Editor’s Note: In each issue of Richardson Life Magazine , we will highlight an individual who has made a difference in the lives of Richardson Independent School District students. If you would like to nominate an educator, email pmotte@hylogroup.com . Our inaugural spotlight shines on Coach Mark Malcolm, a legendary teacher and coach. He was nominated by Pastor Clayton Oliphint of First United Methodist Church Richardson. Several of Coach Malcolm’s former players interviewed for this story played on Coach Malcolm’s 1983 Apollo Junior High School eighth grade football city championship team.

Tell us about your early years. Where did you grow up and what was your early family life like? When did you know you wanted to teach and coach?

I was born in Odessa, TX, to parents who were both educators. My father Bill had been a teacher and a coach at Texas High in Texarkana, moved to Odessa, and became a principal in Brownfield and then Richardson. He retired as an Assistant Superintendent.

My mother was an art teacher at Texas High in Texarkana, where she met my father. She then became an elementary school teacher. My brother Matt was born in Brownfield. On my birthday in 1967, we drove through a hailstorm and a tornado for my parents to interview in Richardson. I attended Greenwood Hills, North Junior High, and J.J. Pearce, graduating in 1975. I was blessed to have the powerful influence of good teachers and coaches in my life. Grown men still called my father Coach. All of these factors drew me to teaching and coaching, which are really the same thing. Where did you attend college and did you play college football?

I am a 1979 Texas Tech graduate. I did not play football past junior high. I tell people often that I don’t coach because I was a good or successful athlete. I coach because the men who coached me changed my life. Even from the vantage point of a skinny bench-sitter, what my coaches accomplished in building our team seemed magical to me.

We’d love to get to know the Malcolm family…

My wife Kim and I met teaching at Apollo Junior High in 1979. She taught French and was the department head at Apollo and then JJ Pearce before becoming Richardson ISD’s LOTE (Language Other Than English) Curriculum Director. We married over Labor Day in 1980. We have two children who are Mohawk, North, and JJ Pearce graduates. Our son Major Rob Malcolm,

Mark Malcolm is the kind of teacher and coach every student should have at some point in his or her life. Someone who is passionate about helping the student understand the concepts and gain information, but who is just as interested in his or her character development and well-being. I love that so many of Coach Malcolm’s former students come back to see him and acknowledge his impact in their lives. He is a difference maker who has shaped generations of young people in RISD and beyond.

– Pastor Clayton Oliphint

USMC, is a Naval Academy graduate. He and his wife Vanessa and their daughter Cora live in California. Our daughter Reverend Hailey Malcolm is an ordained Presbyterian minister. She and her husband David York live in Michigan.

Coach Malcolm remembers every play, every kid, every story. He has coached generations of kids that are today 55+ years old all the way down to 13 years old that will all tell you their team was his favorite team or a story about their season was one that he always talks about. That’s roughly 40+ years of teams of kids playing football, basketball and other sports that will tell you the same thing.

– former player Brent Burton

Tell us about your teaching career. I have coached football for forty-four years and taught academic classes for forty-three of those, even when I was a high school head coach. I started as an English teacher and, counting summer school, I have taught every secondary English class from grades 7 through 12. I have taught both parts of U.S. History, Economics, Government and World History. Teaching is a performance art with an element of improvisation. As you engage your students, the lesson changes from one class to another. It is always interesting and often magical.

Name three adjectives which best describe you.

I am the wrong person to select these, but I hope that people would describe me as passionate, relational and caring.

You have mentored so many young people. Did you have a mentor of your own growing up?

Two of the best teachers I ever had were at North Junior High. Coach Larry Robertson taught me from the first day that you can always do more than you think you can. My English teacher D. Ann Gorman taught me to love the art and discipline of good writing.

