at Dunbar and he was at Douglass playing with Raymond Chester," Mitchell said. "I knew he had played at Morgan for Coach (Earl) Banks and I had always been impressed with him. So when I got the job I had to scramble to find a coaching staff and Ben was one of the first guys I brought in."

Eaton replaced Mitchell in 1998 and coached the Poets until Aug. 27, when he died of an apparent pulmonary embolism.

Donald Davis was there. Now the coach at Calvert Hall, Davis played for Mitchell's Northwood Pop Warner national championship team of 1992 "“ a team that also featured Polley and Culpepper.

And, of course, the current Dunbar football team was there, along with new coach Lawrence Smith. They wore their white game jerseys, sat together in the front of the Murphy Center and mourned the passing of their coach and mentor.

The Gilman football team, which sat in the back of the Murphy Center, mourned the loss of the father of one of their own. Ben Eaton, Jr. was a ferocious linebacker at Gilman. He graduated from Gilman last June. He also delivered one of the many eulogies last Saturday for a man who did for this generation of young athletes what Pompey and Holmes, Badham and Bob Wade did for another.

It was quite an impressive show of support for Ben Eaton Jr. and his mother Sandra who sat in the front row of the Murphy Center just a few feet from the casket holding Ben's big body.

"It's been a tough week," Dante Jones said. "Seeing everybody here really puts it in perspective."

Jones is keeping the coaching cycle going. He played for Mitchell and Eaton at Dunbar and coached under Pompey at Edmondson before taking over as school's athletic director and football coach when Pompey retired in 2005. Now, he's giving back like Eaton, Wade and Pompey did for so many years. The young men and women playing sports today are benefiting.

Issue 2.36: September 6, 2007