| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> In Memory of Clay Gould | About the author, Boyd Nation |
Publication Date: June 25, 2001
Clay Gould sent me a note once.
It wasn't a long note, only a line or two thanking me for the attention I had paid to his team in the early part of the season, so to understand why it seems significant to me you'd probably have to know a few things.
Clay Gould was the head baseball coach at the University of Texas at Arlington. I run a college baseball Web site, moderately successful as these things go, but with readership numbers that wouldn't make a print publication bother to take the time to think about blinking. As a general rule, coaches tend to think of sportswriters as a necessary evil, sometime omitting the "necessary" part, and for him to take the time to send a note of thanks to me just for doing my job (I hadn't said much about his team, just properly listed them in my rankings) was quite a nice thing; although I've gotten questions from a few other coaches, he's the only one to ever write just to say thanks.
Secondly, you should know that he wrote the note on March 15 of this year. Within a month of that time, he went into the hospital for good, in the end succumbing to a case of cancer that he had battled for a year-and-a-half and passing away on Saturday, June 23. He couldn't have been in great health in March, but he was still working hard and taking the time to do the little things that help build a program and a sport.
Clay Gould was 29. You can read the details of his career in the AP release on his death; he had made a great start in his two years as head coach and would doubtless have left a mark on the profession.
I never got to meet Coach Gould, and I won't diminish the loss of those who were close to him by claiming a relationship that didn't exist, but we often form our opinions of people based on smaller acts than a random unnecessary but kind note, and my opinion of him was nothing but good. I have been fortunate enough to have contact with one of his players' mothers during the time before his illness progressed and to discuss him with a few of his colleagues, and the coach they described was someone that I would want my son to play for one of these days, someone who was open with his players and truly cared about their development rather than the win-loss bottom line.
Clay Gould is survived by a wife and a ten-month-old daughter; my condolences and prayers go out to them. The family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, charitable donations be made to one of the following:
The Clay Gould Endowed Scholarship Fund
UTA Athletics
UTA Box 19079
Arlington, TX 76019
The Logan Soul Gould Educational Fund
UTA Athletics
UTA Box 19079
Arlington, TX 76019
| Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> In Memory of Clay Gould | About the author, Boyd Nation |