Coach Malcolm teaches every bit as much about character, integrity and honor as he does about football. And he coached some of the best teams in RISD history at Apollo Jr High in the 80’s alone. A true legend. People throw around the GOAT acronym a lot, but he really is that. Year after year, pouring his heart and soul into his craft, and doing it at such an exceptional level – if this man is not in the Hall of Fame, then there shouldn’t be one. I’m beyond grateful that he was my coach and my teacher. And now as a 52-year-old father of three myself, I’m truly honored to call him my friend. Words cannot express how much I admire, appreciate and respect this legend of a man.

Coach Malcolm would be the first to say that he is the product of two exemplary parents. His father was a longtime RISD principal and administrator who was legendary throughout the city for his memory of students and parents. Coach Malcolm is blessed with his father’s memory of people and sporting events and has continued his parents’ legacy by being a constant presence at weddings and funerals of former students and parents. Coach Malcolm’s resume is outstanding and includes many city championships throughout his six decades of coaching, but I believe that his greatest attribute is his genuine interest in the lives of his former students

– former player Mike Henderson

What do you love best about coaching? Is there a particular moment, game or player that stands out in your mind? If so, please share a story or two or three with us.

What I love most about coaching is the relationships that are built by laboring together to accomplish a complex task. I have been blessed to be surrounded by many great teachers, coaches and young people. I have always promised that if our players do the hard work we ask, then they will always be welcomed back, and that if they need me, I will be there.

Kim and I have gone to many weddings, welcomed many babies and, sadly, attended many funerals. That our grown athletes still take an interest in an old football coach is a wonderment and a blessing to me. When I get to coach or even be around the children of former students and players, it is indescribably satisfying. This year at North Jr. High has been brimming with those incredible experiences.

How is teaching/coaching different now than it was in 1979?

My feeling is that the kids are not fundamentally different, but they are being raised in a culture that does not value or even recognize experience or expertise. People watch TV and think they could teach or coach. I would compare that to watching Grey’s Anatomy and thinking you could do surgery.

One of the greatest things about Coach Malcolm was how much he loved getting an IBC Cream Soda and competing to see who could make more shots into a trashcan with a wadded-up piece of paper. I remember doing it as a student in his class and as a fellow coach in the coaches’ office. All somebody had to say was, ‘Coach! You up for a shooting contest?’ and it was on! He would stop whatever he was doing and we would go at it

– fellow coach Trent Starnes

What do you like best about teaching and living in Richardson?

This is my thirty-sixth year to teach and coach in Richardson. I am a product of the Richardson School District, as are my brilliant wife Kim (a Lake Highlands graduate) and our amazing children. My life has been shaped by growing up in Richardson. It is a welcoming community that is always reaching for a better future.

Of all the coaches and players you have met in professional football, who has inspired you the most and why?

I was blessed to be influenced by the RISD coaches who came before me and went out of their way to mentor me: Jerry Bishop from Pearce, Allan Holladay and Harold Hill from Berkner, and Winston Duke from Richardson.

Of course, all coaches from my era have looked up to Dallas Cowboys Coach Tom Landry. He was a great coach, yes, but unlike those who brag about the hours they work away from their families, Coach Landry was a great husband and a great father as well. Surely those traits matter more at the gates of Heaven. Additionally, I have

Coach Malcolm’s legendary status as a Coach on the gridiron and court overshadowed his legendary status as a teacher of English and History. Whether he was teaching the finer points of the triple option or the framework of the US Constitution, he did so with civility and respect that endeared multiple generations of students and athletes in a manner befitting the double legend that he is.

– former student and player Jeremy been influenced in my understanding of the game by being able to be around Coach Hal Mumme, the creator of the Air Raid offense.

Off the field, what hobbies or activities do you enjoy most? How do you spend your free time when you aren’t at school-related functions?

I love to read. I am a writer. I plan to write a memoir after I coach for the last time.

Thomason

Do you have a mantra that guides you? If so, will you share it with us?

“Earth is a task garden. Heaven is a playground.” – G.K. Chesterton

“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.”

– Oswald Spengler

What do you hope to be remembered for by those who have known you?

His coaching was teaching: he cared and he tried.