by Lem Satterfield
Note: Although former Dunbar coach Ben Eaton Sr. did not coach in the MIAA, his son, Ben Jr., played for Gilman. And as a coach at Baltimore’s most prominent football playing powers, his program was a barometer for how Baltimore City’s football program’s were judged. And his reputation was reveered statewide.
If Gilman graduate Ben Eaton Jr.
scores a touchdown as a running back at Mercersburg Academy Prep in Pennsylvania, he won’t pump his fists, point his finger or otherwise gesture
skyward.
And if he happens to make a big hit on a rival player
as a middle linebacker, Eaton Jr. isn’t likely to point to the black
arm band on his biceps — because there won’t be one there.
No,
in honoring his father, former Dunbar coach Ben Eaton Sr., who died
suddenly on Monday, Ben Eaton will play the game the way his father
always taught him to:
With class.
“My father wasn’t the
type to celebrate that way in a game, and neither am I,” said Ben Eaton
Jr., who was twice named an All-Metro First-Team linebacker at Gilman,
and, last fall, the area’s All-Metro Defensive Player of The Year.
“I’m
going to play hard and just go after it, just like he did,” said Ben
Eaton Jr., who will play at Mercersburg this fall. “And when I do,
he’ll be inside of me, in my heart. And I know he knows that.”
Ben
Eaton Sr., 58, who coached Dunbar of Baltiimore City to two state
titles, collapsed on Monday at about 10 a.m. while excercising as part
of his recovery from having undergone back surgery earlier this month.
The elder Eaton, having suffered an apparent pulmonary embolism, was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he died.
Dunbar athletic director Barbara Allen said services for Ben Eaton Sr.
will be held on Friday and Saturday. On Friday, a viewing will take
place from 4-to-8 p.m. at the Huber Memorial Church at 5701 York Road,
Baltimore.
And on Saturday, the family hour and wake will be held from 9-to-10,
followed by the funeral from 10-to-12 at the Gilliam Concert
Hall/Murphy’s Fine Arts Center at 2201 Argonne Drive on the campus of
Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Football practices were canceled on Monday, when crisis counselors met with Dunbar’s football players.
But
perhaps nothing was more mutually uplifting to the Poets than when Ben
Eaton Jr. and his mother, Sandra, stopped by for a show of support.
Wearing
her husband’s trademark “floppy safari hat,” as well as a T-shirt
comemorating the 2006 state championship game, Sandra Eaton said she
told Dunbar’s players to, “go on with their season and to play hard,
because that’s what Ben would have wanted.”
Noting that her
husband “gave hugs and never handshakes,” Sandra Eaton said she “hugged
every one of those 45 players,” as well as principal Roger Shaw, all
four assistant coaches and the team’s two trainers.
“I’m wiped
out, but I felt like I had to go for Ben [Sr.,], and I wanted them to
know that they should carry on,” said Sandra Eaton. “I told them that
Ben [Sr.] knew that they were good kids, and that his message would be
to go after it like they had planned, and that he would be with them
[in spirit].”
Eaton was an assistant to Stanley Mitchell’s state
title-winning teams in 1994 and ’95, and was the head coach of the
Poets’ state championship teams in 2004 and 2006. He compiled a career
record of 77-30 in nine seasons as head coach of the Poets, who won
their last nine games of last season to finish at 11-3.
Last fall, on his 58th and final
birthday, Eaton guided Dunbar to its fourth state title as the Poets
overcame an early, 7-6, deficit by scoring 32 unanswered points on the
way to a 38-23, Class 1A championship rout of Fort Hill of Cumberland in Allegany County at M&T Bank Stadium.
While
still basking in the glow of his fourth state championship victory last
fall, Eaton was able to watch as head coach Dante Jones, a linebacker
for the Poets initial state championship team in ’94, guided Edmondson
to the 2A state title game win over McDonough of Charles County for its
first crown.
The win gave the city two state champions in the
same season for the first time in its history.
“I
think in that in Coach Ben’s eyes, these two state titles were better
than the first one that we won in ’94, because they were back-to-back,
and neither game was close. And because of the fact that he was a
father-figure to me — that made it all the more special for us,” said
Jones, 31, whose Red Storm finished at 13-1, more than reversiing their
4-6 record of 2005.
“I know that we both looked at Baltimore
City as ‘Our City,’ and that he looked at me like I was a son,” said
Jones. “That’s why I believe that he felt that it was such an exciting
day for Baltiimore City as far as the respect that it brought to our
football. And the fact that it happened on his birthday, I know that
Coach Ben was totally delighted by how everything transpired.”
Ben
Eaton Sr. also was able to enjoy not only Ben Jr.’s recognition as
All-Metro Defensive Player of The Year, but that of Dunbar sophomore
Tavon Austin as All-Metro Offensive Player of The Year.
Ben Eaton Jr. remains
grateful that his father was able to watch him lead Gilman to a share
of its eighth MIAA A Conference title in 10 years under coach Biff
Poggi.
A 5-foot-11, 225-pounder, Ben Jr. led the Greyhounds with 123
tackles and made seven sacks, and, offensively, scored 11 touchdowns.
In
leading Dunbar to its 11-3 record, Austin had six interceptions and
scored 32 touchdowns last season, raising his two-year totals to 53.
The
5-foot-9, 175-pounder has been offered a full football scholarship to
the University of Maryland and has drawn interest from programs such as
Stanford, Illinois and Auburn — all of which he attributes to his
relationship with Ben Eaton Sr.
“This is just so hard to
believe,” said Austin, a junior whose team opens against Gwynn Park of
Prince George’s County on Sept. 8 at Poly Stadium. “This season is
definitely dedicated to the honor of Coach Eaton.”
Offensive
coordinator Travis Blackston said plans are in the works toward
honoring Coach Eaton during the Poets’ homecoming game on Oct. 12
against Lake Clifton, and that the players have discussed a visual show
of support, perhaps the wearing of armbands.
Blackston, 33, who
has known “Coach Eaton since I was 10 years old,” is coaching the Poets
along with Lawrence Smith, Anderson Powell and William Crawford.
In 2004, Eaton was named The Baltimore Sun’s
All-Metro Coach of The Year for coaching the Poets to their third state
crown and a come-from-behind, 16-14 victory over Joppatowne of Harford
County, avenging a 21-0 shutout loss of a year earlier.
More
than a decade ago, Eaton was an assistant to then-head coach Stanley
Mitchell, when Dunbar completed a 12-0 season to become Baltimore
City’s first state champion, 30-15, over Fort Hill in Class 2A.
The following season, Eaton
assisted Mitchell’s Poets in their 30-28 overtime Class 3A state
championship win over previously unbeaten Churchill of Montgomery County.
A
1966 graduate of Baltimore City’s Douglass High, Eaton earned All-Mid
Atlantic Athletic Conference honors as an offensive lineman at Morgan
playing under coach Earl Banks before graduating in 1974.
Eaton
was an assistant athletic director and physical education instructor at
Dunbar, where he began his coaching career as a Poets’ assistant to
then-coach Stanley Mitchell.
“I’m still in a daze,” said Allen,
who spent much of Monday and Tuesday with Sandra Eaton and Ben Eaton
Jr. “Tomorrow [Aug. 29] will be my first day in the gymnasium office by
myself, so that’s going to be very difficult after always being used to
seeing his smiling face every day.”
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