I just heard that a great man passed. Wichita's own Randy Jackson passed on today leaving a legacy of hard work and love. His trademark seam bursting biceps, contagious smile and quotes like "we still friends" and "when you ski with me you ski with the world" will be his legacy. Cancer may have taken Coach away but nothing can take away the spirit and soul of such a man.
It was hard to hear at first without questioning whether or not it was a dream or a cruel joke that Coach Jackson died because from the way I remember him he was invincible, impervious to things that mere mortals like us were subject to. The man survived a plane crash for God's sake! Surely he could beat cancer. In the end it was the cancer that won but that is not what we will remember him for. For those of you who played basketball at Robinson Middle School for Coach Jackson you will remember line drills and sitting on that God Damn wall but what no one realized is that he was teaching you while being hard on you.
He always remembered everyone that he taught and he would earnestly ask you how things were going and not hesitate to tell you what you were doing wrong in a sort of fatherly critical way but we always took something away from that because we all knew he was generally right.
So for that I say, thank you Coach Randy Jackson. You will be missed.
We Still Friends though.
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