Tribute Author: Barry Bonnell

Jim Parker, my coach, mentor, and friend, passed early this morning. Here is my tribute to him...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said that we can tell the true character of people by what they do for those from whom they have nothing to gain. I’m pretty sure he was talking about Jim Parker when he said it.

Jim’s real name, in my opinion, is Jim Honesty Integrity Parker. He was the model for such grand and important words. Most of us knew him as Coach Parker, and he was a good one. A good coach, like Jim, not only teaches his charges how to play better, but he teaches them how to be better people. That was certainly true for me.

Jim used his own great athletic skills and experience to pass knowledge on to several generations of youthful hopefuls. While he was doing that, he served the community in ways that only his lovely wife, Nancy, knows for sure. We are all aware of some portions of what he did, and he and Nancy went so far as to take one of the lost boys into his own home. No tribute to Jim “HI” Parker could ever do him justice.

He was my football coach when I was just a pair of shoes sticking out from under shoulder pads and a helmet, and my baseball coach too. He was a person who has epitomized the Gothe quote more than any other that comes to mind.

A few years ago, he was presented with a mentoring award. The award was affixed with a mountain climbing figure-eight belay device. The belay device was placed on its side to symbolize infinity, which hints at the true nature of mentoring.

“On Belay” is the term used in climbing to signal when the climber is protected by the mentor on the other end of the rope. Climbers must scale the mountain on their own. Nobody can climb a mountain for you, but having a trusted mentor on the other end of the rope is a great comfort when it's a long way down. A mentor has your back when you’re on the rocky escarpment. Jim taught us how to climb the mountain, and held the line while we summited.