Ferd Lewis: Graham’s long journey began with tough love

Todd Graham didn’t have much while growing up in a crowded shack in Mesquite, Texas, a southeast Dallas suburb, nearly 40 years ago.

But what he did have there, along U.S. Route 80, also known as the Dixie Overland Highway, were two people who inspired him to strive for much more and the aspirations to get there.

At the podium during the University of Hawaii Board of Regents meeting Thursday, the Rainbow Warriors head football coach profusely thanked the school for his new job after a two-year absence from coaching. And, then, in moving testimony that veered away from football and opened wide the pages of his life story, Graham counted the blessings of having a single mother, Carol, who worked three jobs, and a gruff coach-teacher, Buddy Copeland, who alternately put a dream in his heart and the fear of God in his soul.

“I don’t know where I’d be without them,” Graham said.

Probably not in Manoa where, thanks to their combined influences, a once-wandering, confused seventh-grader, finds himself in the latest chapter of a 32-year football coaching career.

Graham was just reaching his teen years as the youngest of three boys in the family when their father took off, leaving their mother, who had an eighth-grade education, scrambling to feed, house and clothe five children. But, Graham recalled, “She was an unbelievable person of faith, integrity and character.”

It was a work ethic and determination he admired and copied while juggling a handful of part-time jobs, to help the family get by, and transferring them to football and school, which became his driving passions.

He was looking for direction and stability when he ran smack into the imposing figure of Copeland, a teacher of Texas history, football and, as it would turn out, a lot more at McDonald Middle School.

In Copeland and his brand of what Graham termed, “tough love,” he found someone who demanded discipline while dishing out praise only sparingly, but who would become a father figure and mentor. Someone who taught him “what it meant to live a championship life.”

The coach, 22 years Graham’s senior, saw something in the skinny defensive back who put his all into football, and vice versa. “He was the best classroom teacher I’d ever met, an amazing teacher and person,” Graham recalled.

“He was a person who inspired me,” said Graham, who thanks to a football scholarship to Oklahoma’s East Central University, became the first person in his family to attend college and the second to graduate from high school.

“I knew from the time that I met him that I wanted to be a teacher and a coach because he transformed my life in just about every way possible,” Graham said. “If I could have one young person look at me as I looked at him…”

It was no coincidence that Graham’s first full-time job was as an assistant coach and history teacher back in Mesquite or that he has preached and pushed education for his players. “Ninety-eight percent of our players are not going to play in the NFL, but what I want to teach them is that is how to live a championship life,” Graham said.

In a eulogy for Copeland’s 2015 funeral, Graham’s sister, Sheree Graham Norlie, wrote, “Buddy Copeland was my brother’s hero. He taught him that no matter what happens in your life you can make your dreams come true. (Copeland) gave him confidence when he whispered in his ear (on the football practice field) ‘you’re a stud.’ ”

She added, “My brother is a coach because he wanted to make a difference in someone’s life the way Buddy impacted his. I truly believe God gave my brother Buddy Copeland.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.