Tribute to Coach Wil from Cristin Weiss

With her permission, I am publishing for you today the beautiful testimony Cristin Weiss Betzen shared about my dad at his funeral yesterday.

While much of my dad's service was hilarious — coaches' stories and my goofy dad stories — Cristin offered a touching tribute and another side that I believe balanced the humor with the man inside.

I cried when Cristin spoke yesterday, and I cried again today as I reread what she said.

Before I let you see this, I have to say that I believe I have found a kindred spirit in Cristin. I have been so blessed to share this journey with her. She reached out to me. She has been there every step of the way, and she has shared so many of the same spiritual sentiments I believe.

I am a better person for knowing Cristin. Thank you, Cristin, for coming into my life, and thank you, Dad, for making that possible.

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For my coach…June 1, 2015

Please know that when I got the message that Coach Wil wanted me to speak here today…it’s one of the truest honors of my life.

When I was 16 years old, I was in his locker room.  He was asking a few people what integrity meant.  He wasn’t getting the answer he wanted, so finally he said, “Cristin Weiss, tell everyone what integrity is.” 

I said integrity is – at the end of your life, being truly proud of what you have done and who you have become. 

Cristin Weiss Betzen

I had no idea then, nor did he, that 18 years later, he would ask me, at the end of his life, to again tell everyone what integrity is.

Integrity in coaching … I could tell you that he didn’t run the score up on his opponents, that his greatest rivals were his best friends, and that he cared more for us than just as players, but that’s true of a lot of coaches, and it should be true of all coaches. 

However, the following story makes this man truly exceptional among coaches.  Last September, I ran into Coach Wil at the golf course.  I had not seen him for some time.  He told me of his cancer, this time terminal, of his treatments just finished, and his life in general, and then he blew me away. 

He apologized for the way he had treated me as a player.  He said he didn’t think he played me enough and so on.  He even cited a specific game in Plainview.  I was speechless, and I am rarely speechless. 

Fortunately it wore off, and the next day I wrote him a letter.  Some of it read like this … “I truly appreciate the things you said to me yesterday, but I feel I left a few things unsaid.  I believe everything happens for a reason.  Whatever disappointment and frustration I experienced in high school basketball was a part of strengthening me and solidifying my faith in God, my faith in my parents and all they taught me, and my faith in me.

“I didn’t know it at the time, but I can see it now, it all happened the way it did to prepare me for that day when my daddy took his last breath.  Without every bad and ugly experience I had, I would not have been ready to survive that moment or the last 12 years without him.  It all happened for a reason. 

“As for you, when I think of you, Coach Wil, I don’t think of Plainview or playing time.  My memories of you are on the golf course.  When basketball was over and I was finished playing for you, you had no reason to still care, and yet, you met me everyday at lunch to work on my golf game.  It was unsolicited and not required, and yet you came.  That is what I carry with me of you — a good man who always cared.”

Can you imagine that this man, this coach, thought about his treatment of a player for 16 years and then apologized?  So Coach Wil, I stand corrected.  That is integrity.

Integrity in marriage … Again I share with you a letter I wrote to him for their 50^th wedding anniversary…”Congratulations on being “always” people.  Let me explain.  So often the English language fails to capture the true gravity of a situation.  There have been so many times in my life where there have been no words…except for one.  One word, my favorite word, truly captures the magnitude of every moment.  Always.  I have been an always kind of person since I was born, but not everyone is.  Not everyone can live this most powerful word. 

“Well, 50+plus years together, through good times and really hard struggles, through major milestones but especially through the countless, tiny, everyday, minute moments that fit together to make up a lifetime, always together, always with love, always there.  You have lived it.  You make it look easy and comfortable.  You make it timeless.”

When I wrote that letter, I had no idea just how much of always people they were.  50 years together just wasn’t enough.  I have been forever changed by witnessing their love story play out.  Most people have to drink the poison to get their ending, but their love needed no poison, just each other. 

So again I change my 16-year-old’s answer because that is integrity.

Integrity in golf … Arnold Palmer said, “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect.  It is at the same time rewarding and maddening – and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.”  I think we all know where Coach Wil is right now, probably somewhere between the 15^th green and 16^th tee box by now. 

There is so much about golf that so defines him.  It has been said that, “The sum total of the rules of golf, is thoughtfulness.”  That’s Coach Wil. 

All the stories that Jami has shared with us over the last months have one common theme, “I was just a _________, but Coach Wil treated me like a ___________.” 

It is a game where your opponents are your friends.  It is a game where if you embrace your imperfections and overcome them, then you will succeed.  It is a game where there are lessons everywhere just waiting to be learned.  It is a game that leaves you wanting more, and he always left us wanting more.  And in the end, it is a game of integrity.

If in the end we are all just a story, then rest easy Coach Wil, because you are one heck of a story.  We needed you.  We needed that guy that cared about everyone, that guy that took a 9-iron over the Childress courthouse just because he could, that guy that actually hung out at the 5 and dime and actually had himself a Nehi and Moonpie, that guy that impersonated God just to keep his golfing buddy around, that guy whose crooked grin got him out of trouble just as easily as it got him into trouble, and that guy that quite simply had a one-liner for every situation ever. 

To his family … they say time heals all wounds.  I assure you time does not heal all wounds.  But I am certain of this.  Great men don’t end.  They live on…they live on in their stories, in their lessons, in their memories, and their one-liners.  Their daughters live on.  Their grandsons live on.  They simply do not end.  They live on – ALWAYS.