Stamford honours Couller

Bob Coull was a central figure in the life of Bob Bain.

Coull, a legendary Niagara Falls coach who will be honoured Saturday night with a memorial plaque at Stamford Collegiate, first came into Bain’s life in 1962.

Coull was in his first year as a teacher and coach at Stamford and Bain was a member of the coach’s midget boys basketball team that won a Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association championship in 1963.

“First of all, he kept me on the team when other people didn’t so that was a plus,” Bain said. “He showed me a couple of moves and I worked really hard at them and became a pretty good basketball player, MVP and all that kind of stuff in high school.

“It was all him.”

Bain ended up playing basketball for five years for Coull at Stamford on the midget, junior and senior teams.

“He had the technical (skills) and he was a very unique kind of guy,” he said. “He was very quiet, intense in his own way but very supportive.”

When Bain’s Stamford career ended in Grade 13, Coull nudged him to the next level.

“He was my coach and he was the guy responsible for moving me on,” Bain said. “He was responsible for the fact that I went to university.”

Coull drove Bain to Waterloo Lutheran University to fill in a registration form and spoke to the athletic director on his player’s behalf. Bain would go on to have three excellent years at Waterloo, winning a national championship in 1968.

Bain became the head coach of the York men’s basketball team for 38 years and the Coull and the Bain families became close friends. The two Bobs worked together at the statistics table for the basketball event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and roomed together in Montreal and at the pre-Olympics event in Hamilton. They coached together at the Olympia Sports Camp in Huntsville and against each other in university when Coull was an assistant with the Brock men’s team.

“I owe a lot to Bob Coull and he was role model,” Bain said.” He was very quiet, very supportive and I can’t say enough about the man. I don’t know how to say thank you to someone who has changed your life.”

Bain admits his coaching style differed from Coull’s.

“He was so quiet and never as quiet as when he wasn’t pleased and I can’t say that that was my personality,” Bain said. “I admired him greatly but I couldn’t be Bob Coull.”

According to one former player, when Coull uncrossed his legs on bench, he was upset. If he stood up, he was getting agitated and, if he yelled at a player, it was because a player had made the same mistake in a short amount of time.

At Stamford, Coull coached senior boys basketball teams to seven SOSSA senior titles, including four straight to end his tenure at the school. He won an Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations title in 1975 and made it to the OFSAA semifinals in 1985 and 1986. When he moved to A.N. Myer, he added three straight SOSSA finals to his resume.

John Stiefelmeyer, a four-time All-Canadian at the Western, played for Coull for two and half years in the mid-1980s and fondly remembers his ex-coach.

“While being a great coach and a good Xs and Os kind of coach, the part that stood out for me was that he was a really good people person and knew back then how to treat a bunch of young men.

“That drove us to have some sense of accountability to ourselves, each other and obviously to him as a coach.”

Coull did that in a quiet and dignified manner.

“He wasn’t a get in your face and scream at you guy,” Stiefelmeyer said. “He did use humour and wit to motivate you sometimes and he was consistent in his message.”

Marty Mancuso coached against Coull when Mancuso was at Westlane and Centennial.

“He was an intense competitor, but he was very quiet on the bench,” Mancuso said. “His coaching demeanour was very quiet but you knew that he was a very fierce and intense competitor.”

Coull’s teams were always well-prepared.

“You knew what they were doing, but it was still difficult to play against,” Mancuso said, adding he considered Coull a mentor.

“I was very fortunate to have people like Doug Aitchison, Dave Langhorn and Bobby Coull as my mentors,” he said. “We would talk quite often and he would give me advice, he was supportive of the things that we did. We had a great rapport.”

Mancuso and Coull also worked together at Oakes Park as clerks of the course, running the track and field meets.

“He was always a very classy and cordial gentleman and someone that you could talk to,” Mancuso said. “He would give you advice and you knew that it was well meant.”

Coull was also a big part of the Review basketball tourney.

“Bob always let a helping hand when someone asked. It was hard to get him to talk at times for quotes after a game but when he did, he always mentioned his players and would not talk much about his part in game,” former Review sports Dave Rigby said, at the time of Coull’s retirement.

More than 200 people gathered for Coull’s retirement dinner at Club Italia and, as usual, Coull didn’t have a lot to say.

“I had so many good times,” he said in an article in the Niagara Falls Review. “Tonight, I realize how much fun I had during my career.”

Bain will be own hand Saturday night at Stamford for the ceremony in honour of Couller, as he was known by his friends.

“I miss Niagara Falls and I miss Couller,” he said. “It was quite a shock to see him pass away so early.”

Helen Henderson and Jamie Clarke, a phys-ed teacher at Stamford, thought a tribute to Coull was long overdue and the first concept was a memorial tribute to hang on the wall outside the gym at Stamford.

“It seemed that by hanging it up for only current staff and students to see was not the best plan,” Henderson said. “It was then decided that a two-day reunion would be held that would include a short ceremony Saturday night at the gym.

“In this way, his former colleagues, players, alumni and the coaching community — basically all those who loved and respected him —could share in the tribute along with his family.”

The reunion starts Friday with a pub night at the Best Western Cairn Croft from 7 p.m. to midnight followed by a lunch and open house Saturday at Chip n Charlie’s from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday night features a pub night at Stamford from 6 to 11 p.m. which includes the Coull memorial tribute.